Black bar haters MUST SEE THIS!

[TObject]

The problem with Blu-ray black bars is that they are encoded in the picture. If you were to get a 2.40:1 screen, you would still get black bars, unless you zoom in, and zooming in is bad for quality.

[Blu n Gold]

Pop in a disc...black bars - great watch the movie. No black bars - great watch movie. No difference to me.

[J6P]

Originally Posted by PA_Kid

This is such a BS argument. Where are the cries of artistic oppression on all the non-2.40:1 TV shows? Why does no one care that TV producers are being kept down???

Same reason that no producer in their right minds would decide to do a movie entirely in latin with no subtitles simply because it was part of their artistic vision - movies aren't JUST art, they are also business.

This artistic vision crap keeps getting trotted out when the truth of the matter is that writers, directors, and producers face things every day that they might like as part of their artistic vision (in a perfect world) but that already isn't an option. Why not shoot everything for Imax? Or in a 10:1 ratio? Or in 360 degrees like some stuff at Disney World? It's not practical, so the artist is already making their vision match with the tools at hand.

If theaters didn't already support things bigger than 16:9, absolutely no one would be complaining about fitting things into 16:9 - they would just do it. Just like you don't hear people complaining about how they can't film in 5:1 - I'm sure there is someone who would love to do it if the option was available.

Personally I don't care what the "standard" aspect ratio should be, but I don't think you are crippling an artist's standards by setting a standard ratio that would be consistent for TVs, television broadcasts, and movies.

You are making no sense.

Films are produced for the theater, not for your tv. The theater is a constant height environment, where variable widths are easily accomodated by exposing more screen. At home, they should be presented with all available information as seen in theaters, as the director intended -- Original Aspect Ratio.

Television shows are produced for your tv, not for the theater. The HD television standard is 16x9, so that's what they produce. 16x9. Original Aspect Ratio. Do you honestly not see the difference between the two applications or are you just winding us up?

[Marine Mike]

Originally Posted by JJxiv1215

Wait, this thread isn't about black bears and white bears?

+1

[BStecke]

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade is one of the best examples of P&S vs. widescreen. www.widescreen.org used to have a bunch of comparison pics, Last Crusade being one of them, but for some reason they've taken a lot of them down. The screen they had was when Indy and his father are on the motorcycle after escaping from the castle. In the widescreen version, you can see both Ford and Connery in the frame. In the P&S version, unless Connery is speaking, he's cut completely out of the frame. They've still got some caps up on that site, but nowhere near what they used to. I actually just emailed the guy to find out what happened to them.

The site also has video/audio from various directors regarding their choice for widescreen.

[Mxr5150]

Originally Posted by red_5ive

This is awesome! I still keep my old VHS versions of Excalibur, Indiana Jones: Last Crusade, and Ghostbusters so that I can show people the difference in certain scenes with the DVD WS versions. ....

For years I watched my original Ghostbusters VHS and there's that scene with Harold Ramis, Dan Akroyd, and Bill Murray in the elevator. On the original VHS they were all present but squeezed horizontally so they could all fit looking like they were stretched vertically. It wasn't until many years later that I got the DVD and was able to see what it was really supposed to look like.

[Lee Christie]

Originally Posted by TObject

The problem with Blu-ray black bars is that they are encoded in the picture. If you were to get a 2.40:1 screen, you would still get black bars, unless you zoom in, and zooming in is bad for quality.

*sighs* +1 for this, no.. +1,000,000. i noticed this on DVD and just assumed that Blu-ray would have variable video sizes... wrong As far as I'm aware most codecs can set the width and height to at least have ANY multipul of 4 or 8 or 16 or something (so it doesn't cut a macroblock on the spatial encoding, yes we covered image and video encoding theory at University), so if Blu-ray limits width to 1920 and a movie is in 2.39:1 that means the height should be about 803.34..., lets say 800, nice multiul of 16 so the macroblocks are happy. Who cares about 3.34 pixels, I don't. So they'd encode a video 1920x800 on to the disc, right? Nope, 1920x1080 with black bars.

Now, I'm sure the encoding is cleaver enough that black bars take up very little space, so I'm not going to argue it's a waste of storage capacity, but think about it logicly. What if my screen really WERE some exotic 2.39:1 screen (or more likely a windowed instance of powerDVD, not fullscreen. I'd get blackbars on the top and bottom (becausde they're on the disc) and black bars at the left and right (because my display/window misfits the disc), so i'm surrounded on all 4 sides with black bars. Now, if you think that situation is too far fetched, imagine the situation which really DOES happen, you're on a PC and black bars that are NTSC 0 show up as about RGB 16 I think and it's just akward to calibrate you you don't get DOUBLE bars (black and grey).

