Do You 'Hide' The Black Bars When Watching Full Frame / 4x3 Material?

[Semp1]

I don't get how in the year 2012 when widescreens have pretty much been around long enough to be used to every thing by now people are still bothered by black bars at all. Who cares. Easy on the OCD people.

[Dreamliner330]

Originally Posted by Hillside Trece

It seems, according to all accounts and all the experiments I personally did with my setups, that native 1080p content -- whether full or wide screen -- simply cannot be stretched to eliminate the pillar or letter boxing as these ratios seem to be "baked" into the 1080p HD encode. With DVD, it was simply a matter of pressing the Zoom button on the TV or DVD player's remote, but with Blu-ray, no matter of fooling with either the display or player's Zoom modes will get rid of the letter or pillar boxing.

I have not found this to be true in my experience. Pressing the zoom button on the display should work, regardless of the content.

What do you have to realize is that '1080p' movies are really only 900 or so pixels of image, but the black bars are still part of the movie content, from the studio. Which probably is where your "baked" term is coming from.

Originally Posted by Semp1

I don't get how in the year 2012 when widescreens have pretty much been around long enough to be used to every thing by now people are still bothered by black bars at all. Who cares. Easy on the OCD people.

What surprises me, is that this forum is about pillarboxing, which is incredibly less obtrusive then letterboxing.

2.35:1 tv's are on their way... Wait for 4:3 on a 60" 2.35:1 panel

[crazyBLUE]

Black Bars don't bother me because they are not there. I am watching the movie

[Voltaire53]

Simple answer for me: Everything in OAR always (well, assuming the source is OAR!).

Any sort of 'boxing' is a tiny 'price' to pay to be able to see programmes and films as originally intended/made and, to me, the stretching of people/image to tall/thin or short/fat is incredibly offputting... I'll go further to say that to get as close as possible to the source I also usually turn off as many of the 'clever' features my TV has; high-Hz refresh; gone, false image sharpening; gone etc.

The only adjustment I ever make is zooming in on non-anamorphic widescreen DVDs as basically that's the equivalent of moving my chair closer to the screen...

[Alex_DeLarge]

Absolutely not. I use the 'just scan' option on the TV and let it work its magic. As annoying as 4x3 may be in this day and age, I'd still rather watch something without stretching it and losing clarity.

[necorbin]

+1 on leaving all video in the OAR... I'd prefer black bars over distorted images any day!

[Hillside Trece]

Originally Posted by Dreamliner330

I have not found this to be true in my experience. Pressing the zoom button on the display should work, regardless of the content.

This does not work on any of the equipment in my chain -- whether I press the "zoom" button on the display or player, native Blu-ray content will not stretch to eliminate the black areas (not going to get into the whole "why do you want to eliminate black areas" argument here though which the remainder of the thread appeared to be heading towards).

What do you have to realize is that '1080p' movies are really only 900 or so pixels of image, but the black bars are still part of the movie content, from the studio. Which probably is where your "baked" term is coming from.

I understand the black areas are still part of the film content -- but how it was explained to me after I had some issues with the aforementioned Casablanca was that 1080p content simply can't be "manipulated" via zoom or stretch features on equipment because the inherent material is simply "locked in" and you must view what's there.

What surprises me, is that this forum is about pillarboxing, which is incredibly less obtrusive then letterboxing.

2.35:1 tv's are on their way... Wait for 4:3 on a 60" 2.35:1 panel

Indeed, it is surprising that this thread was initially about pillarboxing 4:3 material (I'm assuming you meant "this thread" and not "this forum") not letterboxing and widescreen material, but I still stand by the...

To be continued when I get some more sleep.....

[Canada]

OAR or bust!

[ariakon]

I'm going to act like a rich douche for a moment even though I'm actually quite lower middle class, but my digital projectors can switch between 4:3 and widescreen, fa fa fa!

Of course, I only have one actual screen for the projector, and it's 16:9, so it doesn't much matter.

[Trekkie313]

I had to when watching Law & Order season 2 on Netflix, for some reason it's 4:3 instead of taking up the whole screen like every other season.

I zoom in on some episodes of Seinfeld and ST:TNG.

[GamerBoy14]

I'm watching a 4:3 film now, and since watching a couple of recent movies with the same aspect ratio, one question came to mind; what's the point in the different aspect ratios? I know that the first answer to that is because it helps tell the story, but is there an answer more detailed than that? For example, what could be the motivation to film in 4:3 over 2:35:1, vice versa.

[Atreyu]

I love the OAR whether the bars are on the top and bottom or the sides makes no never mind to me as I watch what is inbetween the bars.

[Trekkie313]

Originally Posted by GamerBoy14

I'm watching a 4:3 film now, and since watching a couple of recent movies with the same aspect ratio, one question came to mind; what's the point in the different aspect ratios? I know that the first answer to that is because it helps tell the story, but is there an answer more detailed than that? For example, what could be the motivation to film in 4:3 over 2:35:1, vice versa.

Most material that's in 4:3 is either low-budget, before the age of a standardized OAR or widescreen TV.

To simply put it, widescreen makes films seen more epic and larger than life.

[alwaysHD]

Originally Posted by canada

oar or bust!

+1

[GamerBoy14]

Originally Posted by Trekkie313

Most material that's in 4:3 is either low-budget, before the age of a standardized OAR or widescreen TV.

