Hi
I just bought a wide screen tv but movies don’t actualy fit. It either has bars on top and bottom or it cuts off the sides. Whats the deal? Can’t they make tvs and movies the same?
thanks
Ed
Basically, there are a lot of different aspect ratios (width-to-height ratios) for movies. I think the historical reason was that the movie industry considered the emergence of television to be a threat to their theatrical releases, so they tried to offer something different by giving you a wider picture in the theater.
Blah blah blah, fast forward a few decades you basically end up with an annoying crapload of available resolutions. Standard TV is 4:3, HDTV is 16:9, widescreen computer monitors are 16:10, and movies can be 4:3, 16:9, 2.35:1, 1.85:1, or god knows what else.
If you look at the back of DVD cases, it tells you which aspect ratio is used. But I think the only one that gives you a full, undistorted and unletterboxed picture is 1.78:1, which is relatively uncommon as far as I know.
Wikipedia has an article on aspect ratios if you want more to read.
There are several problems here. Not everyone buys a new “wide screen” tv at the same time you did. So the broadcasters are stuck with some customers who have 4:3 sets and some who have 16:9 sets. Not everyone can be happy.
Next. Source material was made in various formats, as mentioned above. If everyone had the same display aspect ratio, then the broadcasters could convert it all for you, but for now a lot is going to go out in 4:3.
This is kind of true. However, I don’t think that the OP is having problems only with 4:3 programming.
To the OP, is your new TV high definition (identified as either 720p, 720i, 1080p, or 1080i)? If so, it is ready for 16:9 broadcasts. Are you feeding it an HD source? This can be from over the air (OTA) broadcasts or from your cable or satellite box. If you’re using a box, be sure to tell it the aspect ratio of your TV. There should be a setting in there somewhere.
Next, you can set your TV to stretch 4:3 images to 16:9. At first, you may not like the picture. It makes everything a bit wider. After about two weeks or so, you won’t even notice.
Some programs, however, won’t stretch. For example, some programs on ESPNHD are in 4:3 and have an ESPN logo inserted on the right and left sides. The TV is serving you a 16:9 picture, so it won’t stretch it to fill. Some TV’s, however, will fix this, but yours may not. HBOHD simply adds black bars with no image at all to the sides of its 4:3 programming.
Some programs are letterboxed 4:3. The new Battlestar Galactica on SciFi Channel is an example of this. Since SciFi is not an HD channel, the program is delivered in 4:3. Your TV may stretch it horizontally, but that still leaves the black bars at the top and bottom. My TV has a “zoom” mode that makes those bars go away, but it makes the resolution a bit grainier, so I don’t use it much.
Lastly, some programs, such as theatrical movies, will be delivered in HD 16:9, but still be letterboxed. That is because the movie itself is wider than 16:9 and the broadcaster or DVD manufacturer chose to preserve the original aspect ratio and put the black bars in.
There is a website with an excellent discussion about aspect ratios. I’ll see if I can find it.
For now (possibly too late for you, though) the best way to think of a wide screen TV is that it is a large screen capable of displaying the source material in its original aspect ratio. Because this aspect ratio is likely to be different from the aspect ratio of your widescreen, some of the TV display area is going to be wasted. That is one of the reasons you should buy the very largest widescreen you can. What you are going to be looking at is usually some smaller image than the full display area.
Get comfortable with what the possibilities are and decide which one you prefer.
Here are a few:
-
Maintain the aspect ratio of the source and display the full content. This will leave bars on either the sides or the top. Some widescreens have grey bars–very annoying. Make sure the bars are black.
-
Use a zoom function to center your widescreen display on top of the source display. This will cut off either the sides or the top of the source image. On the cover of many DVD’s it will tell you if the distributor has already done this for you to make it easier to display the content on your full widescreen TV.
-
Use the TV function that stretches out the source image to fill in the area that would otherwise be black bars. This is amazingly popular even though I think it’s ridiculous. You’ve ended up buying a hi-def TV to look at short fat people, for instance. In one strategy the whole source is stretched equally and in another strategy only the sides are stretched so a guy in the middle has a normal face but a ginormous left arm at the edge of the screen.
For regular TV viewing consider buying a widescreen feed via cable or satellite or whatever. More and more content is being distributed for hi-def 16:9 as well as hi-def 4:3. Once you get addicted to 16:9 hi-def you won’t be satisfied with 4:3 hi-def and you will really despise regular 4:3, and then, like me, you are screwed. You’ll watch a crummy show in 16:9 hi-def over a good one in regular.
One more thing: sports really makes hi-def 16:9 worth it since in the States, at least, most major broadcasts on the weekend are hi-def 16:9.
Doesn’t really help a nerd like me who only watches golf…
As stated above, not every widescreen movie is the same. Basically, you have rectangles with different widths. You are trying to fit those different rectangles onto your fixed rectangle widescreen tv. Your options are to adjust the ratio on your tv so that it fits to cover the whole screen, however, your picture may be distorted or cut off in some way if you do that. I find this article to be fairly good about explaining the different aspect ratios, you might want to check it out: http://www.thedigitalbits.com/articles/anamorphic/aspectratios/widescreenorama.html
Arggh Arggh Arggh this is so lame it is unbelievable. Why are you getting a fancy HD TV? Presumably it is for the improved picture fidelity. Why would you setup your TV to distort the picture?
Gazpacho, I’m with you on that, but we did that debate in a pit thread back in January.
Why my parents, sister and her husband like to watch fat, squished images on their fancy, expensive televisions just so the picture covers the entire screen is beyond me. I’d rather set it up to see the picture the way the filmmakers intended it and set my screen to the correct ratio. So, if it’s in widescreen, I set it to a widescreen ratio, if it’s a regular tv broadcast, I set it to 4:3 and get the bars on the side instead of on top and bottom. My sister’s explanation: “I got a fancy, expensive tv so I could see it on the whole screen.” (Not, apparently, to get the best picture, but just to cover the most screen real estate :rolleyes: )
If the black bars really bothers you, just turn off as many lights as possible in the house. We do it when we’re watching movies and you don’t notice them.
Agreed, it’s the first thing I’d check. Does your DVD player know it’s connected to a wide screen TV? Use a 1.85 aspect ratio movie; it has almost invisible black bars at the top and bottom. If you’re getting visible bars with that, you need to change the settings of your DVD player.