Widescreen TV

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Rickles

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#10889 18-Dec-2006 09:39

Hi TV mavens,

Quick question about TV aspect ratios and "letterboxing". I appreciate that many movies, TV programs, and advertisements thesedays are filmed in a widescreen format that when displayed on a standard TV set (4:3) will have black bands top and bottom so as to preserve/present as near as possible the original filming format (16:9).

I was also under the impression that the widedscreen LCD/plasma/hd TV's now available will show these productions as full-screen because the screens conform to the 16:9 format.

However, this weekend whilst looking at a number of widescreen TV's I noticed many playing DVD movies etc also had black bands top and bottom, thus, to my mind, reducing the picture height even more than perceived if the same movie was being played on a standard TV set.

What am I missing here? Are movies/DVD's/TV programs being produced in other aspect ratio formats that widescreen TVs can't handle? I assumed a widescreen TV would either automatically switch or at least offer the opportunity to change the display for both full-width and full height?

Thanks guys,

chiefie

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#55758 18-Dec-2006 09:58

Not all movies from cinema/dvd are in exact 16:9 ratio, most (cinema movies) are in 2.35:1 (anamorphic widescreen).

Easiest to understand different widescreen modes is best read the links below:

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sbiddle

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#55760 18-Dec-2006 10:28

And many stores may also have the TV set up incorrectly so they are not playing 16:9 stuff in the proper mode so there are still significant bands at the top and bottom. Most TV's also have a zoom function to remove the bars on 2.35:1 stuff.

lchiu7

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#55761 18-Dec-2006 10:29

I find this site to be very interesting when considering widescreen movies etc.

http://www.widescreenmuseum.com/

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Rickles

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#55769 18-Dec-2006 12:11

Thanks to you all for helpful replies ... I will go through the web sites suggested

richms

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#55899 19-Dec-2006 19:56

Its worse on TV then dvds, since all the stations routinely broadcast letterboxxed stuff, but send no WSS signalling to let the tv know that it is letterboxed and to shift to cropping the top/bottom off vs pillarboxing it.

Then there is sky where they broadcast center cropped shows on national geographic and discovery so that you are missing the first few letters of peoples names etc.

If you do get a widescreen, be prepaired to spend a lot of time changing the aspect yourself on it.

Richard rich.ms

Rickles

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#55917 20-Dec-2006 09:26

Do the latest widescreen TV's have some sort of aspect control?

At the moment only my DVD player has a setting for letterbox or normal or widescreen, and then applies to the DVD being played through it.

I appreciate that the "zoom" feature can also be used to increase height with a slight loss of width, but the ideal I would have thought is a full-screen of picture <g>?

R.

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#55918 20-Dec-2006 09:50

The Philips that we have has Auto-Zoom feature and it fills the screen up to the visible bits, it will remove the black/dark border... works for most letterboxed programmes but sometimes some darker scenes do get "cut off" at either top or bottom or both. I keep my setting at Widescreen mode instead of Auto-zoom though. It also have 14:9 and 16:9, Subtitle Zoom etc.

Best you check out them all out in the store and go through each tv and see the effect that way. I'd prefer Philips, Samsung, Sony, Panasonic in that order.

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#55929 20-Dec-2006 11:50

We had analogue TV and used zoom (i think) so that 16:9 (and it variants) played correctly but any 4:3 material is stretched to fill the screen. The Sony we have seemed to do a good job of stretching the image and quite quickly you get used to everyone looking a bit fatter

We now have Telstra digital which controls these options from the STB. We now get that to do the stretching.

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chiefie

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#55931 20-Dec-2006 12:05

oh yeah. i forgot the TCL Digital STB does that... and yes, we have that feature on too... guessed we've already got used to the "wider" view of all 4:3 broadcast.

I don't think the 4:3 stretched to 16:9 is bad, beside it makes all the hunks look even hunkier! Looks like they've gone through instant-lat-workout to develop wider/broader shoulder and chest/back (depending on which angle of view you are looking at)... Hehehe

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#55933 20-Dec-2006 12:10

richms: Its worse on TV then dvds, since all the stations routinely broadcast letterboxxed stuff, but send no WSS signalling to let the tv know that it is letterboxed and to shift to cropping the top/bottom off vs pillarboxing it.

The latest Sky STB firmware update fixes this problem but isn't 100% effective since some stuff is received direct off the sat incorrectly.