why must I crop my widescreen DVDs to fit on my HDTV

[BirdDad]

is there no standard for the way widscreen is displayed?
I am always having to crop out the black bars-it is really annoying
does hd dvd do this leave black bars that is
how about blu ray?

 

[cubby1223]

You should get a dvd player that upconverts to the max res of your hdtv. They'll take a widescreen dvd and fit it best it can on a 16:9 widescreen tv. Otherwise if the dvd player just outputs 4:3 picture, you'll have to hope your hdtv has a zoom feature to fill the screen.

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

Does it fill up your screen horizontally?

Widescreen movies come in several aspect ratios with 16x9/1.85:1 and 2.35:1 being the most popular ones.

16x9/1.85:1 movies will fill up your widescreen TV, but 2.35:1 movies will have black bars on the top/bottom even on a widescreen TV.

If you have bars on the sides on a widescreen movie on a 16x9 TV, then something's wrong. (Like the DVD player not set to 16x9)

 

[BirdDad]

I am using an upconverter DVD player
DVI output
still I have black bars

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

Originally posted by: BirdDad
I am using an upconverter DVD player
DVI output
still I have black bars

On the sides or the top/bottom?

You're watching widescreen DVDs?

 

[spidey07]

I hate to linke wiki, but this does a good job.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aspect_ratio_(image)

Do you have a widescreen TV and is your DVD player set to output widescreen (16x9) and are you purchasing widescreen DVDs? All of these need to be done.

Apart from that some movies are filmed with a screen wider thatn 16x9 and will have slend bars at the top and bottom of the screen. You don't need to crop/zoom or anything like that, the bars are totally normal and fine for these films.

 

[MustISO]

16x9/1.85:1 movies will fill up your widescreen TV, but 2.35:1 movies will have black bars on the top/bottom even on a widescreen TV.

No matter which format it is (HD-DVD, BluRay, etc) you'll always have bars top and bottom until TV's become wider or the directors start using only 1.85:1.

 

[BirdDad]

I have a widescreen tv
I have widescreen dvds
my dvd player is set to output at 1080i

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

So.... are the bars on the sides?

 

[spidey07]

Originally posted by: BirdDad
I have a widescreen tv
I have widescreen dvds
my dvd player is set to output at 1080i

Answer the question.

Is your DVD player set to output 16x9?

 

[FP]

Originally posted by: BirdDad
I have a widescreen tv
I have widescreen dvds
my dvd player is set to output at 1080i

Are you not understanding the questions being asked?

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

If your whole screen is shaped like this
https://mywebspace.wisc.edu/sp...6%20by%209%20Angle.JPG

and when you watch some widescreen DVDs, you get black bars like this
https://mywebspace.wisc.edu/sp...point35to1%20Angle.JPG

That's normal.

If you get bars on the Left and Right side, then some setting is not set correctly (most likely whether your DVD player is set to output 4x3 or 16x9)

 

[BirdDad]

yes it is 16:9 ratio
the black bars are on the bottom and the top not on the sides

 

[cubby1223]

that's because the dvd is not 16:9, it's probably 2.35:1. Different ratio. Black bars.

 

[BirdDad]

this happens with every DVD I own

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

Originally posted by: BirdDad
this happens with every DVD I own

A lot of movies are 2.35:1 (most of mine are)

I think most DVDs list the aspect ratio on the back. I don't know what size your collection is or what it's comprised of, but try to find one that says 1.85:1 instead of 2.35:1 to test it.

 

[tatteredpotato]

Anamorphic widescreen is wider than widescreen (16x9), so these movies will still have bars on your TV.

 

[vrbaba]

Most DVDs are NOT 16:9 ratio. Thats why u see the bars when watching on TV. An HD signal from tv channel is cropped or zoomed accordingly to fit the tv screen, thats why you dont see them when watching HD movie through TV, but in reality most ratios are not 16:9. Hence the bars. The wiki link is good source to read about it.

 

[JAG87]

For those who are misinformed in this thread, perfect widescreen is 1.78:1, not 1.85:1. The latter will still have thing black bars on top and bottom.

