Question about those black bars

[Simpler Simon]

From what I've seen, your average computer dvd player is programmed to emulate the settings on a widescreen, anamorphic television, despite the fullscreen shape of the monitor. Put a disc in, and you get a rectangular picture that takes up a chunk of your screen. If you double-click on it to maximize the image, the dvd player generates the black bar letterboxing you'd find automatically with a normal 4:3 television set.

Now widescreen tvs are proportioned to suit films of a 1.85:1/1.78:1 ratio (I'm not quite sure which one it is). If you have a film of a 2.35:1 ratio (like say, Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, etc) it is slightly letterboxed when shown on a widescreen tv. My question is, are those bars also digitally generated, or are 2.35:1 films slightly matted? I thought it was the former, but recently noticed the picture automatically comes with black bars when I play it on the computer.

[Dogbert]

A good question and one I asked once too.

All DVDs are encoded in 720 x 480 pixels (there are other options available, but most DVDs you buy in stores use this, the highest setting). A full screen DVDs uses all of those pixels to store the image for a 4:3 (1.33:1) ratio. A non-anamorphic widescreen DVD (which are rare nowadays) does the same and the black bars you see are stored with the rest of the image in the 720 X 480 pixels.

Now we get to anamorphic DVDs, which are the most common DVDs for movies on today's market. They are also encoded at 720 x 480 pixels, but contain a flag in the IFO files (basically a file with header info for each video file) that tells your DVD player that it has a different ratio. If the video is 16:9 (1.78:1), then all 720 x 480 pixels are used for the image, which has to be squashed by your DVD player more than usual. For ANY wider ratios, the black bars MUST be encoded as part of the image, which is still usually encoded with a 1.78:1 ratio.

So, when you're watching something with a ratio higher than 1.78:1, like something 2.35:1, on a 4:3 (1.33:1) display, there are actually four black bars. The very top and bottom of your screen has black bars generated by your DVD player, while the black bars closer to the center (touching the picture) were encoded as part of the movie.

If you're watching an anamorphic widescreen DVD on an HDTV (1.78:1) and you see black bars, unless there's a problem with your set, the bars you see are encoded on the disc as part of the movie.

Hope that helps...

[Adam Tyner]

My question is, are those bars also digitally generated, or are 2.35:1 films slightly matted?To add on to what Dogbert said:

It depends on a lot of things, such as the way the movie was photographed and at what aspect ratio any CGI or computer work was done.

2.35:1 movies shot using the Super 35 process sometimes show up on the HD movie channels at 1.78:1, revealing more image on the top and bottom of the frame than you see on DVD. You may find some Super 35 movies where some scenes have more image and some scenes are cropped. I was doing a comparison of the remake on Assault on Precinct 13 and noticed that, for example. Others, like Batman Begins, were shot with anamorphic lenses, meaning that there is no additional image to be had. When you see it at 1.78:1 on HBO-HD, it's been cropped.

But yeah, any time you watch a movie on DVD that's not 1.78:1 and is not 1.33:1, there will be bars drawn into the image itself: sometimes tiny, sometimes thick...sometimes horizontal, sometimes vertical.

[Silly McGooses]

Most of the time when I watch something that is, say, anamorphic 1.66:1 or so on my little portable DVD player (the only anamorphic screen I have), the top and bottom are cropped to fit the player. Is there ever a case when there can be black bars on the side to accomidate the image on a WS TV without it looking like that on a FS TV?

[Lord Dalek]

Most of the time when I watch something that is, say, anamorphic 1.66:1 or so on my little portable DVD player (the only anamorphic screen I have), the top and bottom are cropped to fit the player. Is there ever a case when there can be black bars on the side to accomidate the image on a WS TV without it looking like that on a FS TV? Yes, in fact all anamorphic transfers of 1.66:1 films now have black bars to the left and right of the image. Although some studios (IE: MGM) continue to do them simply non-anamorphic.

What dvd are you watching? It shouldn't work like that.

[Silly McGooses]

A lot of Disney animated movies, i.e. Treasure Planet, do that on my portable DVD player.