Hey folks,

I'm not starting work on my projector until my semesters over... but I've got a question I need to ask or it'll drive me crazy.

I have a 17" Acer AL1722 with a max resolution of 1280x1024. It's great, beautiful color, excellent contrast, and sharp as a pin.

Now, I plan on using my projector for movies, games, and just general BS'ing around with my computer (although I'll have a primary monitor to be used most of the time).

I'd like a 16:9 projection, but my monitors not widescreen. Does this mean that when it comes time for me to buy a screen, I'll need to buy an essentially square screen (I ask this because a lot of the completed gallery photos have what look like 16:9 screens)? Will my widescreen movies always be rediculously scrunched, instead of stretched out appropriately?

I hope I'm making sense here; like I said, I'm a noob.

Any ideas, suggestions, explanations? I'd really appreciate it.

Thanks!

well, if you don't mind a smaller windows desktop, you could use powerstrip to run 1280x720 resolution inside your 1280x1024 rez, unless your lcd(or windows itself) can run at that resolution

Widescreen movies show up with black bars if you have a normal 4:3 monitor. Of course, this won't fix the "widescreen Windows" issue, but hopefully mikyd's suggestion will help.

Yeah, I was just able to add a custom 1280x720 resolution. Will it's being projected reduce the scrunchiness of the screen?

Thanks for the help!

no, if its scrunchy on the lcd it will still be on the projection..where did you add the resolution? in windows or powerstrip?

I did it through the nVidia tools in windows... will powerstrip produce a different effect?

is it "scrunchY" when you do it thru the nvidia tools?

Yes. I do 'add custom resolution', and it works. But everything is scrunched up, compressed inward. It fills the screen more, but everything is pushed in.

Just to amend that, I'd only want the 16:9 for movies. Games and everything else I can deal with in 4:3.

Would making it a resolution within a resolution through powerstrip solve this problem?

Well, I played around with NVKeystone a bit, and that fixed the scrunchiness completely. It displays in 16:9, however it's no bigger than when i'm running in 1280x1024. Any ideas?