Posted: 12/27/2009 1:51:58 AM EDT
Can someone explain something to me about widescreen movie formats? I was watching Star Trek (2009 movie) on Blu-Ray earlier today on my 52" HDTV LCD. The movie looked awesome, but had horizontal black bars on the top and bottom but no vertical black bars on the sides. Why is this? I guess I thought a widescreen movie would completely fill the screen of my widescreen tv 
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Movies are shot in different aspect ratios. One director might want his film to have a really wide screen that stretches across and shows a bunch of stuff, while another might not care to film in a really wide aspect ratio. In the case of Star Trek, that was filmed in a 2.35 : 1. Which is a rather wide aspect ratio compared to say 1:85:1. This photo should give you a pretty good idea how much wider 2:35: 1 is. 2:35:1 is the red obviously while the blue is 1:85:1. I should note that the widescreen televisions we buy are built to an aspect ratio that is extremely close to 1:85:1. Soooo when you watch a film in 2:35:1 there is no freaking way it can fill the screen without showing the black bars. Here is another photo.  |
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Of course, most large screens give you the option to perfectly fill the screen with movies like that. In the case of my Sharp LCD, the "zoom" feature exactly eliminates the upper and lower black bars.
The BluRay resolution is so high, I can't see any loss of quality, and there is the benefit of such a system. You can view it any way you like. Remember, you don't lose any vertical resolution in this mode, with this movie. You only chop off the edges. I ended up watching Star Trek in zoom. 16x9 is wide enough. |
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Quoted:
Movies are shot in different aspect ratios. One director might want his film to have a really wide screen that stretches across and shows a bunch of stuff, while another might not care to film in a really wide aspect ratio. In the case of Star Trek, that was filmed in a 2.35 : 1. Which is a rather wide aspect ratio compared to say 1:85:1. This photo should give you a pretty good idea how much wider 2:35: 1 is. 2:35:1 is the red obviously while the blue is 1:85:1. I should note that the widescreen televisions we buy are built to an aspect ratio that is extremely close to 1:85:1. Soooo when you watch a film in 2:35:1 there is no freaking way it can fill the screen without showing the black bars.Here is another photo. So what you're saying is that if I want my movies to fill my entire screen without needing to stretch the picture, I should look for 1.85:1 aspect ratios? |
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Quoted: Quoted: Movies are shot in different aspect ratios. One director might want his film to have a really wide screen that stretches across and shows a bunch of stuff, while another might not care to film in a really wide aspect ratio. In the case of Star Trek, that was filmed in a 2.35 : 1. Which is a rather wide aspect ratio compared to say 1:85:1. This photo should give you a pretty good idea how much wider 2:35: 1 is. 2:35:1 is the red obviously while the blue is 1:85:1. I should note that the widescreen televisions we buy are built to an aspect ratio that is extremely close to 1:85:1. Soooo when you watch a film in 2:35:1 there is no freaking way it can fill the screen without showing the black bars.Here is another photo. So what you're saying is that if I want my movies to fill my entire screen without needing to stretch the picture, I should look for 1.85:1 aspect ratios? Or 16x9. |
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Quoted:
So what you're saying is that if I want my movies to fill my entire screen without needing to stretch the picture, I should look for 1.85:1 aspect ratios? Most movies aren't though, so you'd be limiting yourself severely. Haven't you ever noticed when at the theater that sometimes the curtains looked like they were opened up more? Yup, those were the wider movies. |