Why dont wide screen movies fill the whole screen on my wide screen TV?

Question

I bought a plasma wides screen TV expecting to see a full screen when I watched "wide screen' movies. To my dismay, I still have to suffer with the "letter box' look. what the heck is going on? Aren't the new TVs shaped wide so the movies will fill the screen? I have tried changing all the settings and screen ratios etc. but nothing fixes it. What is the deal with this?

Answer 1

If you don't like it, you can look for "full screen" versions of movies on DVD or watch HBO on DirecTV. For the full screen, the movie is cropped (left and right edges cut off) or "panned and scanned" to follow the motion. But you are not seeing the full picture. As already stated, theater movies are made wider than the HDTV screen. A typical widescreen movie will have an aspect ratio (width to height) of 2.35:1, while a widescreen TV's aspect ratio is 1.78:1. Movie directors and producers do not like to have their movies cropped, so more movies are presented in their original aspect ratio (OAR), which means bars on top and bottom. At least with a widescreen TV, those bars are smaller than on the old 4:3 screens.

Answer 2

The wide screen movie are going to play wide no matter what tv you play it on you have to buy the full screen movies. When you buy them at the store you it should say at the top of the dvd weather it is wide screen or full screen. Hope this helps.

Answer 3

A wide screen TV has an aspect ratio of 16:9 (1.78:1)

Movies are made in a variety of aspect ratios (Panorma, 2.05:1 , etc), so you may still get black stripes on top and bottom.
There is nothing wrong with your TV. You can zoom up, but then you may lose side information.

Answer 4

it all depends on the wide screan ratio on the movies themselves some do and some wont

Answer 5

complicated issue. look into into a search engine. it can help!