A stupid question....

[Fox Mulder]

Hey everyone, I'm looking into buying a blu-ray player. A friend has a recently bulit system w/ all drivers updated. He's running Vista Pro 64 bit, powerDVD 8, an Nvidia 9000 series video card & an LG multi drive. He isn't getting a full screen picture on his 46" Vizio. Black bars are present on the top & bottom of the video, like a widescreen DVD. He thinks this is normal. Do blu-ray discs play like that? Is there some setting that needs to be changed? I'm not spending money on blu-ray if it looks like that. Thanks.

[dadkins]

Aspect Ratios - look on the back of the case and see what it says.

1.78:1 will fill the screen
1.85:1 will have small bars.
2.35:1 or 2.40:1 will have bigger bars.

This is normal and also applies to Widescreen DVDs.

Speed Racer - 2.40:1
Click image


The Wild - 1.85:1
Click image


Jack Jack Attack - 1.78:1
Click image

[crazyBLUE]

wow 1.85:1 On My Display Is Full Screen No Bars At All !!

[WriteSimply]

Originally Posted by crazyBLUE

wow 1.85:1 On My Display Is Full Screen No Bars At All !!

16x9 is 1.78:1. Not many discs are encoded at 1.85:1. But the ones that do will show the little black bars.

If a disc is encoded at 1.85:1 but you're not seeing the black bars, that means your TV is overscanning it (zooming into the picture).


fuad

[Midnightsailor]

Another one of these threads.

[Sussudio]

Originally Posted by Midnightsailor

Another one of these threads.

+1 ...isn't there a black bars sticky already?

[Petra_Kalbrain]

Originally Posted by Fox Mulder

Hey everyone, I'm looking into buying a blu-ray player. A friend has a recently bulit system w/ all drivers updated. He's running Vista Pro 64 bit, powerDVD 8, an Nvidia 9000 series video card & an LG multi drive. He isn't getting a full screen picture on his 46" Vizio. Black bars are present on the top & bottom of the video, like a widescreen DVD. He thinks this is normal. Do blu-ray discs play like that? Is there some setting that needs to be changed? I'm not spending money on blu-ray if it looks like that. Thanks.

Laughing My F***ING ASS OFF!!!

He doesn't THINK that it's normal, he KNOWS that it's normal. Your friend is 100% correct in stating that it's normal.

Well, pal... I guess you won't be investing in ANY new home video playback technology for the next 20 years then!!! All displays, no matter what you buy (TV, monitor, projector), are all going to present variations on the "evil black bar effect." Filmmakers capture their works using varying aspect ratio equipment based on their artistic intent. So, get used to it.

Why must people be so ignorant to the facts?

P.S. There are ways to change it so the black bars disappear, but then one of two things will happen. #1 - the video image will become all stretched in one direction and everyone will look like coneheads. #2 - You will lose up to 35% of the image because "filling those black bars" actually stretches the video image left and right off of the screen as well in order to keep the image from being stretched.

[Fox Mulder]

Thanks dadkins for the help. Some people here were jerks so this will be my 2nd & last post here. I thought that blu-ray would fill the screen like HDTV does but that's just stupid! The movie industry sucks but their artistic intent must be satisfied. 3 different aspect ratios w/ blu-ray? Very nice.

[Sussudio]

Originally Posted by Fox Mulder

Thanks dadkins for the help. Some people here were jerks so this will be my 2nd & last post here. I thought that blu-ray would fill the screen like HDTV does but that's just stupid! The movie industry sucks but their artistic intent must be satisfied. 3 different aspect ratios w/ blu-ray? Very nice.

bluray movies, just like dvds, are based off of the way the movie was filmed, and movies are filmed in various aspect ratios. if you want a format that will always fill the screen dig out your old tube and stick with VHS.

and you have to realize that not everyone here is trying to be a jerk, but you did call attention to yourself by titling your thread "a stupid question." you're trying to figure out how stuff works so you can get a better understanding of it, i wouldn't call that stupid by any means.

[Midnightsailor]

Originally Posted by Fox Mulder

Thanks dadkins for the help. Some people here were jerks so this will be my 2nd & last post here. I thought that blu-ray would fill the screen like HDTV does but that's just stupid! The movie industry sucks but their artistic intent must be satisfied. 3 different aspect ratios w/ blu-ray? Very nice.

You do realize that when the channels on HDTV fills your screen, and it happens to be a movie in the 2.35:1 aspect ratio, they are cropping the movie, right? You should do a search on pan & scan vs original aspect ratio and you'll see how much footage you are truly missing. Remember... black bars are our friends! The only thing Blu-ray is doing is being true to the director's original intent.