Black bars on widescreen DVD's (1 Viewer)

[Brandon Steck]

Most people want to know how to get rid of the black bars on widescreen DVD's on widescreen sets. My question is the opposite. A widescreen television has an aspect ratio of 1.78:1. As we know, 2.35:1 DVD's have obvious black bars to make up the difference. My question is, why don't you see black bars on 1.85:1 DVD's? Shouldn't you see bars on anything wider than 1.78:1? Am I losing picture on my 1.85:1 DVD's? I've been wondering this for awhile, but just got around to asking.

 

[Rocky F]

Well, there are couple of possible reasons. One has to do with overscan. Depending on what kind of TV you have, a certain amount of picture info is lost around the edges of the screen. This is most apparent on CRT (direct view and RP) sets. I think that there is a lower amount on LCD and plasmas, although I don't have those to compare. On my CRT RP anything between 1.66:1 and 1.85:1 show no bars.
Sometimes, though, movies which were matted to 1.85 theatrical just have the mattes opened a very tiny bit to fill the 1.78:1 screen.

 

[John S]

I have seen digital displays do just this on 1.85:1.....

Most displays will not have bars from 1.66:1 - 1.85:1 as posted above already for various reasons.

I have yet to see a Disney 1.66:1 produce bars on the sides of any display yet though. I think most people are probably happy about that one.

 

[Michael TLV]

Greetings

A 1.85:1 film will show black bars if your overscan is less than 2.5 to 3%. Typically, most sets shoot for 5% so you never see it ... even if it is there.

A 1.85:1 film like bring it on ... shows bars if you decrease the overscan to 2.5%

Overscan is a necessary evil for TV's and it saves manufacturers money to do this as it covers up broadcast errors that have nothing to do with the tV.

Regards

 

[Brian Osborne]

Here is a good article on aspect ratios.
http://www.tecs.com.au/info/DVD_Aspect.htm

Here is the answer

 

[Steve Schaffer]

I've had a widescreen crt-based rptv main set for over 4 years and recently purchased a little 26" Sharp Aqous widescreen for the bedroom. The Sharp is connected to a Sony upconverting dvd player via HDMI, and this is the first time I've seen black bars when playing a 1:85 aspect ratio dvd--they're small but they are present. If I use the component input on the Sharp it overscans and I don't see the black bars on 1:85 movies.