Why do many DVD videos played on a 16:9 format screen still appear as a tiny letterbox within that screen.?

Question

Many DVD movies appear as a small letterbox on my already 16:9 aspect ratio screen which is annoying after watching previews, FBI warnings and studio credits that all fill the screen and seem to be formatted perfectly. When the actual movie starts and the image shrinks to a postage stamp. I have tried changing the format to fill the screen but it never quite fills it properly.

As I mentioned the previews and credits are all formatted such that they fill the screen and I presume these too are in the cinema format described. It is only when the feature movie starts that the image size often (not always) shrinks considerably.

Answer 1

Movies are filmed in a wide variety of aspect ratios (width to height ratio). The 16:9 "widescreen" format is actually 1.78:1 aspect ratio and only films of this format will "fill" the screen. The old 4:3 (or 1.33:1) aspect ratio films will fit top to bottom, but have bars on each side, while 1.85:1, 2.05:1, 2.25:1, 2.35:1, 2.40:1, 2.5:1, etc aspect ratio films will fit side to side but have increasingly larger bars at top and bottom.

The bottom line is ONLY one aspect ratio film will fit ANY screen fully, ALL OTHERS will have bars.

Sorry, but unless you are willing to limit your viewing to 1.78:1 program material, distort the picture using some form of zoom or aspect distortion, or move to a projection system with a variable masking system you will just have to learn to live with it.

Edit to respond to your edit:

The special features, etc are frequently filmed after the movie and will have a different (usually less widescreen) format, and therefore "fill" the screen more. The credits and intro (except maybe the studio banner) are rarely different than the film itself.

The film aspect ratio format is determined by the director and the scenes framed to take advantage of that format. The trailers, etc. are filmed by someone else and usually not filmed in widescreen format (at least not more than 1.78:1) because there is no "artistic" reason to do so.

Remember that a widescreen image is NOT a smaller image on a movie screen. On a TV monitor it is limited by the width of the screen (and therefore takes up less area ... i.e. looks smaller), but on a movie screen it would be projected on a widescreen and the height allowed to expand. You don't notice it in the theatre, but screens "expand" and "contract" using a masking system to "frame" the image appropriately.

It sounds like you might be a candidate for a projection system and a wide screen (say 8-9')that would allow you to see the big image you obviously would prefer. It's actually more afordable than you might think ($1200 - $1500).

Answer 2

Before Widescreen TV became available ,a standard Aspect Ratio had to be agreed upon world wide so as to keep the screen size standard.For some reason the 16 : 9 (1.78:1) ratio was chosen for transmittion of TV material . However this ratio is not suitable for many Widescreen Movies made in the past.Because a lot of them were filmed in a greater aspect ratio.The movie "Ben-Hur" released in 1959 was filmed with a ratio of 2.70 :1 which was one of the widest ever filmed.Viewing that movie on your 1.78 ;1 screen will result in a wide black bars top and bottom.Some viewers think that because their screen has top and bottom bars they are not seeing the full frame and would rather have their widescreen TV filled in with the image .But they are actually seeing the whole movie in its original photographed ratio only it is smaller but it has the correct size. Most movies of the past used 2.35:1 (Anamorphic Widescreen) and 2.20:1(Panavision,Todd-AO) Todd -AO was one of the best systems invented in 1955.The film speed was 30 frames/second (instead of the normal 24 frames/second) and the camera was fitted with a 128 degree image lens.Some recent movies for general theater release are now being photographed in 1.78 :1 ratio .If you have a 16:9 projector and screen you don't notice the top and bottom of the screen where there is no image as much as a widescreen TV..Some projectors have a Resize feature which can actually fill the whole screen with minimum distortion.

Answer 3

Setting the TELEVISION to the "full" screen setting is only half the battle...You must tell your DVD player that your TV is a "16:9" shape...Also, if your player is a "PROGRESSIVE SCAN" or "UPSCALING" player, turn these features OFF...Make sure the video output is "480i".

If you've already done all this, then your unfortunately the owner of a stack of DVDs that aren't recored in "ANAMORPHIC WIDESCREEN".

Click this link for a quick (pictorial) overview: http://www.thedigitalbits.com/articles/anamorphic/anamorphic235demo.html

This is why more people should be upset when studios refuse to offer the anamorphic video transfers on their DVD releases...Folks with widescreen TVs will either have bars all the way around the image, or they can "ZOOM" the image, eliminating all bars, but decreasing picture quality considerably.

We usually won't buy a DVD if it's not recorded in anamorphic widescreen...Once you're forced to "zoom" the image, the picture is barely better than VHS.

Answer 4

Make sure the aspect ratio on the tv is set to "full."

This will enable anamorphic DVDs to fill the screen. Only 2.35:1 ratio will be slightly letterboxed.

Answer 5

It might be because the movie is in 2.35:1 (cinema shape) and this doesn't fill 16:9 (1.77:1)