2.35:1 and filling the 16:9 screen
This has to be one of the most two sided issue in the high-def world; well, besides the whole HD DVD Blu-ray thing. HBO is notorious for this. They will take a wide 2.35:1 movie and crop the heck out of it to fit the 16:9 screen. What happens is you lose some of what was meant to be displayed. But some people don't care. Some people
Take a look at this and maybe next time you will leave those bars in place on your own DVDs.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
TJ @ Jul 24th 2006 10:29AM
I've always been a fan of Original Aspect Ratio. It's the reason I bought my 16x9 TV. It still looks a lot better letterboxed on my 16x9 than it did on my old 4x3 set.
Reid Ellis @ Jul 24th 2006 11:15AM
Spelling: change "loss" to "lose"
Charles Martell @ Jul 24th 2006 12:05PM
I like the 2:35 cropped to fit my 16:9 screen. It would be very rare that anything significant is lost. We all clamor for large images, the cropping helps. Cropping to 1:33 significantly dilutes the image and is unacceptable.
ken52787 @ Jul 24th 2006 12:21PM
HBO used to be notorious for this, but I've noticed that more and more movies are starting to be shown in OAR.
Jerry @ Jul 24th 2006 12:42PM
OAR ONLY.
Enough said. If you want to crop the image get a set that support "smart resize".
All content should be released in Original Asepect Ratio only.
B.Greenway @ Jul 24th 2006 1:38PM
This quote perfectly illustrates the disconnect between those in favor of OAR and those who prefer cropping.
"We all clamor for large images, the cropping helps."
I understand what your saying Charles, you want your screen filled. I just hope you understand that doesn’t mean your ‘seeing’ more, you’re actually seeing less and that’s what I can’t get past.
Ben Drawbaugh @ Jul 24th 2006 1:45PM
Some might say the picture is half as tall, I would say it is twice as wide.
The nice thing about OAR is that everyone can choose to zoom or not, but when HBO crops we can't un-zoom.
WiFiSpy @ Jul 24th 2006 3:07PM
It should be a crime to crop a 2.35:1 movie to 1.78:1.
Matt @ Jul 24th 2006 4:52PM
I understand disliking the cropping on a regular screen, but for widescreen, I think you are losing so little of the picture that it makes more sense just to fill the screen. The general "wide perspective" is still there in 16:9. I looked at those two pictures of iRobot and, you know what? I would never care if I missed that little bit of the picture on the edges of the screen, but the black bars really bug me. I think the black bars are just much more intrusive and they shrink the picture too much.
HighDef Edition @ Jul 24th 2006 5:20PM
I too prefer watching Movies in the OAR on my 46in Set. It looks more Movie-like. Starz uses the OAR more often. Plus at 46in I don't care about any bars.
Sean @ Jul 24th 2006 10:37PM
I hate the elitist attitude in this thread. It should be a crime? Like there's ever really anything that important on the outer 10% of the screen??? I always zoom in on 2.35:1 movies... not ALL the way to 16x9 but about half way in between. I got a big screen TV so the images would be big. These ultra wide screen movies make them small again. Yah I see more picture, sure, but like I said, there's nothing important on the edge of the picture. :P
What really just pisses me off is that there's even two standards to beign with. Why can't we just have one? It reminds me of Blu-ray vs HD-DVD. There should be ONE widescreen standard so we wouldnt have to put up with this crapola. I'm perfectly fine with 2.35:1 if I had a TV that was that same ratio, but I dont and neither does 99% of the population.
Drew @ Jul 24th 2006 10:46PM
2.35 on a 1.78 screen is gay. I will prove it.
Say you have a 1366 x 768 fixed pixel display which is pretty much most hdtvs. A 2.35 picture fills up 75% of a 16:9 screen (black bars fill 25%). So 0.75 * 768 = 576 lines. Yay, 576p. Amazing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
So you get to see a little more on the edges with 2.35. But you could see even more if it was 3.35. Or maybe 4.35. Pfft. You gotta draw the line somewhere and since everyone's tv is 16:9, maybe, just maybe thats a good place to start.
Jason @ Jul 25th 2006 2:59AM
Is this guy serious or what? So we miss out seeing the left edge of a robots shoulder-- The horror! What is the world coming too?!?!
Sandra @ Jul 25th 2006 11:24AM
I'm one of those people that hates the black bars. I still don't understand why they are there in the first place. I would really appreciate if someone could tell me why I get bars on the sides AND sometimes I get bars on the sides and top & bottom when I have a widescreen tv and watching a widescreen dvd???? Every option I could find is set to widescreen too.
