Viewing Widescreen DVD in Fullscreen mode using Windows Media Player??

Using a Dell 700m with the 1280x800 widescreen.  A widescreen dvd played using  the Intervideo dvd player fills most of the screen up with only small borders at the top and bottom.  The exact same dvd played using Windows Media Player only uses about 2/3 the width of an already tiny screen and leaves bars on all 4 sides.  Going full screen with WMP does not make the image get any larger.  Anyone know the fix that allows WMP to play widescreen movies full screen or close to it anyway on a widescreen display.

 

Now a "fullscreen dvd" not a widesceen one will when WMP is placed in full screen mode, expand from the top to bottom leaving the traditional black bars on the left and right sides that normally occur when watching a 4:3 movie on a wide sceen.  so the driver/WMP is working there properly.  The problem is getting WMP to fully expand a widesceen movie from side to side, taking advantage of the Wider ratio of the screen.  I do not expect  a perfect fit, and realize there will still be some small banding at the top or bottom, but right now if using WMP on a widescreen dvd, it ends up about the size of a paperback book laying in the midle of the screen.

Any solutions to this issue with WMP would be very much appreciated.  It is not often I get stumped, bu this one has got me.