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Need help with widescreen DVDs... (1 Viewer)

David Finley

Auditioning
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Mar 27, 2004
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I just purchaced a 17 inch Dell widescreen tv. It's really great, except for one little annoyance: On most of my Widescreen DVD's, I can get rid of the black bands by going into "Full Screen" mode.

Except on my Paramount movies. Even in "Full Screen" mode, I cannot kill the black bars on the picture.

Paramount DVD's are the ONLY ones I have had this paticular nasty problem with. Does this mean that I will have to replace all of my widescreen Paramount movies with Full Screen versions in order to solve this?

Any advice someone could provide me with would be greatefully accepted.
 

Bryan X

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Feb 10, 2003
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Bryan
If the movie isn't 'enhanced for 16x9 televisions' then you need to use the zoom mode. Fortunately most widescreen discs are enhanced these days.

Also, if the movie has an aspect ratio greater than about 1.85:1 then you'll still have some small bars (ie: movies like Star Wars, LOTR, etc.).
 

James Lambert

Stunt Coordinator
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Mar 12, 2003
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118
As Bryan mentions above, this certainly sounds like your Paramount movies are shown in a ratio of 2.35:1 rather than 1.85:1, meaning the bars are meant to be there. check out here for a website that will hopefully help (particularly the widescreen TV Q+A). I strongly suggest that you read up about this subject before going out and replacing anything!!
 

Malcolm R

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:eek:

The black bars are there for a reason...even on a widescreen display. At about 1.77, a 16:9 widescreen TV will sometimes still have small black bars with 1.85 films, depending on overscan, and will still have noticeable black bars with anything of a wider AR (i.e. 2.35).

Buying a widescreen TV does not mean saying farewell to black bars.
 

Richard Kim

Senior HTF Member
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Jan 29, 2001
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4,385
As others have said before, DVDs with aspect ratios greater than the 16:9 screen (mostly 2.35:1) will still have black bars, not to mention that there's a ton of DVDs that are in the 4:3 AR which should be viewed with bars on the side so it won't distort the picture.

Here's another helpful website:

http://www.thedigitalbits.com/articl...c/welcome.html

In particular here's an example of how a 2.35:1 DVD will look on a widescreen 16:9 screen (with black bars):

http://www.thedigitalbits.com/articl...ic235demo.html
 

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