Watching movies letterbox/wrong aspect ratios. (1 Viewer)

[Colin Jacobson]

I can actually see that very very minute sliver of letterboxing when viewing content that doesn't 100-percent fill the 16:9 frame, but it's so subtle it doesn't bother me.

The same. My OLED shows a small "black box" top/bottom but nothing notable.

 

[jayembee]

That's why I was never bothered by the fact that some labels -- most notably Warner -- would transfer their 1.85 films at 1.78.

 

[Dennis Gallagher]

I try to embrace those films that were SHOT in 4:3 as their OAR when I view them with the pillarboxing -- I mentally sell myself on the fact that "this is how it was meant to be seen on your widescreen display," always going back to the fact that TCM and some other channels that show classics hard-code their transmission of such films with pillarbox bars.

What's weird is that some films in my collection that I THOUGHT were originally conceived for 4:3 and presented that way on DVD -- such as House on Haunted Hill, House of Wax, Night of the Living Dead and even some Kubrick films like The Shining/Full Metal Jacket -- were actually either re-released or WERE originally conceived in widescreen. For example, I always thought the original House on Haunted Hill was a 4:3 presentation natively, but then I came across the Warner Bros. DVD that exhibited it in a matted full screen transfer. Night of the Living Dead is another good example -- for the longest time, I thought the film was always meant to be shown in a 4:3 ratio based on all the public domain DVDs out there, but then I started to see the high def versions from Criterion, etc. pop up in which it was presented in 16:9 (unless I'm mistaken).

Now, I realize I am in a MASSIVE minority with regard to what comes next, especially on "OAR forever"-leaning sites like this one (and that's absolutely fine), but what I have been having a hard time getting my head around is the transition from 4:3 DVDs we had in our collection -- and there were a lot, because I started collecting them long, long before I met my wife and set up our current surround system with 4K hardware/software, being that I started off with a small Sony 4:3 tube set during the early days of collecting DVDs -- to the widescreen counterparts because my Panasonic player wouldn't auto-stretch them like the Oppos (or my own Cambridge CXUHD) did.

At any rate, I can't go into all that right now, but I will return when there's free time.

I assume you've perused Bob Furmanek's Aspect Ratio Documentation thread?

 

[JoshZ]

That's why I was never bothered by the fact that some labels -- most notably Warner -- would transfer their 1.85 films at 1.78.

Neither were most of the filmmakers whose 1.85:1 movies were released by that studio (and Paramount, which did the same thing).