What resolution is 2.35:1?

[vicdog]

Okay. So we buy a 1080p tv. That is the number of horizontal lines drawn, correct? 1920 is the Vertical. 1920 wide by 1080 tall or 16:9.
What happens when it is wider than 16:9 and there are top and bottom black bars? What resolution are we viewing? Don't monitors look best at their native resolution? Does this apply to a tv?
What about when wider format TVs come out?

Can anyone shed some light on this for me please?

Thanks

[Trogdor2010]

Since the aspect ratio of 2.35:1 (or 2.39:1 AKA Scope) is wider than the 16:9 televisions virtually most people here are accustomed to, the horizontal resolution is still the same as the source (1920 pixels for blu rays). Typically a 2.35:1 image should have around 800-820 vertical pixels depending on the exact shape (817 is the closest to 2.35:1 IMO).

The blu ray format is done for non-anamorphic applications, the 2.35:1 movies do not have a resolution of 1920x1080, unlike DVDs that do it with 16:9 and 4:3, which both version have a native resolution of 720x480, although the image on both were never square if you were to show it in it's native form. It's why you never see DVDs done in a 854x480 resolution. There is still a lower resolution with 2.35:1 content however.

If blu rays were done on an anamorphic format to accomodate the new 21:9 panels and CIH Anamorphic lens sets, scope films would have used the full 1080p signal from the blu ray. They won't do it since to make blu ray anamorphic would be to require every blu ray player (even old discontinued ones) to be updated to function under the new anamorphic blu rays. It would be a hellstorm to make everyone agree to.

The only possible way to get the anamorphic HD movies is through PC, and virtually all the content is online, often in pirating/torrent websites. Often you can get better results by going for 2560x1080 video files, and 1920x810 movies stretched with an Anamorphic lens looks perfectly fine, just as good as having them with the black bars.

[OrlandoEastwood]

I would say 1920x818. That's what the mastering resolution was for when I was reframing my film to scope from 16:9.

[ZoetMB]

It actually should work out to 817 vertical pixels for 2.35:1 and 803 for 2.39:1.

An early Cinemascope film (2.55:1) should use 753 vertical pixels and an Ultra-Panavision (2.75:1) should use 698 vertical pixels. Of course if they do any cropping or use more of the background frame than intended, the pixel counts will vary a bit.

A spherical 1.85:1 movie should use 1038 vertical pixels.

However, none of this really changes the resolution. You still have the same number of pixels per viewable inch. It's just that there are fewer viewable inches on widescreen films.

When HDTV formats were developed, the Director's Guild had wanted a 2.0:1 AR. It's too bad they didn't go with that and make the sets 1080 x 2160. Then a 2.35:1 image would have used 919 of the 1080 vertical pixels (85%) instead of the current 817 (76%), although 1.85 would have been 1080 x 1998 using all the vertical pixels but 92.5% of the horizontal, instead of the current 96% of the height, although we'd still be stuck with 1.85 images that are larger than 2.35 images, which is wrong, but there's no way around that unless you have at least a 2.35:1 monitor, like the 21:9 monitors that are coming.

[Alan Brown]

It's simple math. Divide the number of pixels in the available screen width (1920, 1280, etc.) by the aspect ratio width (1.85, 2.0, 2.35, 2.40, etc.).

[dobyblue]

Originally Posted by Alan Brown

It's simple math. Divide the number of pixels in the available screen width (1920, 1280, etc.) by the aspect ratio width (1.85, 2.0, 2.35, 2.40, etc.).

I think what's being asked is what is being encoded. Are 2.35:1 Blu-ray's encoded anamorphically so that they're actually 2538x1080 for example? So for 2.39:1 TV's would you set your player to be 2.39:1 and you'd get the benefits of the extra resolution on a pixel by pixel basis or would you simply be stretching the 1920x817 signal, in essence gaining no resolution.

It's an interesting question for those that think 2.35:1 monitors are the next best thing.

[Alan Brown]

Originally Posted by dobyblue

I think what's being asked is what is being encoded. Are 2.35:1 Blu-ray's encoded anamorphically so that they're actually 2538x1080 for example? So for 2.39:1 TV's would you set your player to be 2.39:1 and you'd get the benefits of the extra resolution on a pixel by pixel basis or would you simply be stretching the 1920x817 signal, in essence gaining no resolution.

It's an interesting question for those that think 2.35:1 monitors are the next best thing.

Blu-ray Disc does not encode for anamorphic stretch, like DVD can. My answer remains the same for the 1920 X 1080 Blu-ray Disc format. The math is straightforward. A wide screen imager chip in a projector, or one of the similar CinemaScope flat panels, can't add additional information to the encoded program. They simply re-scale the available native resolution from the disc to fill the imager.

[dobyblue]

Originally Posted by Alan Brown

Blu-ray Disc does not encode for anamorphic stretch, like DVD can.

And this makes sense because the players would need to have a "21:9" mode added to the display properties right, similar to the way current players you can select 4:3 or 16:9 displays.

I'm guessing to do anamorphic would require a whole new player and could render current players useless if they couldn't convert the 21:9 feed on the fly to a 1920x1080 envelope?