high definition aspect ratio problems

[stow123]

Hi everyone ok whats putting me off blu-ray is that i dont think you can stretch narrow letterbox films upwards slightly.I do this with dvds using 4:3 wide option on my samsung plasma it stretches it vertically a little and just reduces the black bars a little without making the picture soft or cropping any off.What ive been reading is with some tvs you cant alter the 2:35 films at all over hdmi and blu ray.Im looking for a 1080P tv which can.Does anyone know of any tvs which do this or something similar.Theres the sharp 1080p's but theyve only got 14:9 option and all that does is give you the borders at the side instead of at the top,theres the samsung lcd 1080p's but i dont think they let you alter the picture size over hdmi like the plasmas do.Im hoping the sony's could let you do it or something similar,I just dont want to watch 2:35 with full size borders its ok if i can reduce them a bit,i know thats the true look of the film but i hate it.So if its a choice between watching dvds with only slight borders and watching blu ray with huge borders im edging towards keeping my dvds and not bothering with blu ray unless you can help me out.please help guys

[dobyblue]

I have no idea why you'd want to alter the stretch of the picture, which changes the resolution to be greater than what is on the disc.
2.35:1, 2.39:1 and 2.40:1 are the aspect ratio the director intended you to see the movie in. If you remove the black bars at the top you are either altering the aspect ratio and skewing the look of the movie, or cropping out about 20% of the movie.

Learn to enjoy the original aspect ratio of the movie. There are tonnes of threads on this and if you use the search function you'll pick up a bunch of them.

https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread.php?t=5306
https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread.php?t=5149
https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread.php?t=4038

[stow123]

well the borders are just too big for my liking ,as i said i was able to stretch the picture up a little with my plasma using 4:3 wide mode it didnt crop anything off or lose its sharpness

[Iceman_II]

I hate to say it, but I do believe that this thread is misnamed, having the player and TV display a picture in the Original Aspect Ratio really isn't a problem.

I also have to agree with Doby... learn to like the picture the way the director intended it to be seen... It never ceases to amaze me how many people would rather sacrifice picture quality just so they can get rid of the black bars (I know you said that there was no reduction in shapness... but there was, even if you didn't easily notice it, there has to be when you take ~800 lines, and expand them to 1080)

The "I want to watch what I want to watch and to heck with the way the director shot it" line of reasoning is eventually going to get the first part of the Wizard of Oz colorized!

Welcome to the board!