Why are there still black bars even at 480p widescreen?

[viivo]

I just bought Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory after reading that it supports widescreen. I had bought Max Payne 2 a few days ago and it looks awesome for an original Xbox game and it fills the entire screen with no stretching so I thought "Awesome! I love SC and CT was the best of the series so I should definitely get it!"

However, in game there are large bars on the sides. The picture looks slightly wider than 4x3 but it's nowhere near 16x9. I tried it in 1080p, 1080i, 720p and 480p widescreen and none of them made any difference. Is there anything I can do? I honestly do not understand how both games (Max Payne and Splinter Cell) advertise "480p" on the back but only one is actually widescreen.

 

[mugs]

480p doesn't necessarily mean widescreen. But I have no idea if that game supports widescreen output. Does the 4:3 picture you see look like it's compressed horizontally, as if it's squeezing a 16:9 picture into a 4:3 box?

 

[viivo]

It's slightly wider than 4x3 with slim bars on top and bottom and wider bars on the sides. I tried all scaling options on my TV which made it look worse (stretching, losing the HUD from zoom, etc.)

 

[CZroe]

So many Gamecube 480p games were still 4:3 that I had to return my "purchased just for gaming" $800 Samsung for a $2,300 Sony XBR... as far as I could tell, it was the only CRT at the time that didn't stretch and lock aspect controls in 480p.

 

[kalrith]

Final Fantasy X on the PS2 doesn't fill my entire screen even though I have it set to "16:9 widescreen." I can't remember where the black bars were, but they're most definitely there.