Those pesky black bars: How much is too much?
09-02-08, 10:16 AM
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Those pesky black bars: How much is too much?
Just bought a Samsung LCD 650 series. Also bought a Samsung Blu-ray player and an Onkyo receiver. But I'm having troubles with some discs. I know that black bars on movies with a wider aspect ratio is normal, but I'm getting way too much.
Whenever I watch a 1.85 aspect ratio film, the image takes up the whole screen. Perfect.
Whenever I watch a 2.35 Blu-ray, the image takes up almost the whole screen. Perfect.
But sometimes, like when I pop in Seven (a non Blu-ray disc, also 2.35) I get massive black bars. The bars on top and bottom are nearly as big as the image itself. The image looks a little stretched, but not terribly bad. Just enough for me to know it's not right.
I'm using the "Just Scan" setting on the TV, which reads the source material and supposedly displays it the way it's supposed to. I cycled through 16:9 and the other options, but it never gets any better (when I put it on 4:3, I could tell that the image I was looking at previously was indeed a little squished, but I'm obviously not going to watch it in 4:3 mode).
Any ideas on what I'm doing wrong? I popped in The Incredibles, which is also 2.35 and non Blu-ray, and the image was fine, taking up nearly the entire screen.
Whenever I watch a 1.85 aspect ratio film, the image takes up the whole screen. Perfect.
Whenever I watch a 2.35 Blu-ray, the image takes up almost the whole screen. Perfect.
But sometimes, like when I pop in Seven (a non Blu-ray disc, also 2.35) I get massive black bars. The bars on top and bottom are nearly as big as the image itself. The image looks a little stretched, but not terribly bad. Just enough for me to know it's not right.
I'm using the "Just Scan" setting on the TV, which reads the source material and supposedly displays it the way it's supposed to. I cycled through 16:9 and the other options, but it never gets any better (when I put it on 4:3, I could tell that the image I was looking at previously was indeed a little squished, but I'm obviously not going to watch it in 4:3 mode).
Any ideas on what I'm doing wrong? I popped in The Incredibles, which is also 2.35 and non Blu-ray, and the image was fine, taking up nearly the entire screen.
09-02-08, 10:50 AM
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You know, I thought that at first, but it's the platinum special edition with anamorphic widescreen. The image itself looked pretty clean, just stretched a bit.
09-02-08, 11:59 AM
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I assume the Blu-ray player is upscaling the DVD? Check the upscale settings. The PS3 has a few different upscale settings, some of which can stretch the image ... maybe your player has something similar that needs to be changed.
