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4x3 material framed in... white?

post #1 of 26
12/29/08 at 5:12pm
Thread Starter 
Ok I haven't watched a whole lot of extra features on BD yet, but those I have watched - specifically on The Nightmare Before Christmas and No Country For Old Men - that were originally made in 1.33:1 aspect ratio have been framed with WHITE borders left and right.

What's up with that?

Frankenweenie, for example, on TNBC was extremely distracting against white sides. The sides were brighter than the picture!

I realise both of these titles are from Disney. Is this just a Disney thing? Is it just another one of those things that I have to get used to with BD along with slower loading times and menu navigation?

It just strikes me as odd that Wall-E (at 2.39:1) was framed top/bottom in black, The Nightmare Before Christmas (at 1.66:1) was framed left/right in black, yet as soon as it hits 1.33:1 suddenly it's white :-(

Presumably there's no way to turn this whiteness off? (I have a Panasonic BD-55).

Cheers!
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post #2 of 26
12/29/08 at 6:01pm

Re: 4x3 material framed in... white?

I suspect this is the "Screen Saver" issue though don't ask me to explain why it does this. Turn it off in the setup menu "Display" subsection and then the 4:3 material should have black sides.
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post #3 of 26
12/30/08 at 12:41am

Re: 4x3 material framed in... white?

Yes, it's your player not the BDs.
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post #4 of 26
12/30/08 at 1:39am

Re: 4x3 material framed in... white?

This is interesting.

I thought that Blu-ray was a native 16:9 format, so that the entire image you see on your 16:9 display is actually encoded on the disc. A DVD could be flagged as either 4:3 or 16:9, and either the television or the DVD player was responsible for "framing" the image when viewed in other than its native aspect ratio.

Are you guys saying that Blu-ray also supports 4:3 video? Or is it only for standard-definition material, or something like that? (I don't know whether the supplements John mentions are in standard-def or hi-def.)
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post #5 of 26
12/30/08 at 3:31am
Thread Starter 

Re: 4x3 material framed in... white?

Quote:
Originally Posted by David Norman
I suspect this is the "Screen Saver" issue though don't ask me to explain why it does this. Turn it off in the setup menu "Display" subsection and then the 4:3 material should have black sides.

Ah, fantastic, thank you that man! Yes, it was the screen saver!

I turned it off and now 4x3 is framed in black! Excellent!

Thanks again :-)
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post #6 of 26
12/30/08 at 8:10am

Re: 4x3 material framed in... white?

Quote:
Are you guys saying that Blu-ray also supports 4:3 video? Or is it only for standard-definition material, or something like that?
No it doesn't. If the material is SD and 4:3, the player adds the bars on the sides. Depends on your settings also, in Panasonic BD players, there is an option that allows for 4:3 SD materials to fill the screen.
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post #7 of 26
12/30/08 at 8:57am

Re: 4x3 material framed in... white?

I was always curious about the white bars also when watching Nightmare Before Christmas stuff like Vincent it was really distracting. I play mine thru the PS3 so I will check out the screensaver settings and see if that helps also.

I wonder if the standard TV transmissions can be fixed also on the 4:3 settings.. I would guess directly thru the TV screensaver mode itself?
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post #8 of 26
12/30/08 at 3:37pm

Re: 4x3 material framed in... white?

Be aware that plasma TVs are susceptible to burn in which is why there is the option for for the white or grey bars. If you use the black bars you may start to see the lines burn in on the side over time.


Also 4x3 films in high def on blu-ray are pillerboxed with black bars on the sides.

Doug
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post #9 of 26
12/30/08 at 9:43pm

Re: 4x3 material framed in... white?

I tried turning of my screensaver and tested out the white side bars on the bonus material to change it to black on the side as noted above but it didn't work. My player is a PS3... so I guess that player works differently than others. I tried a few different settings nothing changed.... any way to change the WHTE side bars on the bonus features to black while using the PS3

I also do have a Panasonic Plasma 1080P tv so I don't want black burn to occur but when I watch Casablanca, Third Man etc... there is black on the sides and I prefer this but I like to use something full 16:9 on the screen afterwards to help prevent burn... I would say the same could happen on the tops and bottoms of the screen with scope framed films like Sleeping Beauty etc...
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post #10 of 26
12/31/08 at 6:28am

Re: 4x3 material framed in... white?

I have never seen white sidebars on bonus material using the PS3, but I don't have a plasma set, so I'm wondering if those bars aren't something being generated by the TV rather than the player.

Do you see black, white, or gray bars if you play a regular 4:3 DVD (say, THE WIZARD OF OZ) on the PS3? I see black on mine.
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post #11 of 26
12/31/08 at 7:05am

Re: 4x3 material framed in... white?

Quote:
Originally Posted by MattH.
I have never seen white sidebars on bonus material using the PS3, but I don't have a plasma set, so I'm wondering if those bars aren't something being generated by the TV rather than the player.

