# HD wide screen format with bars on top and bottom?



## deweybroncos (Jun 15, 2007)

I am wondering why some movies I rent in widescreen format or watch on HD channels, have bars on the top and bottom of the screen yet there are not any bars on the sides. What format would this be? Apparently not 16:9?


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## davring (Jan 13, 2007)

1.78:1 or greater. Filmed in a wider format than your TV.


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

16x9 is 1.78:1...

There are some movies in 1.85:1, that if you have a lot of overscan will appear to be 1.78:1 but are not actually. Then there are a lot of really widescreen movies around the 2.35:1 ratio.

For a really good movie, I find that I don't notice the black bars once I get into the watching.


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## Tom Robertson (Nov 15, 2005)

HDME, especially on a TV with really black blacks.


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## Stuart Sweet (Jun 19, 2006)

It's the cinematographer's choice to use an aspect ratio he wants to use, but more and more movies are shot with all the action in the "safe zone" in the center where it will be well-framed in 4:3 or 16:9.


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## bhelton71 (Mar 8, 2007)

It is funny this thread exists - I actually ran across this website over the weekend and was going to post it in a discussion thread about using ffdshow to format movies with correct letterboxing - just as an explanation of DAR/OAR.

These guys are pretty serious.
http://www.widescreen.org/index.shtml


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## deweybroncos (Jun 15, 2007)

[QUOTE
These guys are pretty serious.
http://www.widescreen.org/index.shtml[/QUOTE]

Great info here. Thanks!


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## BobaBird (Mar 31, 2002)

Also check http://ekb.dbstalk.com/aspect.htm from TNGTony. Your question is addressed about a third of the way down, or just find "horizontal" on the page.


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## ehilbert1 (Jan 23, 2007)

I recentley bought a PS3 and I love blu-ray. I have a 42 Phillips LCD that will adjust the screen for you. I hooked up my PS3 with HDMI and it will not adjust the picture to get rid of the black bars. I also have an HR20 hooked up through HDMI and it will adjust movies and TV shows so there are no black bars. I'm wondering why it does not do this. I hate the fact that some Blu-ray moves use the whole screen and some use the black bars. To be honest it makes me not want to watch Blu-ray movies becase of that. Atleast when I had my regular DVD player hooked up through analog it would either automaticaly strecth the screen or I could do it myself. With the PS3 I can't do it myself either.

Why do some movies fill out the whole screen and some have the black bars? The moves that I own that fill out the whole screen are widescreen. They are not full screen. Thanks for the help.


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## Tom Robertson (Nov 15, 2005)

Some movies are transfered to disk in the same format as the original movie, even wider than the 16:9 ratio of widescreen TV. (Very few that I'm aware of are filmed narrower than 16:9 these days.)

So if the original film is wider than 16:9, you will have black bars top and bottom. If the film is narrower, you will have black bars left and right. (Sometimes the movie is transfered with something other than black bars. The VHS edition of _The Dark Crystal_ used a nice picture frame looking border.)

Cheers,
Tom


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## machavez00 (Nov 2, 2006)

love that wikipedia








The Panavision logo incorporates three aspect ratios into its design-1.33 (TV, standard "Academy" ratio) on the inside, 1.85 (standard U.S. widescreen) in the middle, and 2.35/2.40 (modern 35mm anamorphic) on the outside.


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