1.85:1, 2.15:1,2.35:1, etc...questions on widescreen

[Chris_Bailey]

I am planning on buying a widecreen TV at the end of this summer (that's only in 16:9, right?). I have a massive DVD collection now(which are mostly in widescreen because I didnt want black bars in the future), and I've noticed the widescreen formats are not all the same. I didn't care so much because I was viewing them on a 4:3 standard, but now that I'm changing to widescreen I dont want to see any more damned bars!!. I think I've read that even if the w/s dvd is supposed to have bars on a 16:9 tv, some tvs may alter the picture to fit the full screen...



So...

1) Which widescreen dvd format will not have any bars on a widescreen tv.

2) Do widescreen tv's still show bars on some widescreen dvd's

3) Widecreen TV's only come in 16:9, right? And if so, which dvd format will ensure that I won't see ANY black bars...


I know it's a lot, but I want to make sure I know before I buy....thanks!

Bailey

[skipshady]

If I remember things from my film class correctly, the standard aspect ratio for American films is 1.85:1 (which would be 16.65:9), but the European standard is 1.66:1. But you have older films that were filmed at 1.66, 1.75, or 1.37:1, then you have movies on 70 mm film like "Lawrence of Arabia", which has a 2.05:1 ration or Panavision films (2.35:1) and will definitely give you black bars on a widescreen TV.
For the most part,

So I guess the simple answer is that it depends on the film, not the DVD format. Most Hollywood and European films are going to look just fine on 16:9, but with some movies, you're out of luck.

[GringoTex]

Skipshady is right- although American films have THREE aspect ratios: 1.85, 2.05, and 2.35. Whether you have bars or not depends on the DVD.

[Chris_Bailey]

Which DVD aspect ratio is guaranteed not to show those crazy bars on a 16:9 tv? I assume it's that "anamorphic" widescreen....whatever that means.

[DoctorJones24]

Could anyone guess at a percentage of widescreen formatted movies that will still have bars on a widescreen tv? I watched "Adaptation" the other day at a friend's house on his widescreen, and the bars were there. I have to admit I was surprised (and a little bummed) by this.

What's the difference between the following formats?

Anamorphic Widescreen
Letterbox
Pan & Scan

EDIT: I just checked here, http://www.dvdadept.com/DVDGlossary.asp
so this bottom question is answered. But the first question isn't. Basically, the Anamorphic copy of "Adaptation" I just watched on a 16:9 tv still had the bars at top and bottom.

Obviously, the bars were a bit less conspicuous than they would be on a 4:3 tv, but still... Will this be the case for ALL dvds?

[GringoTex]

Originally posted by DoctorJones24
Basically, the Anamorphic copy of "Adaptation" I just watched on a 16:9 tv still had the bars at top and bottom.

Obviously, the bars were a bit less conspicuous than they would be on a 4:3 tv, but still... Will this be the case for ALL dvds?

Adaptation was filmed in a 2.35:1 aspect ratio- so the image is wider than even your 16:9 tv screen- hence the bars. The only films that will fit perfectly on your TV are those filmed in 1.85:1 ratio.

[Foosinho]

Originally posted by DoctorJones24
Could anyone guess at a percentage of widescreen formatted movies that will still have bars on a widescreen tv? I watched "Adaptation" the other day at a friend's house on his widescreen, and the bars were there. I have to admit I was surprised (and a little bummed) by this.

A pretty high proportion. Most films seem to be in 2.35:1 - a very wide, panoramic aspect ratio.

What's the difference between the following formats?

Anamorphic Widescreen
Letterbox
Pan & Scan

Good question.

Let's start with the easiest. Letterbox is where a wide-aspect ratio film (anything wider than 4:3) is simply matted onto a standard 4:3 frame. That means valuable bandwidth is wasted in storing massive "black bar" information, and the actual image is only using maybe a third of the lines of vertical resolution.

Pan & Scan is, IMO, an abomination designed to get rid of the "dreaded" black bars on 4:3 sets. In order to fill the screen, editors will chop off up to nearly half (!!) the image at the edges, and only show part of the image, often cropping out important parts of the film from an artistic standpoint.

