The 16:9 problem (black bars) (by 2 users)

Maybe it's just me, but I don't seem to have any problem dealing with the
lack of resolution if you try and fit a 2.35 movie in a 27" TVor maybe
it's the fact that I usually use an LCD data projector to view my DVDs with.
I read somewhere (maybe in this ng) that a data projector can handle a
progressive scan just fine (because it works the same as a PC display as
opposed to NTSC?)so (besides the fact that I can get a 21 - or larger -
foot diagonal), is there something else inherent in the way the data
projector works that makes the picture completely acceptable to watch? ie:
am I suffereing resolution loss when pumping the video through the projector
also?

...

On Sun, 30 Jan 2000 16:57:47 GMT, "Patrick"

Consumer reports (sony rated badly for returns/repairs) & my own
personal experience with:

1) Sony XBR 27 with the picture geometry and focus severely
misaligned, out of the box.
2) Sony HI-FI VHS VCR $400.00 new and two trips for
transport repairs @$80.00 a pop for a badly designed micro-switch.
3) Sony 850ES ($400.00) mid-high end three head Cassette deck. The
dolby B & C EQ have gone haywire and require it's turned off to get a
decent recording. It's 4 years old,
4) Sony's walkmans suck and usually break within a year. My current
walkman is a 2 year old Panasonic.
5) A seventeen inch Sony trinitron I bought in 1978 lasted only 12
years until the fly back X-former took a dump (just kidding with this
one).
6) I gave my 27" Phillips TV to my sister after I bought a Panasonic
SF 31 and it only lasted 1.5 more years (6.5 total) before it died.

I currently own 3 SVHS VCRs and 1 SVHS camcorder, of which none have
required repairs. The oldest is a Toshiba SV950, purchased in 1988 and
still running strong. The others are:

Hitachi Q-SVHS UX717, two years old. A nice upper end VCR with flying
erase and SVHS playback.
Sharp VC1000 ET-SVHS. 1 year old. I was leery about sharp but so far
this is the best of the lot, with SVHS using normal VHS tapes, DNR,
three Svideo inputs and SVHS EP recording that rivals SP mode.
Panasonic SVHS Camcorder. 9 years and still running without a hitch.

Other Sony gear with no problems, so far: 550 DVD player, Sat-BI DSS.
The DVD is less than 1 year old and my fingers are crossed.

Sony and Phillips have nice products and I still buy Sony In spite of
my personal experiences but for reliability, I'll take Panasonic or
Toshiba for less $$ any day. BTW, where I work, we have lots of $$ HP
microwave test equipment, some costing .5Million. So to me, consumer
gear is just that.

[...]

Bob Nixon
#

In <>, on 30/01/00
at 06:07 PM, (Walt Davidson) said:

If you zoom in, you don't get any higher resolution - you only enlarge the pixels and destroy the sides of the movies. This is an even worse option than Pan'n'Scan, since at least in Pan'n'Scan there is a PERSON making the choice as to what part of the picture is the central one. By blindly zooming in on the middle (or the left or right for that matter), you are very much making sure that you will see a movie that is not at all like anything the director of the movie would like you to see.

No - my personal wish is that people should have the OPTION of watching the movie in P&S or LB mode, by either including both or by utilizing the feature that is built in to the DVD spec to zoom in on a specified part of the image. In cases where this is impossible (for size or money reasons), there should be a LB'ed version only - otherwise you ignore the wishes of the people that has made DVD the success it is today - the movie collectors (like me ;-). Like it or not - the world is moving towards 16:9 format being the standard, and we might as well get used to it now.

Keld R. Hansen
#

(email replyers: Change domain name to the above www domain)

On Sun, 30 Jan 2000 18:07:13 GMT, (Walt

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

God this guy is brilliant ;)

Hey Walt! Did you read the rest of this tread or just this one post?

Bob Nixon
#

On Sun, 30 Jan 2000 15:19:38 GMT, "Patrick"

Agreed but you have left out a VERY important concern with the
practice of letter boxing when played back on a conventional 4:3 TV
set. WS or letter boxing at 2.35:1 aspect ratios reduces effective
resolution to about one half that of a P&S DVD on the same TV. Why?
40% of the scanning lines are lost (only 288 vs 480) and additionally
with 450-500 line TV sets (dot pitch dependant), each scan line is
'effectively' *1.77 times longer @2.35:1. This requires the DVD's 720
samples per line to be stretched to accommodate the nearly double
(*1.77X) amount of picture information of a wide angle
(2.35:1) film. This is manifested as a softer picture that many of us
find objectionable, in spite of the fact that we are 'indeed' missing
nearly half the scene.
Additionally, interlacing motion artifacts are far more noticeable
with only 288 scan lines.

