Rosen Entertainment Systems AV7000 owner manual Using External Sources, Managing Black Bars

Rosen AV7000 Owner’s Manual

USING EXTERNAL SOURCES

You may use optional external video games, camcorders, and other portable video units by connecting the unit to the auxiliary RCA input jacks on the unit. You must remove the cover to access the jacks, and press SOURCE or MODE to select “AUXILIARY INPUT.”

Red — Right channel audio input

White — Left channel audio input

Yellow — Video input

Color-Coded RCA Jacks

To use an external game system, a 12VDC to 110VAC power inverter,

available at most electronic retail stores, is often required.

Note: If you want to watch non-widescreen, 4:3 images, press the DISPLAY button on the remote control until “STANDARD” is displayed on the screen. This will properly size the image, instead of stretching the image across the wide screen. In “STANDARD” mode, you will see black bars on the sides of the image, like this:

MANAGING BLACK BARS

Motion picture film and cameras, and later tele- vision screens, were originally designed around a screen size that was almost square - it was one-third wider than it was high (another way to say this is that it had a width-to-height ratio, or aspect ratio, of 4:3. This ratio, 4:3, can also be expressed as 1.66:1.)

When widescreen movies using technologies like Cinemascope and Panavision became popular, new aspect ratios were used for them - 1.78:1, 2.35:1, and even 2.55:1. When high- definition television was developed, a screen shape of 16:9, or 1.85:1, was selected as the best compromise for viewing widescreen movie images.

When you watch widescreen movies on a standard 4:3 television, there are “black bars” on the top and bottom of the screen. This is often called a “letterbox” image. The alternative is called “pan-and-scan,” where the edges of the image are “cropped” off.

This system uses a widescreen 16:9, or 1.85:1 display - the same aspect ratio as high- defini- tion televisions. This means that when viewing widescreen DVD’s, these black bars are either non-existent, or greatly minimized.

4:3

1.66:1

16:9

1.85:1

Letterbox

Widescreen

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