Just something I've always wondered, what is the line at the top of 2:35:1 films? (1 Viewer)

[Aaron Cohen]

This is something I have been wondering about for some time now. With many 2:35:1 aspect ratio dvd's there appears to be a very small line right at the top of the viewing area.

I noticed this on my tv and thought it first that it was one of the faint lines from the Trinitron technology (which don't bother me at all) but then when I moved the image up and down on my screen the line stayed exactly in the same place. I put the disc in my computer with the same results. The line is not bothering me, I'm just wondering what it is! Is this something that was in the original release, something that the director uses to help them shoot the film?

Thanks for any answers!

 

[Travis Olson]

Probably edge enhancement.

 

[Aaron Cohen]

Hmm, well it's not on the very edge of the framing, it's just near the top....

I've missed with the edge enhancement control on my television and turned it to off (instead of high, medium, or low) and I can definitely see the difference and it looks much nicer around the characters with the edge enhancement turned off.

However, messing with the edge enhancement control did nothing with the small line near the top of the frame... Am I just confused? Can anyone else see what I'm talking about? The most reason film this has appeared on is the Grease dvd.

Can someone that owns this dvd pop it in and quickly check out what I am talking about? Look near the very top of the frame for a small black line.

Thanks!

 

[Aaron Cohen]

And that's an amazing Road To Perdition picture by the way.

 

[Rain]

I don't think I've ever noticed what you are referring to...not on scope films anyway.

Can you give us examples of a couple of titles that you are noticing this on.

If you click the "MY DVDs" link in my sig and can find any title that I have that does this, let me know and I'll be happy to check if it happens on my system also.

 

[Jeff Kleist]

It's a compression artifact in a way

With MPEG, the black bars take up almost no space, but the hard line between black and picture can chew a ton of bits, so they put a little gradient there to make it easier to compress.

Or so I'm guessing

 

[Sam Davatchi]

Yes, it’s an MPEG artifact but they don’t add anything there. I have encoded few DVD-Rs. If you encode something yourself you will notice them. Actually in reality it’s worse. Capture a frame and brighten it in an image editing software you will notice artifacts at the top and bottom edge. Artifact lines in the black area and that’s because MPEG encodes by blocs.
It’s possible to achieve perfect black edge if you put the picture and the black bar edge exactly at the edge of the mpeg blocs. I don’t remember exactly right now, but I think the edge should be in place that is multiple of 16 or 32 pixels. I have achieved this. Studios don’t do this because you have to put the image at the center and they prefer to put it slightly on the top. I do it too.
Here is what I do personally for a 2.35:1 ratio:
Upper Black Bar = 56
Picture area = 364
Lower Black Bar = 60
Here is a picture I made:
Link Removed

 

[Daniel J]

Sam, I'm pretty sure that a compression artifact would look different...

I've seen this on all the DVDs that I've ripped clips from. It's a very narrow line at the top (or bottom, or both) of the frame- Again, I see this on all the movies I can think of, even 4:3 aspect.

My guess? it's something to do with the film processing. It should be covered up in a theater because of the more precise matting, while DVD transfers tend to show everything.

Anybody here Know anything about what lenses do at the extreme edge of the frame?

 

[Declan]

Travis.............is there a large version of that Road To Perdition poster (i.e. commercially available) or is it something you created yourself. If you did do it yourself...as a fellow graphic designer, my hat is off to you......not that i wear one of course....well you know what i mean

 

[DeepakJR]

The line are part of the Trinitron technology, theyre called damper wires and essential to having a flat tube display. Their easier to notice on computer monitor, sicne i have a Sony Trinitron i noticed it easily. Its the TV, not the DVD.

l8rz,
Deepak Jr.

 

[Aaron Cohen]

Thanks for the incite Deepak but that is not the case. Yes I know about the damper wires and I know exactly where they are located on the monitor. This is a small line that appears in the actual film that is being displayed. It is still there when I put it in my non-Trinitron computer monitor.

I thought at first that they were the wires on my tv but as I said in my first post, I moved the picture up and down and the lines stayed exactly in the same place on the picture. These are anamorphic dvd's but just to see if it was still there I zoomed it, and it was. The line follows the picture and stays in the exact same spot therefore it is not the damper wires that are stationary.

I think Daniel J may be right on target as to what this line may be...

I just tried the dvd on my friend's television set (19 inch traditional non-flat RCA) and the line is there as well. It's not bothersome to me, I was just wondering what it was.

And it's not at the very edge of the picture, maybe about an inch or more down.... maybe I can try to get a picture of it up later.

 

[Sebastian_A]

On my sony 16:9 there was a line too, it was BLUE, and at the top of the upper "black bar" - all it needed to go away was to ROTATE the image. It was very very tiny, and not the usual Trinitron stripes, but just a very thin line, just how you describe it - did you try doing that? Image Rotation... .

Seb

 

[Lannie Lorence]

Could you be seeing some sort of a divider created by your player at the border of black in the dvd picture area and black created by the player during an anamorphic downconversion?

Is your TV 16:9 or 4:3?

 

[Andy Olivera]

I've noticed something similar, though maybe not what you're experiencing. On my 4:3 set, anamorphic 2.35 films have two different shades of black, about halfway above and below the picture. My explaination is this: since an anamorphic signal doesn't fill the 4:3 frame, the extreme upper and lower sections of the TV receive no signal at all. For some reason, these sections appear slightly "brighter" than within the blank spaces of the anamorphic frame. See crude illustration below:

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[Jeff Kleist]

Andy, you need to calibrate your set then

Only a few titles like "The Perfect Storm" actually don't have the right black value

 

[Sean Moon]

Almost all scope films on my Panny 47wx49 have a faint blue line at the bottom of the top letterbox bar. I have no idea what it is. And it is only on the top bar.

 

[Robert Ringwald]

On HALLOWEEN: The extended version

I noticed something like this. It's almost like there are 1.85:1 bars, and then another set of them. It's like the bars are cut in half, and one is darker than the other.

All my other 2.35:1 movies look fine, but just that disc, I thought the movie was 1.85:1 when I first popped it in and got pissed off (knowing the correct ratio) and then the movie started and I saw it was in the right aspect ratio, but that the set of bars were a little lighter. Like I said, it's only on this disc, weird...

 

[Andy Olivera]

Andy, you need to calibrate your set then

It is calibrated. However, I have black level set one notch(very minor) above Avia's recommended settings, so the second bar is barely perceptable. I knew this was the cause, so I thought Aaron's TV might be too bright, as well...

 

[Travis Olson]

Declan, although I dabble in the black art of graphics design, the image came from the official Road to Perdition site. It is from a wallpaper created by Dreamworks and can be found Link Removed. Click on "Trailers & Multimedia" to find it.

 

[Aaron Cohen]

I'm unbelievably tired (I just finished watching Amadeus, which I loved) but I just wanted to say that my television is 16x9. I will be back to post tomorrow.


Er, later today.