Do you see black, white, or gray bars if you play a regular 4:3 DVD (say, THE WIZARD OF OZ) on the PS3? I see black on mine.


If I am watching say Third Man or Casablanca then I have black side bars... but on certain bonus material like another poster noted... on Nightmare Before Christmas or No COuntry it gives me the white side bars. I even tried diff settings on the tv itself since mine is plasma... but not sure why. If I watch reg TV programs etc on 4:3 like CNN etc it is white bars also. that I don't mind as much as say trying to watch the short Vincent with the white bars it is really distracting.
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post #12 of 26
12/31/08 at 8:20am

Re: 4x3 material framed in... white?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Powell&Pressburger
If I am watching say Third Man or Casablanca then I have black side bars... but on certain bonus material like another poster noted... on Nightmare Before Christmas or No COuntry it gives me the white side bars. I even tried diff settings on the tv itself since mine is plasma... but not sure why. If I watch reg TV programs etc on 4:3 like CNN etc it is white bars also. that I don't mind as much as say trying to watch the short Vincent with the white bars it is really distracting.

But I'm assuming THE THIRD MAN and CASABLANCA that you're watching are the Blu-ray versions which come with "built-in" black bars since the image is transferred that way on Blu-ray. I'm asking about SD-DVDs that are 4:3 (like THE WIZARD OF OZ, GONE WITH THE WIND, etc.; i.e. films which haven't been ported to Blu-ray yet) If they are showing up on your TV with white bars, it's your TV that's putting them up there. It's not the PS3's fault.
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post #13 of 26
12/31/08 at 8:23am

Re: 4x3 material framed in... white?

Got ya, yeah standard 4:3 standard DVDs have the black on the sides.. watched a bunch of older Criterion dvds etc that way. No issues, Only issues on those certain bonus features on Blu rays dvds.
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post #14 of 26
12/31/08 at 1:14pm

Re: 4x3 material framed in... white?

Quote:
Originally Posted by MattH.
But I'm assuming THE THIRD MAN and CASABLANCA that you're watching are the Blu-ray versions which come with "built-in" black bars since the image is transferred that way on Blu-ray. I'm asking about SD-DVDs that are 4:3 (like THE WIZARD OF OZ, GONE WITH THE WIND, etc.; i.e. films which haven't been ported to Blu-ray yet) If they are showing up on your TV with white bars, it's your TV that's putting them up there. It's not the PS3's fault.
Are you sure about that? I've got a Panasonic BD35 and I can change the side bars for 4:3 DVDs from gray to black by turning the screensaver off on the player. The TV is not putting the bars up, the player is. (I don't know about the PS3, but I would assume that all players work the same for stuff like this.)
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post #15 of 26
12/31/08 at 1:21pm

Re: 4x3 material framed in... white?

Yeah I turned off the PS3 screensaver and it didn't change anything at all.


(again this is just to get the grey to switch to black bars for bonus material as seen on Nightmare before Christmas / No COuntry FOr Old Men type releases where bonus fetures show up bordered 4:3 with grey sides Normal 4:3 films play with black sides.)
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post #16 of 26
12/31/08 at 1:44pm

Re: 4x3 material framed in... white?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Brian McHale
Are you sure about that? I've got a Panasonic BD35 and I can change the side bars for 4:3 DVDs from gray to black by turning the screensaver off on the player. The TV is not putting the bars up, the player is. (I don't know about the PS3, but I would assume that all players work the same for stuff like this.)

Fully aware that the Panasonics can do this. We were talking about the PS3. I reviewed those two Blu-rays in question (NIGHTMARE and NO COUNTRY) using the PS3, and I never saw any white bars. However, I may have my settings on the PS3 different from Jack.
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post #17 of 26
12/31/08 at 1:45pm

Re: 4x3 material framed in... white?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Powell&Pressburger
Yeah I turned off the PS3 screensaver and it didn't change anything at all.


(again this is just to get the grey to switch to black bars for bonus material as seen on Nightmare before Christmas / No COuntry FOr Old Men type releases where bonus fetures show up bordered 4:3 with grey sides Normal 4:3 films play with black sides.)
I assume that either all BD players or all WS TVs are responsible for generating the bars on the sides of 4:3 DVDs. Since my BD player can change the color of the bars, that tells me that my player is generating the bars. After all, if the TV generated them, settings on the player wouldn’t be able to change the color of the bars.

If the PS3 screensaver setting doesn’t change the color of the side bars, I can only assume that the PS3 is designed differently. It doesn’t mean that the TV is generating the bars, just that the PS3’s design does not tie side bar color to the screensaver.
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post #18 of 26
12/31/08 at 1:49pm

Re: 4x3 material framed in... white?

Quote:
Originally Posted by MattH.
Fully aware that the Panasonics can do this. We were talking about the PS3.

I was responding to this quote which indicated that TVs are responsible for generating the side bars:

“If they are showing up on your TV with white bars, it's your TV that's putting them up there. It's not the PS3's fault.”

