Roger Thornhill

I notice any blu-ray movie in 1:85:1 Shows up full screen, or at least fills the entire screen and does not appear in letterbox or Widescreen, Why? and, more importantly am I missing some of the movie when shown this way? There are no black bars at the top and bottom of the screen, Even when I play my DVD'S on my Blu-Ray player the same thing happens, Breakfast at Tiffany's come up Full Screen, Don't like it!

Any Thoughts?

Brian Shannon

What brand of player? What brand of display device? What are the output settings on the player? What are the display settings on the display device? What kind of cable, hdmi, component etc.? What title specifically?

shelland

A movie in 1.85:1 (whether DVD or Blu-ray) should fill the entire screen of a widescreen TV (you don't mention if you're watching on an HDTV) assuming there's a small amount of overscan.

Roger Thornhill

Sorry, I am a techno-retard, I have a Sony 32" HDTV, The new Sony Blu-Ray, BDP-S350, HDMI, yes. Is there any way to adjust this set up, and, am I seeing all the picture? (Side-to-side) Somehow, not seeing the black bars is weird, I am assuming I am missing some picture.

Roger Thornhill

Titles? When I watch Breakfast at Tiffany's (DVD) in the DVD Player, it is letterbox, put the same disc in my Blu-Ray, full screen, same with any 1:85:1 title, I bought Rio Bravo and the Searchers (The best western ever filmed, BTW) on Blu-Ray, and they both show full screen, although they are Letterbox movies.

I cringe to think about the Hitchcock titles, coming out, North by Northwest, Vertigo, Trouble with Harry, Rear Window, etc, in Blu-Ray and having the same issue, I don't want to have a technology upgrade, only to miss 30% of the picture due to this "Issue", assuming I am missing anything at all, which NO ONE has been able to tell me is what is in fact happening.

Brian Shannon

I would start by checking the settings on the player and the tv. You don't say which Sony TV you have.

Also I am not an expert on those movies but looking at their age, I wonder if it is a transfer issue. Do you have any newly or recently released movies to test?

JoeR63

As shelland pointed out, on a widescreen TV, which I assume your Sony is, any 1.85:1 movie will fill the whole screen with no black bars. You'll only see black bars on movies with aspect ratios such as 2.35:1. You're saying that if you play a 1.85:1 movie through the DVD player ON THE SAME TV you are seeing black bars? Are you seeing black bars on all 4 sides? If so, you may need to change the settings on your DVD player.

Mr. Salty

Surely you must be aware that the screens of regular TVs and HDTVs have different shapes. Regular TVs are almost square, while HDTVs are widescreen. Right?

All of the movies you've mentioned above have aspect ratios (the shape of the picture) at or close to 1.85:1 (not 1:85:1), which is almost exactly the same as the aspect ratio of an HDTV screen. That's why you would see black bars on a regular TV and not on an HDTV: The screens are shaped differently.

If you're saying you have both a DVD player and a Blu-ray player hooked up to your HDTV, and the DVD player is displaying your DVDs differently than the Blu-ray player, it's because you never changed a setting in the DVD player to tell it that it's hooked up to a widescreen display. Go into the player's setup menu and make sure it's set to output a 16:9 picture.

Actually, shelland DID tell you what was happening. You need to read the FAQ sticky thread at the top of this forum area.

In short, you ARE NOT missing any picture with a widescreen HDTV/Blu-ray.

Most of those Hitchcock films will fill your HDTV's screen completely. "Rear Window" may actually have small black bars on the left and right sides of the picture, because it was not shot as wide as the others (1.66:1 vs. 1.85:1).