Image is smaller than it should be

If HD DVDs appear fine and sharp on TV why does it look stretched on PC? Here is an example of the same frame in Family Guy in different sizes. Here's what it looks like at 50% (Note all the images where deliberately resized to 720p from 1680x1050)

As you can see, it looks sharp and clear. Now look at it at 100%

You can't really see it, but it starts to look stretched. Now in fullscreen (1680x1050)

Now it looks stretched. How can this look fine at 720p on TV and terrible at about 800x600? Is there a way to fix this?

Tomrdiedrich said:

What player are you using for playing the dvd? Have you checked the ratio settings in the player?

I'm just using Windows Media Player. How would one check the ratio setting?

Do you have the monitor set to it's highest resolution?
HD looks best when the resolution is set to the highest your monitor will allow.

p5bdkw said:

Do you have the monitor set to it's highest resolution?
HD looks best when the resolution is set to the highest your monitor will allow.

Of course :)

MadSupra354 said:

p5bdkw said:

Do you have the monitor set to it's highest resolution?
HD looks best when the resolution is set to the highest your monitor will allow.

Of course :)

The reason why I asked was because you mentioned 800x600.

I run the player window at different sizes.

They only look "stretched" if something is not set up correctly.

If you take a "snapshot" of HD video, then it is about half the size. The video itself however looks perfect.

Regards....Mike Connor

Mike Connor said:

They only look "stretched" if something is not set up correctly.

If you take a "snapshot" of HD video, then it is about half the size. The video itself however looks perfect.

Regards....Mike Connor

The video looks stretched either way. I don't have a full-HD monitor, and I'm not sure if the newer series of Family Guy is 1080p, but it looks stretched when I changed the sizes of the player [Small-Medium-Large] as you can see in the last image, it looks very stretched.