Black bar haters MUST SEE THIS!

[saprano]

sombody want to make this a sticky for the haters?

[jlakma]

my black bars are gang related and are coming for all the haters...

[Marquoz]

I never understood the complaint about black bars. I turn my lights off, close all my doors, and the black bars disapear into the black bezel of my TV. I've yet to consciously notice black bars except on special features that are full screen, and really small.

[roopster77]

I think we should have red and white striped bars, now that might take some time not to notice... lololo

OK, I don't notice em, but I sure notice when a movie is not anamorphic... drives me nutz!

[Whytewash]

that was actually a wonderful piece.

[saprano]

Thank you! ..........but its not going to stop the haters, there mind is already made up.

[4K2K]

I love black bars - I wish they'd colour more of the pixels and lines black.
Wouldn't it be great if movies were 10 pixels high but 1920 wide - think how many lines we could have made up of black bars [joke]

Seriously wider aspect ratios are good/more cinematic for a lot of films, and if we have to use black bars for those it's not too bad (though, we are using less pixels for the actual non-black areas of the picture on 1920x1080 media/TVs).

[Beta Man]

Wait.... they're putting black bars in the movies now??? What??? When did they start this.... can I buy the "un-cut" version to get the rest of the picture....

[Layd Dly]

Black Bars FTW. OAR is always teh way to go. And im all about the 1.66:1 w00t.

[sssick]

On my projector I don't mind the black bars at all, however, I get all nervous while watching 2.4:1 on my plasma. I also hate zooming in with a passion.

[Brian Cash]

Hilarious

[moviefan]

Where does it stop/
Why not go back to the original Cinemascope and go to 1:2.90?

[PA_Kid]

Originally Posted by Blu As Hell

So what your saying is that a director should take away his/her artistic right to film his/her movie in the presentation that he/she desires and/or best fits the material because your TV, 16x9 or not, has black bars on it and you want the whole screen to be filled?!!! That's insane, that's like telling DeMille not to shoot The Ten Commandments in color just because you have a black and white tv.
Mr. Pollock was talking about is when you see a movie that's been paned and scanned you are not seeing the film as the filmmaker originally wanted or presented as they saw in their vision of the movie. Who are we to tell an artist, be it in filmmaking, music or what have you how to best present their work? I myself agree with Mr. Pollock, I want the movie presented in whatever format he or she originally intended. If that means 1.78:1, 2.40:1, or 4:3 so be it. If I have to have black bars on the top and bottom, on the sides, or non at all, if it's preserving the film as it was intended by the filmmaker then HELL YES I want it that way!!!!!

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.

[Sonny]

You can sit on my black bar & spin spin spin away........

[john_1958]

Originally Posted by andyn1080

i agree pan and scan sucks BUT filmmakers should film in 16x9 anamorphic widescreen so that it fills up the screen!! thats all these black bar haters want! 1:85.1 is not pan and scan right? so that's all we want 16x9 FULL HD anamorphic widescreen!!

when pan and scan you can set dvd 1:85 which is aspect ratio but everybody is right wide should fill entire hdtv
but in dark room nobody notices them
guess people are wondering about burn in because rest of the screen doesn't get used over time

[SpikesBluBlooded]

Wow, there are some really passionate opinions on this subject! I made the decision many years ago (when I got my first DVD player) to bite the bullet and deal with the black bars by only buying widescreen DVDs. At the time I had a 36" Trinitron XBR, which was more than big enough for where I was living. I will admit, it took some getting used to, but eventually I stopped noticing, especially when the lights were out.

For me, I wanted to see the movie at home the same way (as much was possible) I would have at the theater. I had a decent sized screen, sat at the right distance from it, and didn't miss any of the picture because it wasn't blown up to fit my 4:3 screen size. I was getting the whole picture, not just what would fit.

Someone brought up an excellent point earlier: the 4:3 screen has, more-or-less, gone the way of the Dodo, and there's no reason why manufacturers can't start producing widescreen TVs that could handle a max aspect ratio to fill the full screen, and then cut it down as the aspect ratios got smaller. I agree with a great many people out here: I'd rather have the pillars than the bars, but once the lights are out and I'm engrossed with the film, I don't see anything other than the image on the screen...

[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.

[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. Like at the end of Ghostbusters in WS you see all 4 Ghostbusters march up the steps to take out Zool, but in the 4:3 version you only see Bill Murray and Dan Aykroyd. And the scene where Indy breaks into his dad's "cell" and tells him about Alexandretta, you see them both talking face-to-face in the WS edition and the scene is much more impactive, unlike in 4:3 the shots switch between them when they talk. STILL even after I show this to the black-bar haters they prefer the 4:3 version. It astonishes me that people just don't get that you can't fit a rectangle in a square 1:1, hence the black bars.

Maybe now I can send this link to them and they'll believe the director instead.

[SpikesBluBlooded]

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. Like at the end of Ghostbusters in WS you see all 4 Ghostbusters march up the steps to take out Zool, but in the 4:3 version you only see Bill Murray and Dan Aykroyd. And the scene where Indy breaks into his dad's "cell" and tells him about Alexandretta, you see them both talking face-to-face in the WS edition and the scene is much more impactive, unlike in 4:3 the shots switch between them when they talk. STILL even after I show this to the black-bar haters they prefer the 4:3 version. It astonishes me that people just don't get that you can't fit a rectangle in a square 1:1, hence the black bars.

Maybe now I can send this link to them and they'll believe the director instead.

Good luck! I'm beginning to think the BB haters are the new HD DVD fanbois of the site... (that should start some fun trash-talking...)

[Lee Christie]

I wouldn't call myself a BB hater but a BB disliker. The difference being i don't pan and scan but I do sigh when I see the BBs, and if the ratio is similar to my screen's ratio I'm tempted to stretch to fill the screen.

If I watch 4:3 TV shows though I will pan and scan to 16:10 or stretch to 16:10 depending on my mood because veritical black bars (pillarboxing?) is weird, but usually I'll leave wide screen horizonalt black bars alone.

I do like the 16:9 ratio. My screen is 16:10 (1920x1200 24") because I'm on a PC, but 16:9 is nice. If you stretch it to 16:10 you barely notice distortion, and if you leave the bars there they're just tiny bar anyway. If everyone decided to film in 16:9 I'd be happy!!!

What's annoying is that there are so many formats. TV has 4:3 and 16:9 and that's enough IMHO. go to Wikipedia for a list of about 20 ratios filmakers use. Why can't we just have 4:3 for when you want to be squarish, 16:9 for general use 90% of the time, and if you feel like filming something really really wide, 2.39:1 and just settle on those 3. Do we need such a huge selection of ratios? But my thoughts are directed towards how it'll look on Blu-ray on someone's 16:9 TV, I honestly don't know what goes through a filmmaker's mind when he or she sits down pondering whether to use 2.39:1, or 1.85:1, or 2.20:1, or whatever.

16:9 looks nice to my eyes. it's a shame if you can't set up your set and your actors to fit that... but yeh, I'll usually leave the BBs alone these days.

Sorry if I come off sounding like a BB hater... I'm not, I'm a BB disliker, honest, I just really like 16:9, okay? Looks nice for TV, looks nice for video games, why not movies too? It's wide, but not too wide, and it's very popular.