The Fountain Aspect Ratio ?

[voiz]

Hi,

I just bought The Fountain and watched it on my brand new PS3. It actually is my first ever blu ray movie experience.

I don't know if anybody noticed this but here goes.

1. The Blu-Ray Box of the movie says the aspect ratio is 1.85:1

2. Normally, when i used to watch widescreen regular DVD movies in 1.85:1 on my LCD TV, there were small black bars on top and bottom, which is fine since it means it keeps the aspect ratio and doesnt zoom in or anything.

3. The Fountain movie played on my PS3, although it has a 1.85:1, did NOT have the black bars. The picture was fitting perfectly my 16:9 tv.

Why is that?! I felt like it was auto-cropping my image without me asking for it, and it looked like i missed some of the image too.

Any comment on that, please?


Thanks alot,
Eric

PS: No, my TV settings were not set as Zoom-in or fit screen or anything like that

[Blu Tiger]

Check the post on aspect ratio's and black bars. 1.85:1 is full screen on a 16:9

[calgarymarc]

Originally Posted by kiddtigger

Check the post on aspect ratio's and black bars. 1.85:1 is full screen on a 16:9

https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread.php?t=5528

[voiz]

Originally Posted by kiddtigger

Check the post on aspect ratio's and black bars. 1.85:1 is full screen on a 16:9

How come it was not full screen on a regular DVD but now it is on Blu ray?

Because all my 1.85:1 DVD have black bars when i watch them.

If they don't have black bars on a blu ray movie, does it mean I loose some of the image from the OAR?

[dialog_gvf]

Originally Posted by voiz

2. Normally, when i used to watch widescreen regular DVD movies in 1.85:1 on my LCD TV, there were small black bars on top and bottom, which is fine since it means it keeps the aspect ratio and doesnt zoom in or anything.

3. The Fountain movie played on my PS3, although it has a 1.85:1, did NOT have the black bars. The picture was fitting perfectly my 16:9 tv.

Why is that?! I felt like it was auto-cropping my image without me asking for it, and it looked like i missed some of the image too.

It could be an overscan setting on your set. Unless you're 1:1 pixel mapping, the overscan will play games.

Gary

[voiz]

Basically, my main concern is this:

Do i lose ANY part of the image when watching a 1.85:1 blu ray movie that fits perfectly my 16x9 HDTV?

[Blu Tiger]

Originally Posted by voiz

Basically, my main concern is this:

Do i lose ANY part of the image when watching a 1.85:1 blu ray movie that fits perfectly my 16x9 HDTV?

No. Are your DVD's Letterboxed? If not, I wonder if it has something to do with the fact that DVD's are only 480p, and a high def signal is widescreen (16:9) starting at 720p (I believe 480p is 4:3). Where is Dec when you need him?

[voiz]

Originally Posted by kiddtigger

No. Are your DVD's Letterboxed? If not, I wonder if it has something to do with the fact that DVD's are 480p, and a high def signal is 16:9 starting at 720p. Where is Dec when you need him?

Its getting confusing I know that my HDTV has 1080i and the movie is 1080p..

Dunno if it has anything to do with it.



And i was talking about any DVD i have watched... any of them as 1.85:1 had black bars.

[ClaytonMG]

Is it possible you never set your DVD player to 16:9 and you were just stretching the DVD's picture out? Were the DVD's anamorphic? Did 2.35:1 have bigger black bars?

[voiz]

Originally Posted by ClaytonMG

Is it possible you never set your DVD player to 16:9 and you were just stretching the DVD's picture out? Were the DVD's anamorphic? Did 2.35:1 have bigger black bars?

Yes, 2.35:1 had bigger black bars. In fact, the movies would be playing with black bars all around, but i would stretch it so i can have the black bars up and down only.

But we're going away from my main point. Do i loose any picture when a 1.85:1 blu ray movie is displayed full-screen on my HDTV (without stretching the image of course)?

[BLu-Balls]

Man that was a bad movie

[ClaytonMG]

You shouldn't be losing any picture. Well technically, sometimes TV's do have some overscan problems (mine was cropping off like 15% of the picture on all sides... YUCK!!! Thank God for the Service Menu) But you shouldn't really be losing much picture. A good way to check with this movie is to watch the end credits. They don't go up and down the screen so it'll be easy to tell if it's cutting off the top and bottom and you shouldn't be cutting any off the sides. As for the last post who said this movie was bad, I'd agree this movie is not for everyone. However, it is about as far from bad as you can get.

