Waste of a wide screen??

[Hayden]

Why do some wide screens tv (16:9) display a DVD movie full screen and others have a 2 inch black line top and bottom?
You’re paying for the extra pixels and you don’t use them?

[pinkmouse]

Because some films aren't shot in 16:9, they're shot in 23.5:1 or 1.66:1.

[Hayden]

Yeh but I just started working in a visual/audio shop we have about 50 lcd and plasma screen. On display playing the same movie through a $100,000 professional NEXUS distribution system, I was looking at the 42inch widescreen lcd screens and some are full screen and some are not. Does it matter what input you use like hdmi, composite, component?

[scott wurcer]

Frustrating isn't it? Most TV's have a few aspect settings where you can zoom or squish things, but you will always lose something or distort the image if the source is not 16:9. Has anyone found a TV or box that allows arbitrary stretching in either x or y?

My current "favorite" is the cable channels that broadcast 16:9 content letterboxed on all four sides. When you zoom it out to fit so much data is filled in it looks like do-do.


Last weeks Wall St. Journal said that 25% of people buying HD TV's have no source of HD content and DON'T know the difference ie. think they have HD because the screen is 16:9

[EC8010]

Bet you didn't know that television was originally 5:4 but was changed to 4:3 to make it compatible with film...

I really hate seeing 4:3 displayed on a 16:9 and revealing the imperfectly regulated EHT (causes width errors dependent on brightness). At least letterboxed 16:9 on 4:3 looks OK.

[scott wurcer]

Originally posted by EC8010
Bet you didn't know that television was originally 5:4 but was changed to 4:3 to make it compatible with film...

I really hate seeing 4:3 displayed on a 16:9 and revealing the imperfectly regulated EHT (causes width errors dependent on brightness). At least letterboxed 16:9 on 4:3 looks OK.

You mean 16:9 CRT based TV's? You have to admit though the reuse of signals in a classic TV chassis was clever for its time.

[EC8010]

Until LCDs and plasmas manage true blacks, no smearing on movement, and correct colorimetry, I'm staying with the picture valve. (And the audio valve, too.)

[scott wurcer]

Originally posted by EC8010
and correct colorimetry

I was talking to a film archivist a couple of weeks ago. His opinion was that there is no exact transfer from film to video, not to mention the frame rate conversion. Maybe the issues with live sportscasts are more important, but I only do Olympic curling where the smear doesn't matter.

[EC8010]

Yes, the colour gamut of film is rather larger than that of television although television projectors based on DLP technology may well be able to equal it. Frame rate conversion used to be a major headache but standards conversion has moved on and we Brits have had to become good at it in order to watch your "Simpsons" (the less said about the appalling standards conversion on the non-35mm series of "Dallas", the better). F1 motor racing used to be a prime example of the problems inherent in standards conversion/video compression. There is a slow corner at the Canadian Grand Prix where the camera pans very slowly from the inside of the corner to follow the cars. Predictably, behind the corner are grandstands. The combination of a slow pan of background detail and different foreground movement provoked all that was worst in standards conversion.