Explain Anamorphic widescreen to me
 

I did a search and came up with a billion hits for anamorhpic dvds but nothing that answers my question.

I recently bought a Hitachi HDTV. I always have black bars on the top and bottom of any dvd I watch. It was my understanding that anamorphic widescreen would make the picture fill a widescreen tv.

I checked my output from my philips dvd player and it is set to output widescreen. My tv is set to 16x9 standard.

The only time my picture fills the screen is when it stretches 4x3 material.

Am I misunderstanding what anamorphic widescreen means? Do I need to check some settings either on the tv or dvd player that I may have overlooked?

a 2.35:1 aspect ratio movie that is enhanced (anamorphic) for widescreen (or 16x9) televisions will still have black bars at the top and bottom. If it filled you 16x9 screen you would be losing image on both sides. 1.85:1 aspect ratio movies that are enhanced should fill your entire screen. What movies have you tried?

Only an anamorphic widescreen video that's truly 16:9 (1.77:1) will exactly fit your screen. Typically, that would be a widescreen TV source, like "24" for example.

A 1.85:1 image (many movies) will yield very thin black bars, often covered by the bezel on TVs with some overscan, but still visible on screens that don't overscan at all, like most direct-view LCDs and plasmas. A 2.25:1 or wider movie (eg, CinemaScope) will still have significant black bars.

If this isn't what you're seeing then you might have a setting wrong somewhere, but I'm not sure what it might be.

RichC

mainly I have found animated movies fill up the whole widescreen TV very few other movies fill up the whole screen....... You would think they would just all film in that format but i guess that would make to much sense ;)

Anamorphic DVDs and the aspect ratio of the film have nothing to do with each other. An anamorphic disc only means that it utilizes the full resolution of the TV's width and height without any distortion. A non anamorphic disc must be zoomed or stretched to use the full 16:9 screen which causes a loss of resolution. Either way the aspect ratio of the film and whether or not you have black bars in the image to fill in the areas on your screen has nothing to do with it being anamorphic.

ok well save it to the DVD so it all fits the same then...

Not all tv's are the same shape . . . . yet!

You make it sound like all movies should just be changed because a couple people got 16:9 TVs in the last decade. Filming started around 1927, not 1997. There have been 3 main aspect ratios in the US, and others in Europe or other countries, plus all sorts of oddball ratios. Most people here prefer OAR (original aspect ratio) rather than damaging the movie to fit a particular screen shape. (see my sig)

I might add that animated movies are not "filmed", which is part of why they fit the screen.

I have a Hitachi 57F510 HDTV and it has several settings that will enable me to get rid of the bars either via zoom or expand modes in both 16 x 9 and 4:3. I would lose some of the picture but if I want to fill the screen this does the job nicely.

There is no god.

Here's another link that discusses the different aspect ratios. It also has some links to good examples on the bottom: http://home1.gte.net/res0mrb7/widescreen/aspect.html

Personally, I had never noticed that movies were in different ratios at the theater. After I learned all about this from owning an RPTV, I started to notice the aspect ratio at the theater right away.

When I first got my RPTV, I stretched movies because the black bars 'bothered' me. Now that I understand aspect ratios, etc, I always view DVDs in "full" mode.

That's probably because of effective masking. Most never realize that theater screens are one shape and masked quick before the movie starts for that movie.

People ought to do that at home and stop the madness about fullscreen.

edit: I didn't mean the screen is modified, I corrected it.

Before anyone jumps on him for suggesting we buy "T-1000" esqu TVs that can morph their shape, theaters use curtains on the sides and mattes on the top and bottom (not as often though). There are ways of making mattes for your home screen that will help.

As an experiment, I once taped two pieces of posterboard to my TV over the black bars of a 2.35 movie. The difference was incredible. I don't bother since we also use our main TV for television viewing, but if you want to go to the effort, it can be done.

One last question. I noticed the other night while watching Rescue Me that the picture was letterboxed. I've also noticed that with Conan O'Brien. If these shows are made for tv why aren't they broadcast 16x9? I thought I wouldn't have black bars on made for tv programs that are transmitted in widescreen.

yeap I was hoping for that to waporvare but i think they went the other route is it is less to broadcast ... matter of saving money but still meeting the HDTV/digital require ment as some broadcasts in HDTV are still 4:3 (aka local news in HDTV) but it meets digtial requirement....

Sounds like you may not have a HDTV box from your cable company yet...just because you have an HDTV doesn't mean you'll get an HD signal unless you have a converter box.

Standard analog TV is often broadcast letterboxed. In this cast, they're broadcasting a standard NTSC 4:3 frame in which the black bars are simply part of the picture.

If you are receiving a digital broadcast, it should not be letterboxed (unless it's a Cinemascope type movie). It might be pillarboxed (black bars at the sides) if its a 4:3 program.

RichC