Don't understand why not full screen....

[mrhoni]

I was watching Doom from the PPV channel - it was SD not HD. I have a widescreen Panasonic plasma HDTV. I don't understand why letterbox doesn't fill the full screen of this tv. I tried full zoom as well as the other aspects but I ended up leaving it at the 4:3 as I didn't like the results of the other aspects, which also didn't fill the full screen as I might have thought.

Can someone explain why this is so? I thought that was the purpose of a widescreen tv to see the letterbox better - to fill the full 16:9

Can you explain when the screen would be filled in and when it won't? It seems that the HD items I view are filling the full screen, but how about situations on SD

thanks

 

[HokieEngineer]

According to imdb, Doom was filmed with a aspect ratio of 2.35:1. Widescreen TVs have a ratio of 1.78:1. Thus, even if you zoom the PPV letterbox showing, you'll still have black bars on top and bottom. Of course, you'll get rid of the bars on the sides.

If you do the same thing with a movie that was filmed with a ratio of 1.78:1, it will fill your whole screen when you zoom it.

 

[waltinvt]

Most theater releases are not the same aspect ratio as a widescreen tv but the 16:9 of the tv comes much closer than the almost square 4:3 tvs.

HD is broadcast at 16:9 but most theater movies are 2.35:1, so if it's shown at it's original true AR, there will be narrow black bars top & bot. They probably won't hurt anything and you won't notice them 5 minutes into the movie. It means you're watching the movie the way the director intended it to be seen.

 

[Greg Mueller]

Just to add

There are two ratios that are used in commercial film projection. 1:85 (referred to as flat) and 1:2.35 referred to as scope) 16x9 TVs are about 1:78
1:85 has about the same aspect ratio as a business card. Where 1:2.35 has the aspect ratio of a dollar bill.

My home theater (one of my other hobbies)
http://www.muellersatomics.com/homepage/movie.htm

 

[John Kotches]

Mrhoni:

Depending on the age of your plasma, it is possible that if you're using an older set, it cannot stretch on a DVI/HDMI input.

The receiver should be able to stretch the output anyway.

Regards,

 

[mrhoni]

Thanks for the input. The TV is new. I had tried stretch but I'm not thrilled with stretch.

I guess I wondered why the TVs were not designed to match the letterbox size that movies are distributed versus 16:9. The idea being you rent a DVD and it will naturally fit the screen.

I thought widescreens (and that size ratio) started coming out before HD was available.

 

[Jordan420]

There is no set aspect ratio for films Most but not all HD is 16:9, but there are some IMAX HD movies filmed in 4:3, not all DVD are will fill your whole screen either. If your DVD movie has an aspect ratio of 2.35 there will be bars at the top & bottom

When Gary posted above he inadvertently used a semicolon( : ) when he meant to use a decimal (.)

A 16x9 TV or 16:9 or 1.78:1 (16 divided by 9 = 1.77777) is close to 1.85(1.85:1) but if you had your plasma set to zero overscan you would also see very small black bars on all your DVDs but since 1.78 is close to 1.85 the bars are not shown due to the over scan of your set. When you watch a movie that has an aspect ratio of 2.35 (2.35:1)the picture is much wider than it is tall so you get bars for the picture to display correctly

The reason you do not see bars at the movies is because they open the masking around the screen just enough so the amount of screen visible matches exactly the aspect of the film being shown, what ever it is

here is a link that explains it better than me
http://www.rexer.com/cine/oar.htm
http://www.widescreen.org/aspect_ratios.shtml

Jordan

 

[abricko]

I think I understand his question. He's (basically) asking why do (most) movies which appear to be letterboxed show up letterboxed (on all sides) on a 16:9 tv. If that's the question... the answer is that all the SD channels are brodcasting it (pre) letterboxed to your tv.

Example, take a properly formatted (enhanced for widescreen/anamorphic) DVD, play it on a 4:3 TV you'll see a letterboxed image (the DVD player does the letterboxing or shrinking to fit it to your tv resulting with black bars on top or bottom, that's why there are options in most DVD players asking you how it should attempt to display anamorphic content on a 4:3 TV either: letterbox or Pan and Scan) now if you were to take that already letterboxed output and broadcast it, on the other end you'll get a picture which looks exactly like that (what dish is showing).

Now what I don't understand is why do (non-HD) E* receivers have an option for *TV Type* allowing you to choose 4:3 or 16:9 when it does nothing. In theory they could send us anamorphic (non pre-letterboxed) content to our receiver and then (if that *TV Type* setting worked like a DVD player's works) output either a letterboxed or pass anamorphic to the TV.

The bottom line is when you see the black bars on a SD channel (or on a pre-letterboxed DVD) your only option to remove the bars and better fill your screen on a 16:9 TV is to use a zoom method, which as you've stated causes the (already low PQ, thanks to Dish) to look very soft. Lets also hope for more HD channels (even if they to be HD-Lite) because at least they are framed properly and produce a better framed image on 16:9 TVs.

Update: here's a link to a kind of lame slideshow, but it'll explain it better (visually which helps): What is Anamorphic Widescreen?

 

[mrhoni]

Abricko,
I think you got it. What you stated makes sense. It was sent letterboxed on an SD channel. On purpose, I picked letterboxed version. An correct, I didn't like the results of zooming.

The other answers helped as well as it seems that if I had rented this particular movie on DVD I would have still had bars on the top and bottom.

I had also made a generalized assumption that the 16:9 design of the TVs was for the reason to match the movie/letterbox format.

If I understood the answers then many times the movie will almost totallly fill the screen but other times movies are created in a different ratio that causes more bar width at the top and bottom.

Thanks.

 

[bhelms]

Burn-in concern?

I ended up with an LCD vs. plasma so I didn't keep on top of another consideration. With the OP's situation, is he also perhaps concerned about burn-in on a plasma screen if the gray bars are there too much of the time? Has plasma gotten over this hurdle yet?

 

[Tom Bombadil]

New plasmas are more burn-in resistant, but the potential for burn-in is still present. The gray bars are a way to fight burn-in, black bars are your worst enemy. That and constant images like game readouts, channel logos, and news tickers.

If he were to watch a lot of programming where the letterboxed widescreen was within the 4:3 SD "box", so that there were black bars on all four sides, then yes, he could see burn-in effects on the portion of the screen where the small letterboxed image is displayed.