[ClaytonMG]

And I just thought of something. You said your movies had black bars all around? Are you sure you had your DVD player set to 16:9? Try watching one of those movies on your PS3 now. Pick one that's anamorphic and watch a scene from it. I bet there wont be bars (unless it's 2.35:1, then there should be bars on the top and bottom.)

[Forresttheman]

try that, your tv could be fit to show the movies in 4:3

[Amon37]

I think there is a setting in the PS3 for how DVD movies show. All 1.85 movies DVD or BD are full screen.

[voiz]

Ok, I think i understand now.

I set my DVD player to 16:9, which was never done. It was 4:3 letterbox, so this is why i had the black bars up and down. I just stretched the image.

So basically, there shouldnt be any black bars in a 1.85:1 ratio.

That makes alot of sense now.

[Blu Tiger]

Glad you figured it out. Yeah, It's like Dec said in his post: Anything that's between 1.66-1.85 wide should be full screen (no bars) on a 16:9 set.

[voiz]

But i still have to stretch the image to get a full screen, otherwise i have black bars on left and right..

(On regular DVD that is..)

But to know that a blu ray movie on my ps3 should not have black bars is kind of comforting

I guess its because its already set as 16x9 or something, which was not the case with my DVD player.

[Deciazulado]

Apart that an HDTV set might be over-scanning or not (it only takes 3.9% overscan to make a 1038 x 1920 pixel 1.85 movie fill your 16:9 screen) what also could be happening is that they transfered the movie opening the matte slightly (3.9% vertically ) to fill the screen (as the majority of 1.85 movies are shot on 1.37 cameras) similar to what happens when you watch them on an European ratio 1.66 screen (there you'd see about 10+% extra vertically)

*In the name of science rips up shrinkwrap

Yup the Fountain is in 1.78 on the disc.

[Deciazulado]

Originally Posted by voiz

But to know that a blu ray movie on my ps3 should not have black bars is kind of comforting

I guess its because its already set as 16x9 or something, which was not the case with my DVD player.

voiz hi.

DVDs (in the US) have an image that's transfered into a 1.5 wide frame of non-square pixels (480 x 720) and the images recorded on them are coded for either displaying that 1.5 wide "frame" on a 4:3 standard display or a 16:9 wide display (That's why you go select on the DVD player setting and tell it if you have a 4:3 standard or a 16:9 wide display) (you also tell it if you want 16:9 coded widescreen movies to be shown in pan scan or letterboxed into the 4:3 display, but most 16:9 DVDs in the US don't implement that option anyway)

Now, Blu-rays are recorded into a 1.78 wide (16:9 wide) square pixel frame of 1080 x 1920 pixels so they are not "coded" for 16:9. They are intrinsically going in directly as 16:9 wide images.

I mention all this because you said:

But to know that a blu ray movie on my ps3 should not have black bars is kind of comforting

That is only gonna happen with movies shot in the 1.66 to 1.85 widescreen ratios which have a shape very close to 1.78. They be from 1080 x x 1794 (1.66) to 1038 x 1920 (1.85) and with a little overscan on the set they will fill a 16:9 screen. (With less overscan, or on a 1:1 pixel mapping no-overscan display (for example, a computer monitor) you'll still see thin bars on those)

Some 1.66 to 1.85 movies might be transfered at 1.78 instead (see post above) and of course there's HDTV programming shot natively in 1.78 wide 1080 x 1920 too.

With old movies (pre mid fifties) (1.18, 1.33, and 1.375), TV programs (1.33), and with "Scope" type and 70mm movies (various aspect ratios ranging from 2.00 to 2.75) you'll have black bars because they would be, for example, 1080 x 1485 pixels for an Academy Sound 1.375 movie, or 803 x 1920 pixels for an analog sound Panavision 2.39 movie from the 70's on, etc, etc.

Wouldn't want you to be disappointed if you put in STAR WARS and saw the Star Destroyer in Panavision because it'll have black bars

(Unless you buy a Constant Height projector but that's another story)