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

Originally posted by: JAG87
For those who are misinformed in this thread, perfect widescreen is 1.78:1, not 1.85:1. The latter will still have thing black bars on top and bottom.

And modern "2.35:1" DVDs are 2.39:1. I'm going off what DVDs have written on the back of them from my experience to not add another layer of confusion for the OP.

If he's getting bars from the difference between 1.78:1 vs. 1.85:1, I hope it wouldn't be threadworthy.

I haven't had to deal with 1.78:1 vs. 1.85:1 bars on my setup due to a little overlap that I do with my border masking system already and I think overscan has hidden it from me before on other sets.

 

[JAG87]

Originally posted by: YOyoYOhowsDAjello

Originally posted by: JAG87
For those who are misinformed in this thread, perfect widescreen is 1.78:1, not 1.85:1. The latter will still have thing black bars on top and bottom.

And modern "2.35:1" DVDs are 2.39:1. I'm going off what DVDs have written on the back of them from my experience to not add another layer of confusion for the OP.

If he's getting bars from the difference between 1.78:1 vs. 1.85:1, I hope it wouldn't be threadworthy.

I haven't had to deal with 1.78:1 vs. 1.85:1 bars on my setup due to a little overlap that I do with my border masking system already and I think overscan has hidden it from me before on other sets.

Thats correct, overscan usually hides the problem. But if you have a dvd player with X-Y axis scaling and zooming features you can shrink the image down until the sides touch the edge of the screen, and then you can clearly see that the 1.85:1 image does not fit perfectly and creates thin black bars on top and bottom.

And yes, the most common ARs found on DVDs are 2.35:1 and 2.40:1. 1.85:1 is pretty rare, and 1.78:1 is non existant. I think I only have a handful of DVDs with 1.78:1.

TBH i rather have the publisher leave the image untouched and uncropped on the disc, and let me decide what to do with it. so far so good.

 

[MrChad]

Originally posted by: ObscureCaucasian
Anamorphic widescreen is wider than widescreen (16x9), so these movies will still have bars on your TV.

False.

Anamorphic widescreen is stored as a "squeezed" picture on the DVD that the player stretches back out during playback to the correct ratio. Almost all widescreen ratios (1.78:1, 1.85:1, 2.35:1) benefit from anamorphic encoding because it maximizes the resolution of the final image.

An anamorphic 1.78:1 film will fill a 16:9 screen without black bars.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anamorphic

 

[PurdueRy]

Originally posted by: MrChad

Originally posted by: ObscureCaucasian
Anamorphic widescreen is wider than widescreen (16x9), so these movies will still have bars on your TV.

False.

Anamorphic widescreen is stored as a "squeezed" picture on the DVD that the player stretches back out during playback to the correct ratio. Almost all widescreen ratios (1.78:1, 1.85:1, 2.35:1) benefit from anamorphic encoding because it maximizes the resolution of the final image.

An anamorphic 1.78:1 film will fill a 16:9 screen without black bars.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anamorphic

True.

 

[Auric]

HDTV is not widescreen. /thread.


HDTV (1.78:1 aspect ratio) is narrower than the most common film format (1.85:1) and much narrower than real widescreen (2.39:1). Using the "fill" functions of the TV or player is not removing the blank space, per se, but cropping the content. Some may find that acceptable for 1.85:1 but doing so to widescreen content is barbaric. If the picture is too small then the display is too small. If "black bars" are an annoyance then the real problem may be OCD.

 

[SpongeBob]

Originally posted by: YOyoYOhowsDAjello
Does it fill up your screen horizontally?

Widescreen movies come in several aspect ratios with 16x9/1.85:1 and 2.35:1 being the most popular ones.

16x9/1.85:1 movies will fill up your widescreen TV, but 2.35:1 movies will have black bars on the top/bottom even on a widescreen TV.

If you have bars on the sides on a widescreen movie on a 16x9 TV, then something's wrong. (Like the DVD player not set to 16x9)

I still have black bars on the sides when viewing 2.35:1 DVD content. I have a Sony DVP-NC80V set to output 16:9 and an Olevia 537H display connected with component. This is with the display set to "Aspect" which I believe should push the content out to the sides and crop some of the letterboxing on top correct? What am I doing wrong?