16:9 TVs and letterboxing

[pejsaboy]

I'm pretty new in general to the way widescreen/HDTVs are supposed to work as I've only have one for a little less than a month. As far as TV programming [satellite tv] is concerned, it's pretty straight forward. My TV has settings to either stretch-to-fit [crap], or 2 different settings that stretch to width and then crop to aspect ratio, which looks pretty decent.

I bought one of those upscaling DVD players that somehow magically play even a 4:3 DVD in 16:9 without stretching or cropping. Dunno how it works, but it looks good enough that I'm happy about it. Anyhoo, the player itself has menu settings for choosing what type of tv you have [4:3 or 16:9], so I picked 16:9 since I've got a 1080p set. When I play a DVD labelled as "widescreen," I still get letterboxing on the tv but the video looks like it's in aspect. Is that how it's supposed to work?

[ratbuddy]

I'm pretty new in general to the way widescreen/HDTVs are supposed to work as I've only have one for a little less than a month. As far as TV programming [satellite tv] is concerned, it's pretty straight forward. My TV has settings to either stretch-to-fit [crap], or 2 different settings that stretch to width and then crop to aspect ratio, which looks pretty decent.

I bought one of those upscaling DVD players that somehow magically play even a 4:3 DVD in 16:9 without stretching or cropping. Dunno how it works, but it looks good enough that I'm happy about it. Anyhoo, the player itself has menu settings for choosing what type of tv you have [4:3 or 16:9], so I picked 16:9 since I've got a 1080p set. When I play a DVD labelled as "widescreen," I still get letterboxing on the tv but the video looks like it's in aspect. Is that how it's supposed to work?

It's a kinda tricky topic. You probably got a progressive scan DVD player that supports what's called 'anamorphic widescreen' which is a way of letting a normal DVD hold widescreen content. In a nutshell, the content is 'squeezed' horizontally during encoding, and your player is stretching it out to fill the screen. It looks ratio-correct because it's designed to be stretched out.

You don't have a DVD player that can magically play a 4:3 program in 16:9 without stretching or cropping. Simply impossible. Throw in a disc with THX optimizer to see what's really going on. I use The Lion King for this, always the first disc in when I get a new player..

You need to look at the back of the DVD cases to see how they are encoded. A few older discs will just say 'enhanced for widescreen TV's' but won't say what aspect ratio the film was shot in. I think the best is 1.85:1, because you don't end up with the issue you have: black bars top and bottom. I think 16:9 really comes out to 1.77 or something, but it's close enough. Some movies are shot in 'reallly widescreen' or something like 2.35:1 IIRC. When you get a disc with that ratio, the options you have are to either live with the black bars, or 'zoom' the picture, filling your screen but cropping the sides of the pictures. I don't do this, I want to see everything that was filmed, even if I hate not being able to use all the TV I paid for.

[pejsaboy]

I was afraid of that... :) I feel the same way though- If the director wanted it in the shot, I want it on my screen. Guess I'll deal with the letterboxing.