X

This is really bugging me. I've been watching a lot of newer releases of older movies in 4:3 format and it seems most of their menus are in 16:9 format. I set up my equipment to display 4:3 and the menu screen is stretched vertically and looks really screwy.

For instance, the Astaire/Rogers movies have this for their menu screen:
Video Attributes:
Video compression mode: MPEG-2
TV system: 525/60 (NTSC)
Aspect Ratio: 16:9
Display Mode: Only Pan&scan
Source picture resolution: 720x480 (525/60)

and this for the movie:
Video Attributes:
Video compression mode: MPEG-2
TV system: 525/60 (NTSC)
Aspect Ratio: 4:3
Display Mode: Both Pan&scan and Letterbox
Source picture resolution: 720x480 (525/60)

I can't figure out why the studios would do that. Are they only set up to make 16:9 menu screens now?

fitprod

I assume your talking about the menus?

This is one of those pet peeves for me as well...

fitprod

LikeMiamiVice

the gate is like that..ultimate tease for me..same goes for the pirahna 2 dvd..credits are in widescreen but the actual flick is in fullscreen

X

Yes, that's a better word for what I'm talking about and I edited my post to reflect that.

djtoell

You should ask an Administrator to edit the thread title that shows up in the forum listing, since only editing the post title doesn't change that.

DJ

X

Thanks, I did.

Considering all the things people say about them, those admins are really good about helping people out when they need it!

renaldow

I think it's just the standard now. I get review screeners that are normally in 4:3 format, but the menus are always in 16:9. I've noticed a lot of regular 4:3 material does that now. Not really a big deal for me since my player switches AR on the fly and automatically pillarboxed 4:3 material.

FaustBos

this has always bugged me as well. Espeically the ultimate insult of 4:3 menu on a 16:9 film. I've always imagined its the classic 2 departments working on 1 disc, and countless seminars on "good communication".

On my widescreen TV, and my DVD player, everything seemed to autoswitch nicely 99% of the time. On our projector, its a bit more annoying as we have to set the AR. Its just a simple click on the remote, but still annoying.

But oh well, I guess there are worse things... for instance, my Sony player was great in that we got the machine "fixed" so that it could skip over anything and everything. So no FBI warnings, etc.

When I got my new machine, a Denon, though its region free, I can no longer skip directly to the menu. I've discovered some DVDs now have commercials!!!!, ..... I wont even say the P word, but its no wonder.

The guy who thought of commercials on VHS must have gone nuts when DVD was interduced. I can only hope he sits in traffic for an hour on his way to work everyday for the rest of his life. (but I bet he works from home)
fo

Drexl

They're made to fill both screen formats. Notice that all of the information you need to see is in the middle of the menu. For a 4:3 TV, they use the automatic pan and scan feature to zoom in on the menu, cutting off the sides.

SMB-IL

Wait, don't these menus have letterboxing black bars on a 4x3 set?

Josh Z

No, not usually. Some discs use the Auto Pan & Scan flag as Drexl mentions. Many others are actually encoded with two sets of menus and display whichever one will fill your screen depending on whether the DVD player is set for 4:3 or 16:9 mode.