What good is having a 16:9 widescreen television when there are still bars at the top and bottom?

Question

Some movies do, some movies don't.
But, the older movies and television shows have bars at the sides.
*sheesh* Ya' can't win.

Answer 1

Given that programming is originated in several different aspect ratios, the only alternative would be to have several different televisions, one for each picture shape.

If the bars confuse or upset you I suggest buying multiple televisions. That's got to be better than those bars!

By the way, don't those bars drive you nuts? Me too!

Sometimes people tell me I obsess about meaningless things. I tell them about the bars and they go away.

Answer 2

The 16:9 ratio is the standard for HDTV. All your broadcasts in HD should exactly fit the screen.

Movies are ROUGHLY 16:9, but there are lots of variations. Remember when movie theaters had curtains around the screen? They would move them in-out to exactly fit the image.

Some of the HDTV's have "Aspect" or "stretch" modes that will expand parts of the image to fit the sides. It will look a little "fisheye" if the camera pans around, but it seems to make some people happy.

Answer 3

cause not all movies are shot in a 1.78:1 ratio (16x9)
directors choose what format they use
2.35:1 seems the most popular
2.85:1 is increasingly popular
a widescreen dvd usually preserves the original aspect ratio, so you may have black bars even on a widescreen tv. but at least you are still seeing the whole picture.
a fullscreen dvd always has a perfect 4:3 ratio, so it always fills the whole screen, however the original movies has been chopped to fit the screen. and you are never seeing the "whole" picture

Answer 4

I noticed that too. It's too bad we can't use our clicker to remove them. No matter how much technology changes, they'll continue to tick us off in one way or another.