Santa Claus The Movie Weirdness
 

I just got the 25th Anniversary blu-ray of Santa Claus The Movie. I noticed something strange, though. It's a 2.35:1 frame with black bars on the top and bottom. On a 4:3 tv, the bars are pretty wide. Unless the picture is pretty bright, the picture has the black bars, but also, above the bars is....nothing. Like when you're tuned to a channel that's not showing anything. It's just blank and completely different than the black of the bars. I hope I explained it properly. I've never seen this before with any dvds or the 30 some blu-rays that I have.

Re: Santa Claus The Movie Weirdness
 

Pics?

Re: Santa Claus The Movie Weirdness
 

Blu-rays try to fill a 16x9 frame. For 2.35 pictures (which are not as "tall" when filling the screen from side-to-side), that usually means adding solid black bars above and below the picture. Your 4:3 TV then takes that 16x9 picture and positions it in the vertical middle of your screen, adding a second set of black or grey bars above and below the 16x9 frame.

To recap: The first set of bars is actually part of the picture and takes 2.35 to 1.78. The second set of bars is generated by the TV to fill its 1.33 (4:3) picture.

Re: Santa Claus The Movie Weirdness
 

Yeah, but there isn't a seconds set of bars. Just picture a 2.35 frame in the middle of the screen. There will be bars on the top and bottom. But where there should be black as on each and every one of my other dvds and blu-ray, there's nothing. Like I said, above the top black bar and below the bottom black bar, it's as if the tv is tuned to a station showing nothing. It's just..nothing. Well, sort of grey. On all of my other movies, the black bars on top and bottom go completely to the top and the bottom. I've never noticed this weirdness on any other movie I have. I'll try looking at it on my widescreen to see if the problem is there, too.

Edit : I just checked it on my laptop, and the extra set of grey bars above and below the black bars don't show up. It's only on a 4:3 tv that there are grey bars in addition to the normal black ones. It's really only distracting at first, but you get into the movie really quick and don't really notice them. I just thought that it was weird that this is the only movie that I own out of almost 800 that does this.

Re: Santa Claus The Movie Weirdness
 

I wasnt even aware there were 4:3 HD tvs.

Re: Santa Claus The Movie Weirdness
 

Actually, I have one. They created them when HDTVs first came out thinking that some people wouldn't like the widescreen TVs. It was a silly idea. The only reason I bought mine was because Walmart was clearancing them out, and I got it for about $500 or so at a time where even the smallest HDTVs were $1000-$2000. The only HD source mine had was a component input. Anytime you watched something HD on that input it would just letterbox it. The only great thing about the TV was when I watched something that was 4:3 (even on the HD input) it filled the entire screen. It was OK for me, for a while, as I didn't have much HD content. My local cable didn't have many channels in HD and HD DVD and blu-ray wasn't out yet. I finally bought a widescreen TV earlier this year, so the 4:3 set is just sitting in the garage. I was debating on selling it, as it would make a good secondary TV to watch HD content on, but I just don't have a place to put it, right now, as it's pretty bulky. I thought about selling it, but figured no one would want to buy it. But who knows?

Re: Santa Claus The Movie Weirdness
 

My mom has a 36" Sony CRT HDTV that has a 4:3 ratio. She won it in a VH1 contest, which at the time (2003) had an SRP of $1600. She still has this TV in her living room.

The TV itself has two component inputs and one DVI input, but the max resolution was only 1080i.

Re: Santa Claus The Movie Weirdness
 

Are there any TVs or Blu-ray players that give you the option to "grow" the picture and get rid of the black bars at the tops and the bottoms without just stretching the picture vertically?

I've found myself getting used to the way the subscription channels enlarge the picture. Watching something like Wall-e or Up! on tv without the bars and then watching it on blu, with a smaller picture, loses a bit for me.

Re: Santa Claus The Movie Weirdness
 

Hit the zoom button and enjoy the movie with the sides cut off.

Re: Santa Claus The Movie Weirdness
 

Well, neither my Samsung tv or Sony Blu-ray have "zoom", only stretch, etc.

btw, I'm someone who hated pan & scan, but I don't really feel like it's cutting off too much on widescreen tvs.