Microsoft KB Archive/914377

Knowledge Base

Xbox 360: A black or gray bar appears on either side of the screen when you try to play an original Xbox game on an Xbox 360 console

Article ID: 914377

Article Last Modified on 4/25/2007

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APPLIES TO

• Microsoft Xbox
• Microsoft XBox 360 Video Game System

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SYMPTOMS

When you try to play an original Xbox game on an Xbox 360 console, a black or gray bar appears on either side of the screen.

CAUSE

This behavior occurs when the following conditions are true:

• You are trying to play an original Xbox game on an Xbox 360 console.
• You are using a widescreen TV or monitor as your display.
• The Xbox 360 console is configured to use a widescreen resolution such as 720p or 1080i.

THINGS TO TRY

1. Configure the Xbox 360 console to use a non-widescreen resolution such as 480p. This will let the widescreen TV or monitor stretch the image to fill the screen. To do this, follow these steps:
   1. Start your console without a disc in the disc tray.
   2. In the System section of the Xbox Dashboard, select Console Settings, and then press the A button.
   3. In the Console Settings area, select Display, and then press the A button.
   4. In the Display Settings area, select HDTV Settings, and then press the A button.
   5. In the HDTV Settings area, select 480p, and then press the A button.
   6. When you receive a confirmation message, select Yes, keep these settings.

MORE INFORMATION

Some original Xbox games only support resolutions up to 480p. With an original Xbox console, the widescreen TV or monitor may stretch the image for these games to produce an image that will fill the whole display. This stretching distorts the image slightly from a 4:3 aspect ratio to a 16:9 (widescreen) aspect ratio.

For Xbox 360 consoles, the backward compatibility feature displays original Xbox games at the highest resolution that the console can produce. The backward compatibility feature will also try to display the game in widescreen if you configured the Xbox 360 console to use a widescreen resolution.

However, some games do not support a widescreen format. Therefore, these games cannot produce a larger image. By default, the backward compatibility feature will produce an image to fill a widescreen display.

• If you configured the Xbox 360 console to use a widescreen resolution, the only way for the backward compatibility feature to fill the widescreen display is to display a black or gray bar on either side of the screen.
  

Note We also refer to this process as letterboxing.

• If you configured the Xbox 360 console to use a non-widescreen resolution, the backward compatibility feature will stretch the image to fit the screen.

We designed the Xbox 360 console to preserve the original image aspect ratio and to yield the highest quality image that the console can produce.

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