Trouble setting up for Widescreen DVD viewing

I have a Gateway MX7515 laptop and like to watch DVDs on it when I travel. As my home theatre is widescreen, my entire DVD collection is as well. The problem is, using either Windows Media Player or CyberLink Power DVD, it seems like the software thinks I have a 4:3 aspect ratio display or something, because the sides of the display are black (not drawn black bars, which are generally dark grey, but black as in not rendered) and the rest of the picture is shown in a mini widescreen in the middle of my display.

I checked the help files and websites of both the Media Player and the PowerDVD and neither seemed to show a setting where I would tell the software that my display is already widescreen. I can understand still suffering occasional rendered black bands at the top and bottom as not all widescreen films are 16:10 ratio like my display (1280 x 800), but the black at the sides makes no sense unless the software thinks I have a 4:3 display.

Any ideas?

 

I'm not sure about Windows Media Player, but under in my version of PowerCinema I can see the option for 16:10. I think you have to go into the settings for it, and manually change it from there. Hope this helps.