Question about aspect ratios...

[Mocorongo]

I noticed that while watching Star Trek: TNG (not only that release, others in the same AR too) Blu-ray, my iPAD shows the picture like that:

Aspect Fit (this is the option that is configured by default in my iOS player)



As you can see, black bars on all sides. And the iPAD uses a 4:3 screen.

Notice the fingerprint smudges on the left side. Now look what happens if I select ASPECT FILL:



Picture is zoomed, however it doesn't seem to cut anything from it. This is what Star Trek: TNG should look like without any need to select the ASPECT FILL option.

This is, however, how DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS (1983 - DVD) looks in my iPAD:



Using the default ASPECT FIT option.

Please enlighten me, I am missing something... since both of them are in 1.33:1, why is that Star Trek: TNG looks smaller and requires me to apply zoom every single time?

[willbfree]

BluRays are always 1920x1080. Even if the content within only takes up a portion of that.

DVDs on the other hand started out as a 4:3 format and only years later were enhanced to also be able to output a widescreen format.

[JMDiaz718]

You may have to adjust the setting on the tv, or the setting on the bluray player. It depends. I'm lucky that I never seem to have that issue.

This is what my 3D tv set says (I always have mine set to 16:9):

[4:3 Letter Box
Select when a standard 4:3 TV is connected. Display theatrical images with masking bars above and below the picture.

4:3 Pan and Scan
Select when a standard 4:3 TV is connected. Display pictures cropped to fill your TV screen. Both sides of the picture are cut off.

16:9 Original
Select when a 16:9 wide TV is connected. The 4:3 picture is displayed with an original 4:3 aspect ratio, with black bars appearing at the left and right sides.

16:9 Full
Select when a 16:9 TV is connected. The 4:3 picture is adjusted horizontally (in a linear proportion) to fill the entire screen.]

Keep in mind, you have to adjust the setting on your player too.

[figrin_dan]

Originally Posted by willbfree

DVDs on the other hand started out as a 4:3 format and only years later were enhanced to also be able to output a widescreen format.

DVDs were/are always 4:3 and were/are always capable of being stretched to the width of a widecreen tv.

[oddbox83]

Yep. Black bars always encoded as part of the image on 4:3 Blu-rays as broadcast standard HD video has just the one ratio.

DVDs were always the same with support for anamorphic widescreen from day one even if some studios still insisted on using letterboxed masters for a while.

That aspect fill button does the job. It would be cropping the sides of a widescreen image but is fine for 4:3.

[steve_dave]

The simple yet technical answer:

Star Trek: The Next Generation is 1.33:1 16x9 formatted.

Dungeons and Dragons is 1.33:1 4x3 formatted.

What?

Nearly all encodes of 1.33:1 material on Blu-ray and some newer DVDs are done in a 16x9 frame where the black bars on the sides are part of the encoded information. This is done to allow for the picture to be 1080x1920 native, even though some resolution is lost to the black bars.

A majority of DVDs have 1.33:1 encodes done in a 4x3 frame. That means you get the full 720x480 in the image for 1.33:1 films. The black bars on the sides when viewing on a 16x9 TV are created by the display. Films in any other aspect ratio loses some resolution to black bars.

Basically:

The iPad has a square 4x3 frame or square so 1.33:1 material encoded 4x3 fits fully aka natively in that square. Its a square placed inside a square being displayed in a a square.

1.33:1 material encoded 16x9 will have bars on all sides because it doesn't fit natively. Its a square placed inside a rectangle being displayed in a square.

[Mocorongo]

(This image is a mess, sorry for repeating many times some technical terms)

In other words, if I want to use a 4:3 display for contents that have an OAR of 1.33:1, I always have to zoom the image?

Why they couldn't use 1440x1080 instead of 1920x1080? That would make the content suitable for both displays. Or that doesn't make any sense?

I am a little confused yet I think the way things are it's perfectly adjusted for 16:9 displays since the black bars above and below the picture will be gone since the picture is encoded for a 16:9 resolution, meaning it will have black bars only on the sides.