I know i'm uneducated about something but I bought my tv to see bigger and more...not the same with padded bars to fill the screen!
Dustin @ Jul 25th 2006 11:01PM
#1 - it is your TV, watch programs the way that pleases you even if it does piss all over the way the cinematographer/director framed it (how about that for an elitist attitude).
#2 - most movies shot within the past 20 years have been purposfully composed where nothing critical is cut off should they be screened cropped. Some are even shot what is called 'open matte' meaning they are shot with more information on the top and bottom of the picture and matted to widescreen for theatrical presentation and then for the full screen television presentation the mattes are removed and this flexibility extends to reformatting to 16:9 also. The difference can been seen on the Full Screen vs. Widescreen Editions of Terminator 3 (the first appearaance of the female Terminator in the Full Screen edition -- full frontal naked breasts; in the Widescreen version -- not so, due to the cropping for widescreen). How many are you just added the Full Screen edition of T3 to your Netflix que? :) The decision which aspect ratio to use is, primarily, an artist decision on the part of the director.
#4 - older films that were never photographed to be shown in any other aspect ratio than what they were originally shot at suffer the most from cropping; you will lose critical visual information -- even entire performers when two people are in the same shot but positioned at the far oposite sides of the frame. Since the dawn of cinema there have been more than 10 different aspect ratios -- there is no 'one size fits all' (although now, 16:9 is trying to be that and, like I hinted at earlier, most modern films and television shows easily accomodate that ratio). Examples from Star Wars can be seen here http://www.widescreen.org/examples/starwars/index.shtml although when I think of older movies, I think of the Cinemascope films of the 1950s. The Star Wars Full Screen vs Widescreen is an extreme example. Star Wars, as shot, is still wider than 16:9 so you still have to choose to see it with the black bars on a widescreen tv or choose to lose potentially important information on the sides by zooming (but not as dramatically as going 4:3 i.e. full screen). And I hope you realize by zooming you are degrading the picture quality and the amount it will be noticeable is entirely subjective.
#3 - go to The American Widescreen Museum (http://www.widescreenmuseum.com/) and educate yourself on the vast number of widescreen formats and aspect ratios. You will either find it interesting or it will make your head hurt.
#4 - if you like to crop and zoom your non 16:9 programming, then don't venture in to a home theater or movie message board with that attitude unless you want to be ripped to shreds; I've seen cinephiles offer calm well thought out rebuttals and I've seen cinephiles who are over it and will rip you new ones in places you didn't know you had.
#5 - the term 'OAR' generally means 'original aspect ratio' however determining whatever that is, is sometimes a slippery slope. For a film, OAR is generally accepted to mean the aspect ratio the film was projected at in theaters. However, there have been instances where a film was projected at 2.35:1 but, with the director's blessing, was released on DVD at 16:9. For television shows, OAR is usually the aspect ratio that the show was aired at -- but here again is where the defination of which OAR is the correct OAR can get iffy. In this modern era many shows are shot for 16:9 for the Hi-Def stations and then cropped for broadcast on the standard def stations. One interesting (and contentious) example of this: Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Later seasons were shot 16:9 primarily for the UK market because that is what was demanded by the UK broadcaster, but they were still shown over here full screen (4:3) because that was the preferred aspect ratio of the show's creator Joss Weldon (something along the lines that he preferred the cramped feeling it lent the show). The US DVD releases of Buffy were full screen; the UK DVD releases were widescreen and this confused many until someone point blank asked Joss about it (and some still were not happy with the answer that, as the creator of the show, full screen was how he preferred it be seen).
#6 - I will repeat #1 again: It is your TV and you have control over how you choose to view your programming; respect others difference of opinion and hope they do the same for you.
p.s. I would love a 2:35:1 television. Of course then I would have to decide whether or not to stretch my 4:3 programming giving everyone football heads like Stewie on Family Guy. :)
Oh... and Susan -- you are likely getting black bars on all four sides of your picture if you are watching an older DVD that was not anamorphically enhanced for widescreen TVs; you want to look for DVDs that are labeled "Anamorphic" or "Enhanced For 16x9 Televisions" on the packaging. From About.com (http://hometheater.about.com/cs/television/a/16x9tvfactor_2.htm) "What this means is that the image has been placed on the DVD in a horizontally squeezed format that, when played on a 16x9 television, is detected and stretched back out horizontally in the same proportion so that the widescreen image fills the physical screen (or most of the screen in the case of extremely wide film images) at full resolution, without introducing shape distortion." An even more detailed explanation can be found here www.dvdbeaver.com/film/Misc/anamorphic_dvd.htm
Dustin @ Jul 25th 2006 11:08PM
good grief -- I can't count worth a...