For goodness sake, if the visible, area of the film is 1920x800, then encode it as 1920x800, not 1920x1080 with black bars, the player/decoder can add the black bars in for you!!!** That way the black bars would show up as NTSC 0 on a TV and RGB 0 on a PC. What were they thinking?

** part of me thinks it's a marketing ploy, so they can't be sued for writing 1080 on the back of the case.

[Blu3]

I think what ticks off the general public is that after spending $$$ on a widescreen tv some of the screen is not being used when they watch a movie (even though they are seeing the full image, they are losing screen space that they paid for). Since the tv stretches the reg cable signal to fill the screen, it only further aggravates people since the high quality movie isn't as big on the screen as the reg cable. And since the general public knows nothing next to some of you video afficionados, they get pi$$ed at this (black bars) after buying a "widescreen" tv and a "widescreen" movie.

Artist representation choice freedom aside, the problem is too many damn formats along with a home tv widescreen format that is at the bottom of the scale used by the film industry. I only get upset at the black bars not because they are there, but because the size of the screen I have is as big a picture I want to see, and to actually do that means I have to buy something larger (which I can't do because what I have is what I could afford when I got it, and I have a 42" screen, imagine people with ~30" widescreen tvs...you have to sit closer to the tv when you watch a movie).

[PA_Kid]

Originally Posted by J6P

You are making no sense.

Films are produced for the theater, not for your tv. The theater is a constant height environment, where variable widths are easily accomodated by exposing more screen. At home, they should be presented with all available information as seen in theaters, as the director intended -- Original Aspect Ratio.

Television shows are produced for your tv, not for the theater. The HD television standard is 16x9, so that's what they produce. 16x9. Original Aspect Ratio. Do you honestly not see the difference between the two applications or are you just winding us up?

I'm not sure if you're agreeing with me or just making a different argument.

For the record, I'd rather have something in OAR with "black bars" than not. My issue was with the offense that's taken when someone suggests that all movies use some sort of consistent standard - and particular when the reason against it is "the artist's vision".

I agree that things that have already been filmed should be in OAR. But I also think it's a reasonable idea to suggest that film and tv use the same aspect ration in the future. And I think it's BS to say that the director is shooting in a ratio greater than 16:9 because that was his artistic vision. He's only shooting in something greater than 16:9 because it's an option in theaters. Were it not a viable option you wouldn't hear him on the commentary track complaining about how he wanted to film such and such scene in 5:1.

My point is that movies already have limits on them based on existing technology - asking directors to limit themselves to 16:9 isn't any more damaging to artistic vision than any of the hundereds of other assumed limitations that are part of producing a film.

Again, OAR is good - but asking directors to use 16:9 in the future as a standard (or whatever larger size you could get TV makers to default to) isn't some crime against "artistic vision" like some would suggest.

[Lee Christie]

Originally Posted by PA_Kid

I'm not sure if you're agreeing with me or just making a different argument.

For the record, I'd rather have something in OAR with "black bars" than not. My issue was with the offense that's taken when someone suggests that all movies use some sort of consistent standard - and particular when the reason against it is "the artist's vision".

I agree that things that have already been filmed should be in OAR. But I also think it's a reasonable idea to suggest that film and tv use the same aspect ration in the future. And I think it's BS to say that the director is shooting in a ratio greater than 16:9 because that was his artistic vision. He's only shooting in something greater than 16:9 because it's an option in theaters. Were it not a viable option you wouldn't hear him on the commentary track complaining about how he wanted to film such and such scene in 5:1.

My point is that movies already have limits on them based on existing technology - asking directors to limit themselves to 16:9 isn't any more damaging to artistic vision than any of the hundereds of other assumed limitations that are part of producing a film.

Again, OAR is good - but asking directors to use 16:9 in the future as a standard (or whatever larger size you could get TV makers to default to) isn't some crime against "artistic vision" like some would suggest.

Yes yes, OAR for old stuff, 16:9 for new. I'm gunna write that on pieces of paper and staple it to directors' foreheads. Totally agree with that. There should be a 16:9 advocacy group that says all new stuff, 16:9, end of.

