are there still bars on the top and bottom of the screen? We were trying out my friend's new HDTV and i thought that maybe the dvd player was not setup for a widescreen tv.
So are there bars on gladiator while its playing?

Marc

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Yes, you will get small black bars.

Yes, as mentioned you will see black bars as your widescreen TV has an aspect of 16/9 or ~ 1.78:1 and Gladiator is framed at 2.35:1.

A widescreen tv has an 1.78:1 aspect-ratio.
Gladiator is presented in 2.35:1 (or 2.40:1, I don't remember), so those black bars are quite natural. And if you didn't know, 1.78:1 means that the image is 1.78 times as wide as it is high. Hope this sheds some light on the matter.

hehe, looks like someone beat me to the punch.

David Sorry about that.

thanks all you folks. i knew i could come back in 2 hours and see a few responses. thanks again,
Marc

scarchest.com the world is yours.

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I thought the whole idea behind "anamorphic" transfers was that it _would_ fill the entire 16x9 screen (even at 2.35:1).

Are the black bars not present only on 1.78:1 films?

supersalo: No, anamorphically enhanced discs improve vertical resolution, the aspect is un-altered. I suggest you take a gander at this - very informative.

Just to clarify the second part of your question: black bars will appear with any aspect greater than ~1.78:1. Depending on the overscan present on your set you may not see (or see very thin) black bars on 1.85:1 material and definately on something like Gladiator which is framed at 2.35:1 (Filmed in Super 35).

[This message has been edited by Jehan (edited November 24, 2000).]

I have an HDTV & so does a friend of mine. I've had to explain it to him a few times too, he seems to think that the 2:35:1 movies aren't anamorphic. I don't see what the confusion is, since I'm assuming you're all familiar with what different ratio movies look like letterboxed (some have bigger bars than others). Why would you think that because the tv's 16x9 all movies would be the same ratio now? I LOVE the black bars on my HDTV! That just means the picture's more cinematic looking (I prefer 2:35:1). And with a 65" HDTV, the 2:35:1 picture (not including the black bars) is still about 33" high by 59" wide, which is still huge, even with the black bars.

Geez, why do they have those bars anyway? My trusty old VHS tapes never had bars. Either did my beta-max or my black and white TV's.
And what does DVD stand for? And how do I get one of those .1 speakers? Can my old 8-track player play DTS with THX?
I'm such a confused consumer. Why did they ever get rid of DIVx?

Moving to Hardware Forum

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Ok, thanks for the info.

I have one other question: How big are the black bars when viewing a 1.85:1 DVD?

Sal

You would think you'd still get a sliver of black bar with a 1:85:1 movie, but because of overscan it fills up the whole screen. So do 1:66:1 movies- the left & right bars are lost with overscan.