letterbox picture

[admin_exported]

we have a ps3 since xmas and cant understand why some BD movies are in letterbox with bars top and bottom and other movies are full screen.i have tried on the disc menu but there are no options to alter the picture. can you help.thankyou Martin.

 

[Anonymous]

not sure but i use the zoom on my sony tv to get a bigger picture though i do prefer the letterbox view or smart view which still has bars but the picture fits most of the screen.

 

[robjcooper]

Because that is the original film aspect ratio they were shot in - 2.35:1 or 2.40:1. Your screen has an aspect ratio of 16:9 (a ratio decided on as a compromise between 4:3 and the above film ratios) which equates to 1.78:1. Therefore to keep the correct width to height ratio of the film there are black bars top and bottom so that you can see the full original width of the image - unless you buy one of the phillips 21:9 (which is a ratio of 2.33:1) screens which will fill the screen correctly but with some loss of quality as they are only using the actual picture height of 810 lines to fill 1080 lines.

If you zoom in the picture you are losing a not inconsiderable amount of footage either side (approximately 16% each side) as well as causing a drop in quality. What you are seeing are the movies as they were intended to be seen - you'll soon get used to the letterbox.

Rob

 

[Anonymous]

Thankyou for your reply. You might not understand my problem. I want letterbox cause it gives a cinema type picture. For example `Wolverine' BD is in letterbox but M. Jackson `This is it' is full screen and ye dont get the cinema effect. Too make it more confusing `Dark Knight' is letterbox for people scenes and full screen for city scenes. I never had this happen on my dvd player. Thanks again. Martin.

 

[simonlewis]

Full screen on the dark night is because the camera crew used imax cameras for those shots & normal widescreen cameras for the other scenes, so two types of cameras were used.

 

[bigboss]

1) Michael Jackson's "This is it" is essentially a documentary & not a film. So it's been shot is 16:9 aspect ratio. Wolverine is, obviously, a film, hence the "letterbox mode".

2) The scenes you're referring to in "The Dark Knight" (6 in total) have actually been shot in Imax. That's why you won't get that letterbox effect. The scenes are:

1. Joker Introduction (Bank Heist)

2. Hong Kong scene

3. Chase scene throughout Gotham

4. Final fight scene in the skyscraper

5. End scene

6. Various shots over Gotham and Hong Kong

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0468569/faq#.2.1.100

 

[bigboss]

slewis:Full screen on the dark night is because the camera crew used imax cameras for those shots & normal widescreen cameras for the other scenes, so two types of cameras were used.

Beat me to it!

 

[professorhat]

Yes, it normally depends what format the director shot it in. If it's shot in 16:9 format, clearly this will be full screen, whereas most films as already pointed out are shot in 2.35:1 or 2.40:1, so when transferred to TV have black bars at the top and bottom. However, sometimes a studio may decide to release a film which was in 2:35:1 or 2:40:1 in the cinema as a 16:9 release on DVD or Blu-Ray (mostly these studios are evil in my opinion) by chopping off the sides and you'll therefore get a fullscreen image. The downside is you're not getting the full image the director intended you to see and, in some cases (though admittedly very rare cases), this can actually affect the story as critical information can be missing.

IMAX actually has an aspect ratio of 1.44:1 so when this is transmitted to 16:9 TVs (or 1.78:1) then it's actually the top and bottom of the screen which is chopped off to fit the TV screen - hence why these scenes in The Dark Knight etc. look like they're fullscreen shots.

 

[Liam19]

Ditto to everything prof said.

professorhat:

However, sometimes a studio may decide to release a film which was in 2:35:1 or 2:40:1 in the cinema as a 16:9 release on DVD or Blu-Ray (mostly these studios are evil in my opinion) by chopping off the sides and you'll therefore get a fullscreen image. The downside is you're not getting the full image the director intended you to see and, in some cases (though admittedly very rare cases), this can actually affect the story as critical information can be missing.

It's worth pointing out, though, that this process (known as 'panning and scanning') is very rare practice nowadays, as far as the major studios are concerned at least.

In the days of 4:3 TV screens, putting a film on DVD in its original 'scope' aspect ratio could often leave almost two-thirds of the screen blank - so studios produced separate 'fullscreen' (4:3) and 'widescreen' (16:9) editions of many titles. But with 16:9 screens now being the norm, studios have the sense to present films in their original aspect ratio, albeit still leaving (far smaller) black bars at the top and bottom of the picture.
As another aside, I'd remind all that the next big Blu-ray release (that would be Avatar) was shot in 1.78:1, meaning that it will be the perfect fit for all widescreen displays

.

 

[John Duncan]

Liam19:it will be the perfect fit for all widescreen displays

.

Except this one:

 

[The_Lhc]

Is this is a Zombie thread? I'm getting the strongest sense of deja vu here, I'm sure there was a thread that had exactly the same people providing exactly the same answers a year or more ago.

 

[professorhat]

the_lhc:Is this is a Zombie thread?

Well, I was quite tired when I wrote the reply last night so I can see why you thought that...

 

[The_Lhc]

professorhat:the_lhc:Is this is a Zombie thread?
Well, I was quite tired when I wrote the reply last night so I can see why you thought that...

Well funnily enough it was your reply that got me thinking down these lines, I felt like I'd read it word for word before.

Perhaps it's just a well rehearsed argument!

 

[professorhat]

Or just the same old rubbish from the prof...