WS monitor: should DVDs still have black bars?

[brikis98]

I'm running a Sony FW-900 24" widescreen CRT at 1920x1080 and watching some of my DVD's that advertise having a 16:9 widescreen resolution. While the black bars on the top and bottom are certainly smaller at this resolution than at 4:3 resolutions, they are still pretty noticeable. Should there be any bars or should the movie take up the entire screen? And if it should, what do I need to do to make it happen?

Edit: my vid card is an MSI x1900xtx, I'm on Windows XP using Cyberlink PowerDVD.
Edit 2: it only happens on some DVD's... e.g. The Shawshank Redemption takes up the full screen (no black bars at all) while Braveheart has fairly large black bars.

 

[1Dark1Sharigan1]

Is the aspect ratio messed up (i.e. does the movie looked stretched)? If it isn't then those movies that still have "black bars" on top and bottom are probably in 2.35:1 aspect ratio instead of 16:9 aspect ratio. I know for a fact that Paramount released Braveheart with it's original 2.35:1 ratio on DVD.

 

[brikis98]

braveheart doesn't look stretched, but what's wierd is it specifically says "Widescreen Collection" on the box and the special features on the back say "Widescreen Version Ehanced for 16x9"...

Edit: Saving Private Ryan takes up the whole screen (box says "1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen"), Fight Club does not ("anamorphic widescreen 2.40:1"), and The Matrix does not (no onfo on aspect ratio on box).

 

[n7]

Some movies are 1.77/1.85:1; other are 2.35/2.40:1

Likely your version of Braveheart is the 2.35/2.40:1 one.

 

[JBT]

Pretty sure Brave Heart was in 2.35:1 last time I watched it. So thats much wider than even your widescreen which the actual aspect ratio of 16:10. So you arn't going to get rid of black bars and not chop off parts of the edge of the movie. Also you should really be running 1920x1200 unsless you don't mind it stretching your video a bit... So even 16:9 movies should have bars.

 

[Rage187]

as noted, your monitor is 1920x1200, not 1080. All 16:9 movies will have bars.

 

[nullpointerus]

Originally posted by: JBT
Pretty sure Brave Heart was in 2.35:1 last time I watched it. So thats much wider than even your widescreen which the actual aspect ratio of 16:10.

It's called letterboxed, and it is billed as a feature. In ten years, we'll all be upgrading to superduper ultra widescreen UHDTVs with 21.3.1 surround sound and sofa rumbler jacks.

/dry-humor

 

[Auric]

Most displays sport a 1.78:1 aspect ratio. It is a compromise betwixt TV and film standards of 1.33, 1.37 and 1.85:1 so will never utilize all the available area except for video releases or films cropped to thus fill such 16:9 screens (similar to Pan & Scan being cropping to fill 4:3).

Films of the last half-century use higher ratio standards of 1.85 and 2.39:1 (or 2.35 pre-1970 ish) so will always result in unused vertical space and in your case with an apparent 1.60:1 display even more so.

"16:9 widescreen" is a misnomer as it pertains to unaltered film source DVDs but is used to differentiate from the equally misnomered "Full Screen" which as said denotes cropping to fill 4:3 narrow screen.

 

[jiffylube1024]

16:9 is 1.77:1 . 1.85:1 movies (about 40% of movies) scale to take up the whole screen on a 16:9 TV. However, the majority of movies today (>50%) are 2.35:1 or 2.40:1, meaning even on a 16:9 resolution you will still have bars...

"16:9 enhanced", "anamorphic widescreen", "enhanced for widescreen TV's", etc. means that the video is higher resolution than the standard letterbox format, which is whatever the aspect ratio is contained inside a 640X480 window. So a typical 1.85:1 movie in letterbox (not anamorphic) will be ~640X340 resolution and a 2.35:1 movie in letterbox will be ~640X272 (terrible resolution).

At least with 16:9 enhanced you get 640X480 for 4:3 movies and 852X480 for 16:9 movies.

 

[TheRyuu]

I sure hope your using ffdshow to upscale it

Here's a guide written by me if you don't

 

[Slammy1]

Big bars on my copy of Braveheart on my 16:9 display. It's 2.35:1 like most epic films (Star Wars, LotR). Read about it here:
http://www.rexer.com/cine/oar.htm

 

[JRW]

Originally posted by: wizboy11
I sure hope your using ffdshow to upscale it

Here's a guide written by me if you don't

Yep ffdshow is great for improving video quality & sharpness.

 

[brikis98]

wow, excellent info there. thanks folks!

 

[NoStateofMind]

Ok, I have always wondered this. Why do people spend time watching the "black bars" (and complain), and not watching the movie?

 

[brikis98]

Originally posted by: PC Surgeon
Ok, I have always wondered this. Why do people spend time watching the "black bars" (and complain), and not watching the movie?

um... actually, i had owned all those movies and watched them on my normal 4:3 monitors and TV's w/o an issue. but since i recently got a widescreen monitor, i was under the (mostly wrong) impression that there should be no black bars. i "complained" not because black bars bother me that much, but because i thought something was broken/buggy. having said that, however, the more screen space you can get a movie to take up w/o distortion, the better it looks...

 

[JRW]

Yea the problem is most widescreen PC monitors use a funky 16:10 aspect which NO movies use natively ,so you're always going to have black bars unless you change the resolution to a 16:9 res,of course then the screen will be slightly 'stretched' out of proportion.