Something Neither Next-Gen DVD Format Offers

[Jason Dunn]

I had a random thought last night while I was watching a movie - it was full-frame 16:9, meaning it filled every square inch of my wide-screen TV, and I was marveling at how big the display really was when it was all being used. I absolutely love watching movies when they use up my entire TV screen! I grow weary of putting in a movie and wondering how big the resulting display will be - I've seen some DVDs that are so wide-screen that I easily lose 40% of the total screen space above and below the image, and that's frustrating when you simply want to enjoy the full size of the TV you paid for. Something I would have really liked to have seen in either HD-DVD or Blu-Ray would be a standard aspect ratio for all movies; and that standard would be 16:9, the same as our TV sets. I know, the directors would all cry foul, their artistic vision being trod upon, but I could care less: I just want the movie I'm watching to fill the screen I paid for. Is that so much to ask?

[jeffd]

hehe, who thought of this silly 16x9 ratio anyways.. its not what the theatres use. ^^

things are compounded even more with computers taking on the 16x10 standered.

[Felix Torres]

16:9 is a compromise between what the hardware folks wanted (16:10/15:9) and the 2:1 the movie types wanted.

As long as the bulk of money made by successful movies comes from theaters, instead of DVDs, movies will be letter-boxed, even on HD.
Of course, TV shows, mini-series, and direct to disk productions are 16:9 native. :?

[Neil Enns]

I honestly don't know why I bought a widescreen TV. All the stuff on TV that says "in widescreen" is in some aspect ratio that doesn't match my screen. Whatever zoom mode I pick, I get some sort of clipping. Maybe I'm just stupid?

Neil

[Felix Torres]

I honestly don't know why I bought a widescreen TV. All the stuff on TV that says "in widescreen" is in some aspect ratio that doesn't match my screen. Whatever zoom mode I pick, I get some sort of clipping. Maybe I'm just stupid?

Neil

Not necessarily. ;-)
You may be having overscan problems; Lots of us have them.
Or maybe your DVD/STB needs to manually be set for widescreen. Not hard but hardly trivial given the usual (lack of) quality in set documentation.

Check for references to aspect ratio, overscan settings and stuff like that...

If your problems are with satellite or cable feeds, there might not be much you can do about it, though. Some operators do obscene things to save bandwidth. You might need to change video provider.

Best way to tell if the problem is with the TV settings or external to the TV is to hook up a PC, upscaling DVD-player, or XBOX to the port you are having trouble with.

G'luck!

[Damion Chaplin]

...and that standard would be 16:9, the same as our TV sets. I know, the directors would all cry foul, their artistic vision being trod upon, but I could care less: I just want the movie I'm watching to fill the screen I paid for.

Gonna have to disagree with you there, Jason.
I know you want the movie to fill your entire screen - believe me I feel the same way and love watching 16:9 shows. However, I think I would prefer to see the entire thing than have it crop it to fit my screen. Whenever I think about the black bars at the top and bottom of the screen, I just think of the first time I watched Dune in widescreen on my dinky 13" TV. It was so small, I had to put the TV on the coffee table just to watch it! It was literally a strip 4 inches tall. So, compared to that, I'm just happy to have a wide-aspect screen in the first place. :)

[ale_ers]

This bugs me too. I always try to change the zoom to find one that works best. I hate any type of stretching and will usually settle for cutting off a little of the picture. Then of course there will be some subtitles and I will have to zoom back out to be able to read them.

[pradike]

I hate 2:35:1 or 2:40:1 ratios on my large HDTV screen.

The only reason we're stuck looking at them is because there has been no public outcry to avoid this format promoted soley by the artsy-fartsy hollywood folks to "maintain the integrity of the director's vision of the movie". What a bunch of garbage.

Give me 1:85:1 any day.

[duncanhbrown]

Whenever a movie's made (unless it's made for TV), it's shot in widescreen. This is not an artistic argument; the fact is they made the movie with a widescreen view. If there are six people standing in front of the camera, we see all six of them in the movie. But if we chop the film down to fit in "fullscreen", we will only see four or five of those people.

For my movie money and time, I want to see everything the people in the theatre saw. I have a big enough TV (32") that I feel comfortable watching a movie in letterbox format.

Some TV programming was made for the fullscreen format with no widescreen theater interlude. That only I want to see in fullscreen.

Some day I'll have a widescreen TV (when it's below $750 for a 40" diagonal-measure bright sharp high-quality picture). Until then, bring on the letterbox!

Duncan H. Brown