Why do I still have black bars on my 16:9 HDTV? (1 Viewer)

[William Lane]

My DVD player menu is set for a 16:9 TV yet when I watched a few of my DVD's (Gladiator, Armageddon-CC, T2) I still have small black bars at the top and bottom. I have a JVC 48" WS HDTV (AV48WP30) and the black bars are about 3-4 inches thick. The TV's aspect mode is set to 'full'. There is also a 'cinema' aspect mode on the TV that stretches the screen vertically to eliminate the bars but the actors look like coneheads. Part of the reason I bought a WS TV was to say goodbye to those annoying black bars. Am I wrong for assuming these DVD's would fill the entire screen or am I not setting my DVD player and/or TV right?

 

[Vince Maskeeper]

You're wrong for assuming that a 16x9 set will eliminate the bars. First and formost- double check to make sure the player is set to 16x9 mode (not 4:3)-- this won't eliminate the black bars, but will give you anamorphic output on anamorphic DVDs, increasing picture quality
However, 2.35:1 films (like Gladiator, Armageddon, T2) are wider than the 1.78:1 16x9 frame. In order to present the film in the proper shape without cropping, a small amount of unused space will exist above/below the picture area.
You will have bars any time the content differs in size from the shape of your screen.
If the content is wider (2.35:1 aspect films) you will have small bars at the top and bottom-- if it is narrower (like 4:3 normal TV programming)- you will have bars on the sides.
Here's some reading which might help:
http://www.hometheaterforum.com/htfo...threadid=76566
http://www.hometheaterforum.com/htfo...threadid=69492
http://www.hometheaterforum.com/htfo...threadid=69310
http://www.hometheaterforum.com/htfo...threadid=59882
http://www.hometheaterforum.com/htfo...threadid=69229
http://www.hometheaterforum.com/htfo...threadid=47685
http://www.hometheaterforum.com/htfo...threadid=76820
http://www.hometheaterforum.com/htfo...threadid=67391
http://www.hometheaterforum.com/htfo...threadid=79129
http://www.hometheaterforum.com/htfo...threadid=38567
http://www.hometheaterforum.com/htfo...threadid=18857
http://www.thedigitalbits.com/articl...hic/index.html
http://www.thedigitalbits.com/articl...ic235demo.html
(Note this has obviously come up once or twice before: I suggested in the "READ THIS FIRST" post on this forum that you do a search- if you had, all these links would have been presented.)

-Vince
PS: You should familiarize yourself with the anamorphic process for DVD. Of the 3 dvds you mentioned, Armageddon is not anamorphic- so you will use a different TV mode to properly format that film than you would use for T2 and Gladiator, which are anamorphic.

 

[William Lane]

Thanks Vince. I did browse the FAQ before posting but didn't find what I was looking for. I didn't realize this was such a big topic.

 

[Jeff Kleist]

Believe you us, it's hardly a week goes by when someone doesn't ask this question