Anamorphic widescreen is not a screen ratio, as much as it's a DVD format to improve image quality. What happens is a standard TV image is 480i (480 lines of resolution, interlaced). Anamorphic discs store the image stretched vertically - using as many of the 480 lines as possible for image storage. A 16:9 ratio movie will end up using all 480 lines for image if stored anamorphically. A 2.35:1 will use fewer lines, but more than it would letterboxed. The result is a sharper image. An anamorphic disc only shows benefits on a HDTV or Sony Vega with vertical squeeze. You can see this for yourself if you have a normal TV by setting your DVD player to a 16:9 TV, and popping in an anamorphic disc. Everybody will be tall and skinny.

http://www.widescreen.org/
http://www.widescreen.org/widescreen.shtml

Excellent examples on that site - I suggest seeing the 2nd link I provided for an excellent flash example.

Chris, I would still get a widescreen (16:9) HDTV. 16:9 is the aspect ratio defined for High Definition programming, so you'll be all set for that. In addition all those anamorphic films will look stunning. However, unless the film is originally in 16:9 ratio, you will still have "black bars". You could get pan-n-scan discs and a 4:3 television, but after you see the examples on widescreen.org I doubt you'd be willing to surrender up to 45% of the original image.

Most widescreen TV's have various squeeze modes to help manage different aspect ratios. If you are watching a very wide anamorphic movie, and want to get rid of some of the "black bars", you can zoom in (nearly analogous to pan-n-scanning it yourself), cropping the left and right sides. Some TV's have stretch modes, to take 4:3 images and either uniformly stretch them, or leave the middle mostly along and really stretch the image near the left and right edges so it takes up the entire screen.

Me, I don't even notice the "black bars". However, I hate watching films on HBO that have been pan-n-scanned (nearly all of them) because it's painfully obvious that something interesting is only 5% on screen.

[skipshady]

Originally posted by Foosinho
A pretty high proportion. Most films seem to be in 2.35:1 - a very wide, panoramic aspect ratio.I would have guessed that most films would be 1.85:1, since it's the "academy standard" and all. Not that I've ever really paid attention to it.
To my understanding, big musicals and spectacle films from the 50's and 60's were mostly 2.05:1 or 2.35:1.

Though in looking all this up, I found out Ben Hur was filmed at 2.76:1, meaning that with pan & scan on a 4:3 screen, you're missing over 51% of the total picture.

BTW, according to Amazon.com, the aspect ratio of the Superbit edition of Adaptation (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/stores/detail/-/dvd/B00005JLRE/tech-info/002-4327876-7576055) is 1.85:1.

[Foosinho]

Originally posted by skipshady
I would have guessed that most films would be 1.85:1, since it's the "academy standard" and all. Not that I've ever really paid attention to it.
To my understanding, big musicals and spectacle films from the 50's and 60's were mostly 2.05:1 or 2.35:1.

It was a gut guess. Just off the top of my head, most films I can think of from my collection are super-wide (edit: probably because I'm biased towards action and epic films - 1.85:1 is indeed the Academy Standard). I'll double-check when I get home, tho my collection isn't a very good sample for the population of all movies on DVD.

Though in looking all this up, I found out Ben Hur was filmed at 2.76:1, meaning that with pan & scan on a 4:3 screen, you're missing over 51% of the total picture.

Ben Hur sucks in pan-n-scan. Really hard.

http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Bay/2933/PhotoBenhurWS.jpg
vs
http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Bay/2933/PhotoBenhurPS.jpg

BTW, another advantage to getting a 16:9 ratio television is that it more closely approximates a human's natural aspect ratio than 1.33:1 does. On a sufficiently large screen, 16:9 becomes both engrossing and completely natural.

[Daniel from Montréal]

I work at Blockbuster and most DVDs have a 1.85:1 ratio in widescreen format.

However, some "cinematography-driven" (ie NOT "A Guy Thing") will have 2.35:1.