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Black Bands and Black Bars

post #1 of 13
4/30/09 at 4:10pm
Thread Starter 
I have a Sony Blu-ray player hooked up to an older Sony HDTV which has only component video outputs.This tv has a 4:3 aspect ratio.On some movies, I get black bars as well as black bands to the left and right of the picture. I realize the bars on top of and below the picture are normal,but what can I do to get rid of the black bands to the sides of the picture?
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post #2 of 13
4/30/09 at 8:33pm

Re: Black Bands and Black Bars

Which specific titles? Are these BD discs or regular DVDs?
Which model player & TV?

The settings that affect this are the TV type setting and screen format under the video settings, and the aspect control on the TV. Probably you want "16:9" and "original" on the Blu-ray, but the exact combo to use depends on the questions above.
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post #3 of 13
4/30/09 at 9:45pm
Thread Starter 

Re: Black Bands and Black Bars

Quote:
Originally Posted by Stephen Tu
Which specific titles? Are these BD discs or regular DVDs?
Which model player & TV?

The settings that affect this are the TV type setting and screen format under the video settings, and the aspect control on the TV. Probably you want "16:9" and "original" on the Blu-ray, but the exact combo to use depends on the questions above.

The Blu-ray player is a Sony BDP-S300 and the tv is a Sony XBR 450.
The title is Star Trek Season 1 just released this week on blu-ray.
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post #4 of 13
4/30/09 at 11:30pm

Re: Black Bands and Black Bars

Ah, Blu-ray title ... that's problematic. Here, the black side bars are embedded in the actual picture on disc, not player generated, there is no way to crop it out on that player as far as I know. For 4:3 DVDs some combination of settings (including possibly dropping down to 480i output) would definitely allow you full screen, but I think with Blu-ray you are out of luck with that player. It is part of the downside of getting a 4:3 HDTV, as you are now trying to show 4:3 picture within a 16:9 frame within a 4:3 frame.

There might be some player out there that can crop the side bars, but I don't know which one, maybe someone else knows. Or time for a new bigger 16:9 set perhaps? Meanwhile you probably want to avoid 4:3 content on Blu-ray, stick with the DVD. Or just move closer to the set & try to ignore the black bars, if the show is interesting maybe you don't notice them after awhile.
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post #5 of 13
5/1/09 at 5:56am

Re: Black Bands and Black Bars

Hi Phil,

Doesn't the TV have a ZOOM function (or that but with another name attached to it)? If so, you could try that.


Cees
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post #6 of 13
5/1/09 at 1:37pm
Thread Starter 

Re: Black Bands and Black Bars

Quote:
Originally Posted by Cees Alons
Hi Phil,

Doesn't the TV have a ZOOM function (or that but with another name attached to it)? If so, you could try that.


Cees
Unfortunately,for some strange reason,the zoom function on my remote only seems to work when I am watching broadcast television shows,not blu-ray movies.
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post #7 of 13
5/1/09 at 1:58pm

Re: Black Bands and Black Bars

I guess I would have thought that 4:3 BDs might have a "4:3 flag" so that a BD player connected to a 4:3 TV would automatically zoom the picture. Maybe they figured everybody's going to widescreen TVs and didn't bother.
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post #8 of 13
5/1/09 at 5:15pm

Re: Black Bands and Black Bars

Phil:

Have you "told" the Blu Ray player that it is attached to a 4:3 TV?

Regards,

Joe
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post #9 of 13
5/1/09 at 7:03pm

Re: Black Bands and Black Bars

Quote:
Originally Posted by Brian McHale
I guess I would have thought that 4:3 BDs might have a "4:3 flag" so that a BD player connected to a 4:3 TV would automatically zoom the picture. Maybe they figured everybody's going to widescreen TVs and didn't bother.

I suspect the problem is at the TV end, not the player end -- well, it's a combo problem, but (at least) the TV needs to be the one to have the proper setting.

Sounds like the problem is the 4x3 HDTV locks out aspect ratio conversion functions as soon as it sees an HD signal. This was quite common on some 16x9 HDTVs, especially some older Panny and Samsung RPTVs, IIRC. They tended to lock out AR conversion features as soon as they saw any HD signals (and in many cases, even 480p signals). In this instance, it's a 4x3 HDTV (probably made during the same era of relatively short-sighted HDTV design) that's doing the locking.

