Video Asylum

Posted by vulcanman (A) on January 12, 2002 at 17:49:33

I was at my local Sams Club this evening. Found a extremely sweet deal ...

AKAI 27" SUPERFLAT 4x3 Television that features the Wide Screen Squeeze Mode. The interesting thing is the front of the box says "Widescreen zoom" ... and I initially took it to mean that it would simply zoom letterbox movies. Definitely not something I would be interested in. But I was just too curious ... got hold of a friendly clerk ... had him open the box and get me the manual ... sure enough it mentions three modes: NORMAL, wide squeeze, and letterbox zoom.

Still not being convinced, I had them plug the store unit to a video feed ... using the remote, I confirmed that it does indeed squeeze widescreen movies. What does that mean for you, you ask ? ... if you are watching an anamorphic DVD ... the widescreen mode will allow you to squeeze the horizontal lines to the movies aspect ratio ... so you will not waste any of the lines on the gray bars ... all of the lines will be used to display the image.

The TV has component video inputs ... and three S-video inputs.

I have yet to plug it in ... waiting for our 5-year old to get into bed ... before launching into this installation project ... its 8:40pm EST here.

The price for the above TV ... $379.00 ... not too shabby for a 27" flat that does wide squeeze ... right ?

:-)