To simply put it, widescreen makes films seen more epic and larger than life.

Figured that was pretty much it. Thanks.

[steve1971]

Originally Posted by Trekkie313

Most material that's in 4:3 is either low-budget, before the age of a standardized OAR or widescreen TV.

To simply put it, widescreen makes films seen more epic and larger than life.

Agreed.

[Deciazulado]

Originally Posted by GamerBoy14

I'm watching a 4:3 film now, and since watching a couple of recent movies with the same aspect ratio, one question came to mind; what's the point in the different aspect ratios? I know that the first answer to that is because it helps tell the story, but is there an answer more detailed than that? For example, what could be the motivation to film in 4:3 over 2:35:1, vice versa.

In the beginning there was a thumb and an index finger. How big do you want it? "About this big" 4 film sprockets made for a ~18 x 24mm image (1.33) in a 35mm wide film carrier that had barely more than 24mm of space between the sprockets.

When movies got sound about 30 years later they put an optical soundtrack on the left of that space, covering a few mm of the image so the now ~18mm height x 21mm width was about 1.2 wide but since that was almost a square, in 1930s Studios decided to reduce the height too to make the shape more like it was before. So in 1931 ~15mm x 21mm (1.37) became the "Academy" ratio for sound movies.

TVs started as round tubes and settled on the 1.33 shape of the Silent movies.

After a few years, with the increasing popularity of TV, the film studios, wanting to compete with it, specially with the big success of the superwidescreen "This is CINERAMA" in 1952, decided to entice audiences with bigger wider colorful stereophonic 3-D offerings that plain square b/w TV couldn't even dream of offering then.

Various film formats and shapes were tried but basically two have settled out as the "winners": 1.85 "Flat" (using a flat lens that zooms the center part of the 35mm 1.37 image) and "Scope", using an anamophic lens that expands the squarish 35mm image 2X horizontally for a wider shape Originally anamorphic projection was 2.55 with magnetic sound, reduced to 2.35 with the optical soundtrack added a couple of years later, then after 1971 the height was trimmed a little, to 2.39 to hide film splices.

And HDTV was made 1.78

So depending on the year and the format it was made and for what (theatrical or TV) different movies have different shapes. For the last 50 years theatrical movie directors can chose between a wide format (1.85) and a wider format (2.4) to what better fits their story. Supposedly Scope for bigger grander epic scale movies and flat for more intimate subject matter so the story goes, but it's not always the case, you know they all mix and match.

If for TV they did in 1.33 and then at one point they started changing to 1.78 for HDTV.

[GamerBoy14]

Originally Posted by Deciazulado

In the beginning there was a thumb and an index finger. How big do you want it? "About this big" 4 film sprockets made for a ~18 x 24mm image (1.33) in a 35mm wide film carrier that had barely more than 24mm of space between the sprockets.

When movies got sound about 30 years later they put an optical soundtrack on the left of that space, covering a few mm of the image so the now ~18mm height x 21mm width was about 1.2 wide but since that was almost a square, in 1930s Studios decided to reduce the height too to make the shape more like it was before. So in 1931 ~15mm x 21mm (1.37) became the "Academy" ratio for sound movies.

TVs started as round tubes and settled on the 1.33 shape of the Silent movies.

After a few years, with the increasing popularity of TV, the film studios, wanting to compete with it, specially with the big success of the superwidescreen "This is CINERAMA" in 1952, decided to entice audiences with bigger wider colorful stereophonic 3-D offerings that plain square b/w TV couldn't even dream of offering then.

Various film formats and shapes were tried but basically two have settled out as the "winners": 1.85 "Flat" (using a flat lens that zooms the center part of the 35mm 1.37 image) and "Scope", using an anamophic lens that expands the squarish 35mm image 2X horizontally for a wider shape Originally anamorphic projection was 2.55 with magnetic sound, reduced to 2.35 with the optical soundtrack added a couple of years later, then after 1971 the height was trimmed a little, to 2.39 to hide film splices.

And HDTV was made 1.78

So depending on the year and the format it was made and for what (theatrical or TV) different movies have different shapes. For the last 50 years theatrical movie directors can chose between a wide format (1.85) and a wider format (2.4) to what better fits their story. Supposedly Scope for bigger grander epic scale movies and flat for more intimate subject matter so the story goes, but it's not always the case, you know they all mix and match.

If for TV they did in 1.33 and then at one point they started changing to 1.78 for HDTV.

This really explained any questions that I could've possibly had left, so thanks a lot. I really appreciate the detailed explanation.

[fieldofstones]

Perhaps my post was not meant for this specific thread but it was related to something Trece mentioned.

I am also a firm believer in proper aspect ratio. But my query was more of a "wonder" because something was different than what I remembered.

I would definitely want my ST:TOS Blu-rays to not be stretchable by any means and that's what it did when I first bought them. I would only play around with the aspect ratios just for that: To play around with them and see what it looks like in different modes. It was interesting that no matter what I tried for ST:TOS, I could not change the aspect ratio.

To preserve my plasma TV as much as possible, when my young son watches 4:3 material, I'll stretch or zoom it because it doesn't matter to him and it does matter to me whether he watches it in OAR.

So when I recently discovered that I could stretch and zoom ST:TOS BDs to fill the screen, I wondered why. What change in setting (player, receiver, TV) could possibly allow this to happen?