Explain this to me about 2.35:1 aspect ratio (1 Viewer)

[Oscar]

Ok, when i put my DVD player on anamorphic movie;movies with low aspect ratios dont have black bars, but films with 2.35:1 aspect ratio do, why?.

I dont have anything against widescreen.

And im just curious about that.

If anyone understood me, please reply.

 

[Eric T]

Hi Oscar. I live in El Paso too
Do you have a 16:9 TV? Sounds like you do if you only get black bars on 2.35:1 movies. It's because 2.35:1 is an even wider ratio than 16:9. So you get black bars even with a 16:9 set. The consolation is that the black bars are much smaller than they would be on a 4:3 TV.

 

[Oscar]

Well, i do have a widescreen TV. But does that mean even with a Widescreen set, im not getting the whole picture?!
OOHHHHNOOOOOO!!!!!

 

[Eric T]

No, no, you ARE getting the whole picture. It's just that with 2.35:1 the whole picture can't fill the total height of your screen.

In order to see ALL of the 2.35:1 widescreen image on a 16:9 TV (which is the same as 1.78:1), it has to be slightly reduced in size. This is so the sides don't get chopped off (like in Pan & Scan).

I know it's kind of a bummer that even with a widescreen TV, you still sometimes can't fill the entire screen. But unless you have a REALLY big 4:3 TV, you are still getting a bigger picture on your widescreen.

 

[Oscar]

Ok, you had conviced me. All right, that clears my doubts. By the way were do you buy your DVDs, i buy them at Best Buy or Suncoast or at Wal-Mart.

 

[Eric T]

Well I used to get them at either Circuit City or Wherehouse on Sunland Park. But lately, I've been ordering from Columbia House, it's cheaper. Check out this link, it's got a lot of info on how you can get DVD's from Columbia House for an average price of less than $10.
Columbia House for Dummies Thread on DVDTalk.com

 

[Oscar]

Uh, i dont trust much those guys.

Ok, how can i close this thread?

 

[Oscar]

Can anyone tell me how can i close my thread?

 

[Vince Maskeeper]

Oscar,
1) I have removed your signature. It was nearly 30 lines long, and the limit is 5. Please, if you redo your sig, keep it at 4-5 lines of text.
2) You can't close posts, only moderators can. We usually don't bother closing posts when the question has been answered... usually when a topic is done being discussed it simply falls to the bottom of the pile.
3) I would suggest you do some investigation on the reasons for widescreen. It seems from your posts that you don't really understand the purpose of the black bars, and it would probably be very helpful to you to get a firm grasp on what is happening and why. Check this post for some links which might help:
http://www.hometheaterforum.com/htfo...876#post511876
-vince

 

[Oscar]

Okay, whatever you say.

 

[Oscar]

All right, thanks that was very helpful.

And I refuse to use the term black bars, but Unused Space sounds too scientific for my taste.

 

[DarrenA]

Oscar,

Aspect Ratio is the measurement in units between the width and height of the image. For example your widescreen television's screen has an aspect ratio of 1.78:1. This means that it is 1.78 times wider than it is high. Therefore, a movie that has an aspect ratio of 2.35:1 has an image width that is 2.35 times wider than it is high. To fit this within a 1.78:1 frame, it must have some black "letterbox" bars added above and below the image.

 

[Oscar]

Ok i understand. But my real question is: Am i getting the whole picture?.

Am i getting to watch what i saw in theaters in a complete way?.

In spite of the mini-black bars?

And im using a Widescreen set.

 

[DarrenA]

Yes, you are seeing these films as they were shown in the theater. Here's a great example of the Mad Max DVD. The first image is a Pan&Scan version that fills the screen of a 4:3 television. The second image is the 2.35:1 widescreen version as seen in the theater. (Notice that the car can now be seen in the 2.35:1 theatrical version).

 

[Oscar]

All right, that convinced me.

Thanks.

 

[Lars Vermundsberget]

Basically, it's as simple as this:

Whenever the Aspect Ratio (AR) of the movie is considerably different from that of the TV set, there will be unused space (or so called "black bars") on the screen. Very simple geometrics, I'd say.

 

[Steve Schaffer]

And when you watch a movie that was originally 4/3 (or 1:33) as most made before the early 50s were, you'll have black bars (or unused space) on the sides of your widescreen tv.

 

[Ernesto Santos]

Here, I hope, is an explanation that is easy to understand.
Movies are shot in different aspect ratios:
1.85x1
2.35x1
1.78x1
1.66x1
1.33x1
to name the most popular.
My local theater handles these different ratios by masking the screen on the sides with adjustable black fabric because the screen in it's full open matte is approx. 2.35x1. The sides of the screen are adjusted according to the aspect ratio of the movie being shown. The constant in the image geometry is the height of the image, it will always be the same. What will vary is the width.
Your TV, if it is a 16:9 set (1.78x1 aspect ratio)does the opposite to handle different WIDESCREEN aspect ratios, it uses the width as the constant, thus adjusting the height of the image to accommodate the different aspect ratios. The wider the image is, beyond 1.78x1 (the aspect ratio of your screen), the larger the black bars will be.
There is no way getting around this with a fixed screen display. Home theaters with front projection systems (like mine ) sometimes employ a screen blanking system similar to the one I described at my local theater. MOST IMPORTANT OF ALL: YOU ARE NOT LOSING ANY IMAGE ON YOUR TV. A pan and scan image chops off up to a third of the image to accomplish what I just explained in my long winded description. Obviously, this a most intrusive and mutilating of solutions.
This is the dilemma we enthusiasts (read: elitist snobs ) are facing as DVD penetrates the mass consumer market. There is no easy or short way to explain this to the casual DVD movie renter/purchaser. Most of these folks (known on this and many other forums as "Joe Six Pack") ironically feel they are being cheated because their 4:3 TVs have these awful black bars cutting off the top and bottom of the movie. In the end, without education and due to ignorance the features that made DVD a successful technology early in it's introduction may very well be it's undoing.

 

[Ken Garrison]

I noticed many movies are done in different aspect ratios and got to wondering about theaters showing them. But I guess they have an adjustable screen. Last times I've been to a movie theater, I never thought about it being wide. I never gave it a thought. Next time I go, I'll pay attention this time, now I'm an OAR fan.

 

[Robert Harris]

A note on screen sizes, aspect ratios and monitors...

Most monitors comes in either a simple 3:4 aspect ratio, or

the newer 16:9. There are several which fall in between.

One point to keep in mind is that when a film is run in a properly set up theatre the size of the screen should change with aspect ratio and format.

As an example take a large theatre from the 1930s or 40s which is converted to CinemaScope.

The screen size may well have been 30 feet high by 40 wide.

In a proper conversion to early C'Scope the screen would have been redesigned with a new proscenium to measure 30 feet high by 76 feet in width.

That same screen being used currently for a 1.85 aspect ratio "widescreen" release would measure 30 feet high by 55 feet in width.

If the theatre had been properly designed for 70mm releases the proper useable real estate of the screen for a large format release would have been based upon the available width, and an adjustment to the height for the larger image.

Ie, if a normal Panavision (2.40) release uses a screen 30 feet high by 72 feet in width, then the projected image for a 70mm film at 2.21:1 should be the same 72 foot width, but with height increased to slighter greater than 32.5 feet.

With a video monitor, all these machinations of adjustable maskings come down to different size "black bars" either horizonal or vertical dependent upon aspect ratio of the image and aspect ratio of the monitor.

Hope this doesn't confuse the issue.

RAH