Lobo13

I see some of these problems stemming from the fact that almost all the new tv's these days are gray. If you end up watching a movie with black bars the contrast against the gray tv makes it look pretty bad, it sticks out like a sore thumb. Whoever started this trend of almost all new tv's the last few years being gray ought to have their heads examined.
Here's hoping they release an AOR version of Lord Of War soon.

Qui Gon Jim

It's not really the TV that is gray, but the source (HD Box, DVD player etc) that makes it gray. With Dish, we had nice black bars pillaring 4:3 material. Changed to Cox cable and ended up with hideous gray bars. When we move we got Comcast and out non-DVR box had gray and we changed and got the DVR it has black. I could tell you the model of HD-DVR we have but not any of the others. Some equipment may have the option of changing the color as well.

majorjoe23

I'm pretty sure he's talking about the TV itself being gray.

Lobo13

The gray bars on the side of the screen are problematic as well, but I was talking about the actual tv (not the screen). Almost all of the new tv's are gray in color. It makes for strange vieing sometimes. If the whole tv was black it would blend in well with the black bars at the top and bottom of the screen, makes it a lot easier on the eyes. I think they went to gray bars on the screen because it blended better with the actual color of the tv's, which all seem to be gray now.
Go to Best Buy and find a decent black tv, you can't because hardly anyone makes them anymore. Sony, Toshiba, Panasonic, Hitachi, all their tv's that I have seen are gray.

Qui Gon Jim

Ah! My bad. You are right about the set color. Mine is gray.

Also, my set also does not allow butchering of the image by zooming or stretching when using higher than 480i. I never tried to warp the image so I didn't even realize it.

MEJHarrison

Nope. It's to cause more even wear on the screen. Or so I've heard.

woemcats

My DLP Toshiba does allow stretching of 480p material, it has four different modes, in fact, to handle different ratios.

marioxb

Um, wouldn't she be your sister?

Dave C

On our Scientific Atlanta HD cable box you can go into the setting and change "borders" to dark which takes away the grey border issue for about 95% of the channels. Not sure why it doesn't work with a couple of them.

Also, while if the TV doesn't allow for zooming on HD inputs the clicker has an aspect button that allows for "stretc" "zoom 1" and "zoom 2".

The zoom 1 actually does come in handy if you are watching a non-enchanced widescreen show and can deal with the loss of resolution. Most of the time I just watch non-enhanced stuff with 4 black borders instead of two though. The screen is big enough so even my old crappy eyes can see it that way.

Our Sony A20 (rear projection LCD) is normally black on it's own though, the grey is only an issue when the cable box makes it one.

Shagrath

I hope that this doesn't become a trend (altered WS). And if it does, they start releasing in Widescreen and Altered Widescreen. Sure, it makes it a pain in the ass for us, but fullscreen's always been a pain anyways. I won't be picking up any altered widescreen releases on principle, but I'm sure that the loss of my sale and a handful of others isn't going to send the point home to the studios.

For the record, I've got a 36" 4:3 HD CRT. I looked at the WS CRTs when I was shopping around, and I got more screen use out of the 36" 4:3 (effective 33" WS) than I did with the 34" WS model (effective 27" 4:3).

Egon's Ghost

Take modest folk like me, who don't even have a TV at the moment but watch DVDs on a small laptop: I've been watching "black bars" for years. I was into the gay bars for a while, oh, oops, I've said too much...

Anyway, it's simple psychology, it seems: both camps think they are seeing less. Of course, we think (and KNOW) that if the movie is cropped, we are indeed seeing less of the movie. But many people perceive the black bars (with the lights off in the room, I do not see how you would still be able to notice it) as somehow seeing "less". To me, and I'm being diplomatic, it's an issue of perception. I could say "ignonoramity", but I'm being diplomatic.

Mammal

You fellows really should look into front projection; it's the best HT purchase I ever made, and renders black bar issues irrelevant - but not aspect ratio issues.

Jon2

I've said it before.

If the black bars bother someone, it's because the movie doesn't really interest them.

nightmaster

The actual masses are never going to be accepting of "black bars", plain and simple. Too many people have been raised with 4x3 screens and they don't WANT to be educated, informed or enlightened that OAR sometimes means the screen will not be filled. Maybe once widescreen sets have become the standard for 20 years they'll finally "get it".

mactheknife

So is there a list somewhere of all the films that have been released with the cropped widescreen? I don't want them either.

Peep

It funny how many people seem focused on getting used to the "black bars"! It not really the black bars that people are complaining about. They're complaing the the movie is a lot smaller (top to bottom) on their screen (no matter what size standard screen they have). Many people don't mind giving up some image on the left and right sides of their screens just so they don't have to squint to make out the picture on their TV.

It really bugs me every time I hear about these people having to be "educated". It's the widescreen fanatics that need to be educated. Stop forcing your personal preferences on others and snickering at them just because they don't agree with you!

What you people really should be bitching about is that no studios are taking advantage of the DVD specifications that allow for coding of "on the fly" P&S which would let a studio encode a movie once (in WS with P&S tags) and make most everybody happy.

flashburn

Actually, with most of the people I know, that is not the case. They do not like the black bars because they are distracting to them. Nice try though.

GeoffreyL

I agree almost every friend I have that dislikes widescreen said the reason was the black bars bothered them.

woemcats

Likewise, most widescreen TVs are over 30 inches, so people are hardly squinting at a 2.35:1 film.

The Bus

Gray bars aren't bad. I end up not seeing them after a few minutes.

hermes10

I don't think I've ever heard a "wide screen fanatic." Maybe you could give us some examples. Most of the people complaining are "fanatic" about original aspect ratios. A "widescreen fanatic" would presumably be happy with an altered widescreen release.

In any case, it would appear that the OAR advocates are in fact having your "fill the screen" fanaticism forced on us, in this particular case --and an increasing number of others. Most of us don't care, if, for you, filling a screen is more important than the integrity of the work.

And anyway, it shouldn't matter to you if you stretch or zoom-in a widescreen release, since you don't care about the image quality anyway. However, once the image has been cropped to your satisfaction, those of us who do care about the integrity of the work, have no alternative, as we cannot "zoom-out" to regain the lost portions of the image.

Egon's Ghost

I don't agree with this, just based on the people I know; for example, my father-in-law has a huge projection (standard) TV, much too big for the room it is in. He hates letterboxed movies because he thinks that somehow he's missing something because the whole screen isn't full. I don't think the size per se is an issue here. It's psychological. Again, it's about perception, I think.

Drexl

That's a good point. It's like with edge enhancement: those who want an artificially sharp picture can turn up the sharpness on the TV and get it. Those who don't want it can't undo the EE.

awmurray

Some of us do use front projection.

The problem that remains is that once the DVD release it cropped, it doesn't matter what the display device is-- it's still cropped.

That's why the black bar issue is still relevant. And why we need to make sure that studios/distributors release their product in OAR.

Of course with front projection, you have to devise some kind of masking system (relatively easy to do, but...)

awmurray

The first post in this thread shows why there needs to be education:

Also, he still doesn't get it because his solution would make the problem just as bad:

I didn't know this was part of the DVD spec. It seems like a good solution but the issue isn't quite as simple as defining the P&S region. In some cases, the image has to be squeezed to fit it on the screen. Here is the perfect example from Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban in which the Marauder's Map had to literally be squashed because both sides of the widescreen had to be shown at the same time or the scene wouldn't make any sense at all.

Note that this would be impossible if people or other recognizable objects were on the screen because it would be quite obvious if a person was mauled in this way.

Here's the link so you can see the screen shots for yourself:

Prisoner of Azkaban Shots