Topics on widescreen letterbox - anamorphic, aspect ratio, matted, etc.

[kimera]

hmm, the problem is, all my videos actually (including non-anamorphic) takes up the entire width of the screen... in whatever mode... except the 4:3 mode.

"non-zoom" would most likely be equal to natural wide on your rptv

make sure you use 16x9 on your dvd

non-anamorphics should give you the bars on the side

[sgc_wdi]

not actually, I think the Natural Wide mode is basically designed for 4:3 videos, because it stretches the video from left to right, and the way it does it is not very noticeable.... so I don't get grey bars on this mode as well...

the only time I get grey bars is when I switch to 4:3 mode, but then even Anamorphic videos have grey bars here...

[sgc_wdi]

I found a solution na, apparently, I have to set my DVD player to 16:9 (compressed) as opposed to 16:9 (wide). That way, sa Full mode, may gray bars ang mga non-anamorphic videos

[Dracula]

Bros

When you say letterbox is this the one with the real big black bars like those on the days of thunder dvd? And do all letterbox releases have big black bars or is this just the ratio.....pls help because i don't want to buy a dvd with black bars as big as those on the days of thunder dvd.

thanks

[sgc_wdi]

dracula,

yup letterbox is the one where there are black bars on top and bottom of the movie. The black bars are encoded as part of the movie, para mapanood mo yung aspect ratio na intended by the director.

If you don't want these black bars, you should buy the "full screen" versions of the movie, kaya lang, you lose basically 33% of the movie.

However, if you have a widescreen TV, you can buy anamorphic DVDs. In most cases, wala na yung black bars, and kung meron man, konti nalang.

[benny]

And do all letterbox releases have big black bars or is this just the ratio.....

It's just the ratio. The larger the ratio, the bigger the black bars. I assume you have a standard tv (4:3 ratio) like most of us. Check out examples of different aspect ratios displayed on a standard tv : here

The aspect ratio of Days of Thunder is 1.85:1  
Compare that with Lawrence of Arabia (aspect ratio 2.35:1), then you'll really see bigger black bars. I guess you'll dislike the latter even more. It's your choice but think of how much you won't see if the picture was cropped to fullscreen.

A good discussion on Full vs Wide screen

[jepoi]

i've been reading the posts here and i can't find any answers.

read somewhere that his dvd is just letterbox-widescreen and not anamorphic.  is there a difference?

mods, if this is already discussed in some post, pls lock thread and just tell me where  

thanks.

[Kahon]

The answers are all here in the threads:


How to know if DVD is Anamorphic?

[grimmacey]

another way is if you have a dvd-rom drive on your PC and a dvd player/decoder software like windvd or power dvd etc... once you play the movie for example in windvd, don't maximize the movie window, if you noticed that the window shape is almost like square and with those thick black bars both on top and the bottom of the window, this means the video on the dvd is not anamorphic. either way if the movie window's shape is a rectangle and with only thin black bars, the video is anamorphic.  

[xage]

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Huh? its been a year and a half yet here we are still into anamorphic non.. wide.. etc

well as long as I can view its ok!

[nestwave]

Has anybody experience buying an Anamorphic widescreen DVD with 2.35.1 aspect ratio on the back?
Ang tanong ko is bakit di siya ma-adjust sa letterbox para ma-stretch ko siya kahit sa pan scan and widescreen adjustment ng player di mabago ayaw niya. Sample nito ay ang Gladiator and Godzilla 1998, do anybody experience this problem?

[T-850]

guys check this out:

all about anamorphic widescreen:
parang virtual tutor:
http://www.dvdweb.co.uk/information/anamorphic.htm

[tonedeaf]

query:

my tv is 16:9.  however, even when i watch a dvd (anamorphic), there are still black bars on the top and bottom of the screen. anything else i should be doing?

[barrister]

The first thing you should be doing is familiarizing yourself with aspect ratios.

You might be under the impression that a "widescreen" picture has only one type of aspect ratio, namely 16x9, when there are actually more than ten different widescreen aspect ratios, the most common of which are: 1.78, 1.85 and 2.35.   

Since your TV is 16x9 or 1.78:1 (16 divided by 9), any video source with a picture wider than 1.78 should give you a letterboxed image.  The wider the aspect ratio, the taller the black bars. 

However, 1.85:1 aspect ratios will require further explanation:

Almost all widescreen TVs overscan a 1.85 image to completely fill a 16x9 screen.  Thus, as a result of the overscanning feature, you should have letterboxing only on pictures wider than 1.85.  But the exception is for HDMI inputs, where overscan is usually (but not always) eliminated by manufacturers.  Without overscanning, you will still see very slim black bars (sometimes only one very slim black bar) for 1.85 content on most widescreen TVs via HDMI connection.

There are many, many movies with a 2.35:1 aspect ratio, so it would be easy to find examples.

For aspect ratios wider than 2.35:1, the most common is 2.40:1 (actually 2.39:1, but commonly rounded off to 2.40:1).  Examples -- Minority Report, The Island, Terminator 3.

The widest aspect ratio I've ever seen on video is 2.76:1 on Ben Hur (Charlton Heston, 1959), shot on MGM Camera 65 (a.k.a Ultra Panavision 70), using 65mm film with 1.25x anamorphic.


2.76:1 image from Ben Hur

The widest aspect ratio I've ever heard of is 4:1, shot on Polyvision using three 35 mm films projected side-by-side.  It was only used once -- on the ending of Napoléon (French silent movie, 1927).   

[tonedeaf]

@barrister,

thanks. new to this widescreen thing. will be sure to read up 

[JT]

The Terminator 1 Blu-Ray says widescreen but showing as fullscreen using my LCD and Projector. I tried all video settings already. No problem with my T2 and T3. Any idea how to make it display as widescreen using PS3 as player?