Question about black bars... (1 Viewer)

[Andy Vertin]

Am I only supposed to be getting black bars on the top and bottom when I watch a 2.35:1 anamorphic disc on my widescreen tv? Because I don't get them with 1.85:1 material.

 

[Greg_Y]

Yup. The 2.35:1 material is 'more narrow' and thus there will be small black bars when you view movies filmed at this ratio.

You may even see tiny black bars on true 1.85:1 material. Your widescreen set is approx 1.78:1 ... not exactly 1.85:1. However, many 1.85:1 films are displayed at 1.78:1 for home video and, even if it is a true 1.85:1 ratio, you may not notice due to overscan.

 

[Andy Vertin]

Cool, thanks Greg!

 

[Greg_Y]

And I'm sure part of what I said is technically wrong in some small way, so someone else should be stopping by soon to correct me.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Well, Greg pretty much nailed it. But the reason you don't see any bars on 1.85:1 films is that (in addition to the overscan) the mattes are opened up the ever so slight bit for 1.78:1. So technically, you're seeing a slight bit more than the director intended in most cases.

 

[Robert Harris]

An unfortunate byproduct of the television age is the "one size fits (must fit) all" video display surface.

In what was designed to be a larger viewed image ie, Panavision, Super Panavision 70 and Ultra-Panavision were meant to yield an image with greater use of screen real estate.

From a standard 1.37 (flat) image, motion picture screens are meant to open to almost twice the width for Panavision (2.35-40) and then grow higher, with the raising of the top masking for Super Panavision 70 and then again -- even wider with the top masking already raised for UP70 (2.76).

While its a pity that we must live with the black bars even on wide screen video devices, I'm certain that it won't be long before SONY announces the newest in video technology -- a hidef, automatically expanding, fully organic screen, which reads the production and aspect ratio codes implanted in the DVD and adjusts both screen size and aspect ratio automatically.

Due fall 2004.

RAH

 

[Artur Meinild]

-- a hidef, automatically expanding, fully organic screen, which reads the production and aspect ratio codes implanted in the DVD...

So what's up mr. Harris, who's your highly unreliable source for this excellent news???

 

[David Von Pein]

This is hilarious (my stupidity that is)!!
I read this topic line, and thought to myself (for some odd reason beyond comprehension) ..... What? A topic regarding pubs/taverns frequented by African-Americans?? What's THIS got to do with HTF??
It's gettin' late I guess. Better go to bed!

 

[PaulaJ]

I tried to reply to this but it didn't take, so I"m trying again... if two replies show up, that's what happened.
I had my new widescreen TV installed last night, and after the technicians left, I had fun playing around with various DVDs. I was rather disconcerted to find that several DVDs labeled 1:85 anamorphic actually had 1:76 transfers that filled up the entire wide screen. Case in point: Evolution. Box says 1:85, transfer is 1:76.
Why do they label it 1:85 when it's not?
As an OAR purist, I see this as a frightening development. I want the full 1:85 transfer! I don't want cropping down to 1:76. To be honest, I LIKE the black bars. I don't even mind the gray bars on the side if I'm watching an old 1:33 movie or TV episode.
This seems like a dangerous trend, is it another battle we're going to have to fight?

 

[Derek Miner]

As an OAR purist, I see this as a frightening development. I want the full 1:85 transfer! I don't want cropping down to 1:76.

They're not cropped. They either do use slight black bars (I see this often) or they let more picture information on the top/bottom.

 

[John Berggren]

If the Sony device is truly coming soon, that will be an awesome development.

 

[John J Nelson]

What's wrong with black bars anyway? A brother's gotta have somewhere to get a drink...

 

[SteveK]

For those that don't like "black bars", it's a shame the black bars at the top and bottom can't be (optionally) combined either above or below the image...and then used as a PIP area for the input from the television. After all, that would at least be a much larger insert picture than you currently see on PIP inserts.

Personally, I think PIP is a gimmick, but it seems to be a fairly popular one. And by combining the black bars and then displaying a PIP, that would result in the full screen being filled.

A silly idea I know, but so is Pan& Scan.

Steve K.

 

[Kyle McKnight]

I wonder if front projection televisions were the norm, if people would complain that the image projected doesn't completely fill their projection screen. BTW, please note this isn't referring to Andy, just I didn't think it deserved its own thread.

 

[PaulaJ]

>They're not cropped. They either do use slight black bars (I see this often) or they let more picture information on the top/bottom.

Still not OAR, though.

 

[Jack Briggs]

Post by Robert Harris = the last word. In other words, what Mr. Harris said.

Remember, as was stated, the soon-to-be-standard 1.78:1 widescreen television aspect ratio cannot accommodate all aspect ratios perfectly. There will always be black bars.

For an extreme example, why not load Ben-Hur into your player and watch it on a 1.78:1 display? You will note the need for letterboxing.

 

[Alex Spindler]

Paula, I think the proper aspect ratio is there, but the overscan of the TV compensates for the ratio differences. Looking on a computer monitor, I'm pretty sure you will find the proper 1.85:1 ratio (due to no overscan).

So, I wouldn't get mad quite yet.

 

[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.

Because of the usual overscan, a slight difference in AR between movie (1.66:1 or 1.85:1) and TV screen (16:9) may not cause "black bars". That's why I wrote "considerably different".

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Alex: Sometimes, but not usually. Warner Bros. is notorious for formatting 1.85:1 pictures to 1.78:1. The loss is less than 4%, so while I don't like it, I think we have bigger battles to fight.

 

[Greg_R]

Make sure that your TV isn't zooming in on the image to eliminate black bars on 1.85:1 material (you should still see some)...