My post was intended to refute the claim that the TV generates the side bars and that, therefore, the PS3 is indeed "to blame".
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post #19 of 26
12/31/08 at 2:02pm

Re: 4x3 material framed in... white?

Quote:
Originally Posted by MattH.
Fully aware that the Panasonics can do this. We were talking about the PS3. I reviewed those two Blu-rays in question (NIGHTMARE and NO COUNTRY) using the PS3, and I never saw any white bars. However, I may have my settings on the PS3 different from Jack.


Yeah it is odd.. I have looked at my settings over and over and I can't imagine what it needs to be set to to view the bonus features with the black bars on the sides. I tried the screensaver.. i even switched the settings from letterbox to pan scan to see if that made the diff. no change. It is just odd. esp since they bury it under another setting. I will have to go thru the manual in case.
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post #20 of 26
12/31/08 at 3:40pm

Re: 4x3 material framed in... white?

4x3 SD material (the key here is SD) coming from a blu-ray disc is just that, 4x3. Anything beyond the edges of that 4x3 frame, if it is black, white or chartreuse, is generated by the TV.

Understand that SD material on a blu-ray disc is NOT upscaled to 1080p as an SD DVD would be. A 4x3 DVD that is upscaled to 1080p by its very nature (1080 is naively 16x9) has player generated side bars, and the color of those side bars would be controlled by the player.

Doug
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post #21 of 26
12/31/08 at 5:25pm

Re: 4x3 material framed in... white?

PS3 upconverts DVDs, but not SD material on Blu-rays. The TV would be adding the bars. The PS3 is just sending the 4:3 image.
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post #22 of 26
12/31/08 at 8:08pm

Re: 4x3 material framed in... white?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Dan Rudolph
PS3 upconverts DVDs, but not SD material on Blu-rays. The TV would be adding the bars. The PS3 is just sending the 4:3 image.

What he said!

Doug
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post #23 of 26
1/1/09 at 5:12pm
Thread Starter 

Re: 4x3 material framed in... white?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Douglas Monce
Understand that SD material on a blu-ray disc is NOT upscaled to 1080p as an SD DVD would be. A 4x3 DVD that is upscaled to 1080p by its very nature (1080 is naively 16x9) has player generated side bars, and the color of those side bars would be controlled by the player. Doug

I'm confused now! So what exactly happens to a 4x3 SD image on a Blu-ray Disc? Is it upscaled to the TV (in my case 1080p) by the player or by the TV?

Am I seeing a worse picture if that 4x3 is on Blu-ray vs. that same image upscaled on my DVD player (assuming my DVD player has a better upscaler than my TV, which it does).

I'm just curious because I've noticed that some releases put all the SD bonus material on a DVD disc (e.g. Blade Runner, Hellboy II) and I wondered if there was some specific reason for this...?
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post #24 of 26
1/1/09 at 5:16pm

Re: 4x3 material framed in... white?

PS3 doesn't upscale SD material on blu-ray. It sends it raw to the TV and the TV decides how to play it. Your DVD player can't play Blu-ray, so comparisons are moot. PS3 will upscale DVDs.
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post #25 of 26
1/1/09 at 9:55pm

Re: 4x3 material framed in... white?

Quote:
Originally Posted by John H Ross
I'm confused now! So what exactly happens to a 4x3 SD image on a Blu-ray Disc? Is it upscaled to the TV (in my case 1080p) by the player or by the TV?

Am I seeing a worse picture if that 4x3 is on Blu-ray vs. that same image upscaled on my DVD player (assuming my DVD player has a better upscaler than my TV, which it does).

I'm just curious because I've noticed that some releases put all the SD bonus material on a DVD disc (e.g. Blade Runner, Hellboy II) and I wondered if there was some specific reason for this...?

The PS3 does not up scale SD extras that are on a blu-ray. I have heard some say that other players do, but the only stand alone that I have any experience with is the samsung BDP1000 and it also didn't up scale SD material on a blu-ray.

Also its not an issue of 4x3 vs 16x9, but rather SD vs HD. Obviously the HD material is going to be in 1080, but the SD material will remain SD and your TV will do the image processing.

I believe the extra features on the Blade Runner set were put on a standard DVD at least in part because of the limited blu-ray production capability at the time. It seems that while that ability has increased, there are still issues because the studios are putting out far more films on blu-ray now that a year and a half ago. Likely one of the reasons that Speed Racer was released on a BD25.

Doug
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post #26 of 26
1/2/09 at 10:58am
Thread Starter 

Re: 4x3 material framed in... white?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Douglas Monce
Obviously the HD material is going to be in 1080, but the SD material will remain SD and your TV will do the image processing.

Oh this is fairly bad then! My TV isn't as good an upscaler as my Denon 2930 DVD player. So if I have SD material on DVD I need to hold onto it, even if that same SD material is included as an extra feature on a BD because the picture will end up looking better from the DVD?

That's a real nuisance :-(
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