I have a lenovo laptop hooked up to a Sony Bravia using a monitor cable. When i play dvds or avi's I use vlc. I noticed after burning a dvd that when I played it on my dvd player is was fullscreen working fine. When I play it back on my computer it leaves a black border around the top and bottom of the picture. I tried unplugging my laptop from the tv and then playing back the same video. It was playing almost fullscreen on my laptop monitor with just a small black border on the top and bottom. My question is how can I get my video to playback on my tv without sacraficing screen size?
I assume you're using a VGA or S-Video cable to connect the laptop to the TV? It's likely that the resolution (and probably aspect ratio) that the laptop outputs to the TV is different (lower) than the resolution of the panel on the laptop itself. Your laptop is likely widescreen meaning that black bars will be minimal when watching movies on it. Is your Bravia widescreen? If your TV isn't widescreen you're going to have black bars. BUT, if you're using VLC, go to the Video menu, aspect ratio, and change the selection. It will affect the quality and proportions of your video, but will likely resolve the issue you're having.