[HRC]

Someone has mentioned it before on this site and I agree. Turn out the damn lights and there won't be any black bars!

It's absolutely amazing how many people cannot grasp the concept and still complain even when they are given a very detailed explanation on "black bars". These people are lost and will never see the light.... they only see black bars.

[Lee Christie]

Originally Posted by HRC

Someone has mentioned it before on this site and I agree. Turn out the damn lights and there won't be any black bars!

Yes, all of our displays have infinity:1 contrast ratios. *nods*

[red_5ive]

Originally Posted by HRC

Someone has mentioned it before on this site and I agree. Turn out the damn lights and there won't be any black bars!

It's absolutely amazing how many people cannot grasp the concept and still complain even when they are given a very detailed explanation on "black bars". These people are lost and will never see the light.... they only see black bars.

They're probably the ones who couldn't figure out why they couldn't put the rectangular block into the hole shaped like a square when they were toddlers, and wondered why it worked the other way around.

[johnjayb]

oohhh. that explains it.

[ajc68]

Originally Posted by Lee Christie

Yes yes, OAR for old stuff, 16:9 for new. I'm gunna write that on pieces of paper and staple it to directors' foreheads. Totally agree with that. There should be a 16:9 advocacy group that says all new stuff, 16:9, end of.

Rather than whine and ***** about it, why don’t you run for congress and pass legislation against producing movies and television in any format other than 16:9. I’m sure a lot of people on the boards would be willing to make the trek to Capitol Hill (if there parents will sign off on it).

Or better yet, you could become a filmmaker and show all those imbeciles how to really create art. You could teach courses on how to frame all scenes in 16:9 so peoples eyeballs won’t pop out of their sockets. You could take some of the greatest scenes in movie history, that don’t fit your HDTV, and create examples of how to reframe them and still get the same effect. Once you become all the rage, you could call meetings with all the great directors of our time and sit them down and educate them on the travesty of black bars.

Mr. Scorsese, thanks for taking the time to come see me today. Congratulations on finally winning the Best Director award for The Departed. Unfortunately, you made a grave error and chose to film that movie in an aspect ration of 2.35:1. I tried to watch that movie the other night on HBO, but there were black bars so I immediately changed the channel. After all, I was only getting $750 worth of viewing out of my HDTV. So I changed the channel and caught the latest episode of Gossip Girl. Now there’s a director that gets it. You just don’t get cinematography like that in those damn movies with the black bars. I most definitely got all $1000 worth of screen enjoyment out of my HDTV, as I’m entitled to.

[Lucy Diamond]

My widesreen doubles as a coffee table.

I'm pretty straight edge, but when some of my friends come over andwe watch movies they like to use the black bars to snort coke off of.

It works out for everybody and it doesn't disturb the picture.

Now...if only I could get those damn razor marks off my screen...FIRMWARE UPDATE!!!

[ajc68]

Originally Posted by Eternal_Sunshine

Lots of people with front projectors buy scope screens today... and it's incredible. I think/hope it's just a matter of time until 2.40:1 LCDs/Plasmas/OLEDs will be available for HT enthusiasts.

This is genius! All my 2.40:1 movies will fill up the loooong screen. Now I'll only have black bars (pillars) on all my television viewing (double pillars on 4:3 content) and all the movies with other aspect ratios. Problem solved.

[amtctt]

Originally Posted by TObject

The problem with Blu-ray black bars is that they are encoded in the picture. If you were to get a 2.40:1 screen, you would still get black bars, unless you zoom in, and zooming in is bad for quality.

what???? Which blu-rays have this encoding? i'm going to have to disagree. I've seen a ton of people using a projector that can stretch the image to fill a 16:9 area and then use a anamorphic lense to stretch it to fill a 2.35 area. This wouldn't work if the black bars were encoded.

[TObject]

Originally Posted by amtctt

what???? Which blu-rays have this encoding? i'm going to have to disagree. I've seen a ton of people using a projector that can stretch the image to fill a 16:9 area and then use a anamorphic lense to stretch it to fill a 2.35 area. This wouldn't work if the black bars were encoded.

You are not getting the true 1080p if you do that. The advertised 1080p is including black bars. Essentially what you are doing is zooming in.

[dk3dknight]

The only time I did not like black bars, was when I had a 11 inch tv, and with the black bars the movie would be like 4 inches tall and well that hurt my eyes.

With my new tv I could care less what aspect its in, I just assume that is intent of the creator and I should respect there wishes.