Anyway, Phil, it sounds like you may have to force your BD player to downrez and output 480p or maybe even 480i in order for your 4x3 HDTV to display the ST:TOS BDs in their native 4x3 OAR w/out the excess black bars.

_Man_
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post #10 of 13
5/1/09 at 9:10pm

Re: Black Bands and Black Bars

Quote:
I suspect the problem is at the TV end, not the player end -- well, it's a combo problem, but (at least) the TV needs to be the one to have the proper setting.

Sounds like the problem is the 4x3 HDTV locks out aspect ratio conversion functions as soon as it sees an HD signal.

No, that's not the problem. His TV basically only has 2 aspect modes, std 4:3, and "16:9 enhanced", what was called a "squeeze mode" or "vertical compression". You can use service mode to turn it off, or you can force 480i/p out of the player, but the problem in this case is that although that would get rid of the bars on the top & bottom, it would *not* get rid of the bars on the sides, which are embedded within the Blu-ray 16:9 frame. Plus the picture would then be too tall & skinny, objects distorted.

The problem here is that in order to get the desired effect (fullscreen 4:3, undistorted), he needs the BD player to crop the sides of the 16:9 frame to output a 4:3 frame, instead of letterboxing to 4:3 or outputting 16:9. The Sony can't do that AFAIK. It can be done in principle (I've had HD cable boxes that offer choice between cropping vs. letterboxing), but I don't know of BD players that can do this for certain on BDs, especially via component. I think the new Oppo does, but only for HDMI.
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post #11 of 13
5/1/09 at 10:28pm
Thread Starter 

Re: Black Bands and Black Bars

Quote:
Originally Posted by Joseph DeMartino
Phil:

Have you "told" the Blu Ray player that it is attached to a 4:3 TV?

Regards,

Joe
Yes...I've tried all variations,both on the blu-ray player and on the tv. The really frustrating part of this particular title (Star Trek TOS) is that the trailers and the menu are in 16:9,which is exactly what I want...but when the feature starts to play,it displays the black bands and black bars...and the picture is obviously quite small in this format.
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post #12 of 13
5/2/09 at 6:13am

Re: Black Bands and Black Bars

Quote:
Originally Posted by phil*
Yes...I've tried all variations,both on the blu-ray player and on the tv. The really frustrating part of this particular title (Star Trek TOS) is that the trailers and the menu are in 16:9,which is exactly what I want...but when the feature starts to play,it displays the black bands and black bars...and the picture is obviously quite small in this format.

I have a friend who asked me about this very thing last night.
I had this type of Sony TV, and my friend still does. Neither one of us could come up with a way to fill the 4x3 screen with Trek goodness. The TV is to limited in how it creates HD. Like someone else said, your TV sees an HD picture, and the only thing it can do is use the squeeze function.
Widescreen movies will of course look fine, as they wont have the black bars on the side. But they would ALWAYS have the bars at the top and bottom, no matter the movie, unlike a 16:9 set.
I told my friend to think about an LCD or Plasma, and to keep an eye out for good deals.
The Trek set is amazing.
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post #13 of 13
5/4/09 at 3:01pm

Re: Black Bands and Black Bars

Quote:
Originally Posted by Stephen Tu
No, that's not the problem. His TV basically only has 2 aspect modes, std 4:3, and "16:9 enhanced", what was called a "squeeze mode" or "vertical compression". You can use service mode to turn it off, or you can force 480i/p out of the player, but the problem in this case is that although that would get rid of the bars on the top & bottom, it would *not* get rid of the bars on the sides, which are embedded within the Blu-ray 16:9 frame. Plus the picture would then be too tall & skinny, objects distorted.

The problem here is that in order to get the desired effect (fullscreen 4:3, undistorted), he needs the BD player to crop the sides of the 16:9 frame to output a 4:3 frame, instead of letterboxing to 4:3 or outputting 16:9. The Sony can't do that AFAIK. It can be done in principle (I've had HD cable boxes that offer choice between cropping vs. letterboxing), but I don't know of BD players that can do this for certain on BDs, especially via component. I think the new Oppo does, but only for HDMI.

Actually, even if the player can remove the side bars, his TV will probably still lock its AR control if it sees something other than 480i (or maybe 480p). Either way, his TV probably is at least part of the problem.

And if the TV's AR zoom function was not locked out, it *might* have the desired 1.33x zoom to deal w/ the image w/out needing the BD player to do anything.

Anyway, like RickER pointed out, time to upgrade the TV to a 16x9 set.

_Man_
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