Still, the image looks smaller in any 4:3 TV. I know that aspect fill adjusts this the way it should be seen, the question is: applying this zoom shouldn't be something required (despite the fact the player can remember that everytime the file is being played again, if didn't record the setting that would be bad) and wouldn't this make the image looks worse, in terms of PQ? Or it's the same thing, just another way of adjusting the player?

I also raised this question because right now is very common to see 1.33:1 contents (old movies, TV shows) stretched to fill 16:9 TVs, and nowadays most people seem OK with that.

I thought there was something shady going on, and in the case of these 4:3 contents, I suspected they were not being released the way they should, I was thinking they did something to please 16:9 TV owners and messed with the AR.

[oddbox83]

Because Blu-ray has just one aspect ratio: 16:9.

[shinobipopcorn]

Think of it this way: movies in the golden days started out as Academy ratio, which is basically 4:3 (it's really 1.37 but it fits onto 1.33 without much loss).

Then TVs become popular in the 50s, leading to the movie studios saying "HEY, we have to do something or we're gonna lose them". So movies switch to 16:9 (which for simplification purposes covers 1.66, 1.78, and 1.85) and Cinemascope (think Sleeping Beauty, Lawrence of Arabia, and Rogue One), because more picture = more bang for your buck.

TVs stayed at 4:3 for decades until the 00s, because the technology didn't evolve past the CRT which displayed a squareish picture. When digital LCD came around, they chose 16:9 because it was the best middle ground. TV programs stayed at 4:3 because it was the standard in most homes (there are still some channels that broadcast in SD ratio) and have only recently moved to HD. DVD couldn't go straight to 16:9 because of this, but BD could.

[KMR]

NTSC DVDs are always 720 x 480 pixels. If the content is encoded as "normal" pixels, this will give a 4:3 image. If a widescreen film is encoded with normal pixels (i.e., not anamorphically enhanced for 16:9 displays), black bars above and below the image fill up the 4:3 frame. If the DVD is encoded as being anamorphically enhanced, then the pixels are stretched out horizontally when shown on a 16:9 display, to fill the entire width. (Black bars may still be on the top or bottom if the picture is wider than 16:9, or on the sides if it is narrower than 16:9--for example 1.66:1.) If a DVD player does not properly read an anamorphic DVD as such, it will show a "squeezed" picture (e.g., tall skinny people) on a 4:3 display. In order to show the picture in its proper widescreen ratio on a 4:3 display, the player and/or the TV will either discard several horizontal lines of pixels, or adjust the geometry of the individual pixels, depending on the technology being used in each of the devices.

Blu-ray does not have the normal vs. anamorphic pixel concept. It's 16:9 all the time. Pictures are generally framed to make the most of the real estate: 16:9 pictures fill the whole frame; anything narrower will fill the screen top to bottom and get black bars on the sides; anything wider will fill the screen left to right and get black bars on the top and bottom. The entire 16:9 image--including any black bars it may have--gets sent out to the display device. If that display device is narrower than 16:9 (very common for tablets) then the device is going to give black bars on the top and bottom to fill the rest of the screen. It won't know that there is a 4:3 image within the 16:9 data being given to it; for all it knows, there may be a 16:9 picture there.

[camerons]

Basically, the black bars are encoded into the Star Trek TNG to keep the 16:9 aspect ratio.

I rip and re-encode a lot of my Blu-rays to use in my Plex server, and I usually crop out black bars like this so they perform like your second example.

[Ed Strakers Wig]

Originally Posted by willbfree

DVDs on the other hand started out as a 4:3 format and only years later were enhanced to also be able to output a widescreen format.

While the basic dvd format always displays a 4:3 image it has also included a 16:9 anamorphic flag on most widescreen titles to allow for superior quality to letterboxing from day one.
Some studios like Columbia and Warner embraced the anamorphic presentation right from the start while others including Fox did not use anamorphic enhancement from day one resulting in inferior image quality that even when they were released would usually be recommended not to buy.

The US was slow compared to Europe in adopting widescreen so for quite a few years US buyers only still had an option to buy dvd's of many films in a cropped 4:3 format.