*2.35/1.33=1.77

It all boils down to just what makes the picture look more
'life-like', which in turn is directly related to the viewers
enjoyment factor and involvement. So, until 16:9 anamorphic capable
TV's or HDTV become commonly available at reasonable prices, there
should always be the choice of both 2.35:1/P&S on dual sided/layer
DVDs. **1.85:1 DVDs are not an issue and IMO, should only be presented
in their native format.

Technical rationale (skip if it bores you):
**1.85/1.33=1.39 @ 80% of the lines represents an acceptable loss of
resolution of a 4:3 TV
On 16:9or HDTVs, no vertical loss and only the effective scanning
reduction of 1.4, in terms of dilution of the limited horizontal
resolution .
2.35:1 DVDs STILL loose 20% of the vertical scanning lines and have
the same horizontal losses previously mentioned. However, with HDTVs
or 16:9 projection set, this stretching of 720 samples per line is far
less noticeable as more of the sampled pixels are manifested with the
finer dot pitch of projection, HDTV or PC-DVD. Not to mention the
additional benefits of anamorphic and progressive scanning.

Finally, It's not REALLY about the black bars but poor resolution
teamed with a smaller, less compelling picture vs an all or nothing
mentality. Choice is always better than none. I like to revert to an
old TV commercial, "We will serve no Wine before it's time".

[...]

Bob Nixon
#

I don't argue that Toshiba makes inferior machinesonly that there's
nothing new in them. The zoom feature that they have incorporated could be
argued as being not so much an advance in technology, but rather a
concession in technologysomething that allows for the viewer to revert
to (in my personal view) a mediocre method of viewing a picture.

I will concede that I have seen consumers groups report that Toshiba TVs
have been rated high on the reliability scale as well as other strong
points, but I have not seen any extremely favourable reviews of their DVD
hardware. If you have, please share them with the groupin fact, I have
seen some postings in this newsgroup indicating problems with Toshiba based
DVD hardware. As far as progressive, reasonably priced units go, I would
highly recommend the Philips line.

To address the quality of manufacturing processplease provide evidence
that Sony has demonstrated poor quality controlI mean other than the
fact that they have their units produced in both Mexico and Japan, each of
which would obviously produce different levels of quality in the final
product.

I feel the need to point out that Toshiba has simply "towed the line" as far
as releasing mainstream products in the consumer market. This does not
imply that they make inferior units - it is simply a fact that I personally
used to base my decison not to purchase one on. Recall that while Sony
invented the first CD player and Philips invented the first CD, Toshiba
simply "followed" with similar products. They were involved in developing
the DVD standard, but so were many others.

...

On Sun, 30 Jan 2000 15:05:05 GMT, "Patrick"

OK but you STILL have not defined what would make a Toshiba DVD player
inferior, particularly considering they have obviously innovated (zoom
function) where others have not. What about basic concerns as
reliability and isn't Toshiba one of the first with a reasonably
priced progressive output unit. IOW, your so called Wannabee status in
the CONSUMER electronics world ( manufacturing DVD players is not
exactly *cutting edge electronics) is highly subjective as you have
provided absolutely NO example (either in internal design or features)
for your rational. As example, at least some Sony DVD players have
built in DD decoding and DNR. While I have previously said I do own a
sony, both these EXTRA's are of little use to me. Why? I already have
a DD decoder and DNR has some bad side effects that sometimes
overshadow their basic noise reduction. As to internal design
innovations, chip reduction, better transport design, superior wave
soldering or a layout that is cheaper to mass produce, would be
tantamount to just who makes a better product. BTW, although SONY
products have a reputation for being leaders, their reliability and
quality control is amongst the worst in the consumer electronics
industry.

*Consumer products and cutting edge electronics are almost never used
in the same sentence although cutting edge "manufaturing" processes
would be. I would hope you could at least appeaciate the differences.

Bob Nixon
#

I guess it really comes down to the old addage "what you don't see won't
hurt you"...or something like that.

Think about it.
Someone who prefers Pan and Scan (not me) doesn't "see" the fact that they
are missing 40% of the picture if they watch it in 4:3.
...but they do "see" that they lose image size if they watch it in
letterbox.

Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but to me, proponents of Pan and
Scan are justifying their opinions on a "double standard" - on one side,
they complain about losing screen real estate, on the other side, they seem
to be OK with losing overall picture composition. To those of you who like
Pan and Scan, this is not a personal "shot", but rather an attempt to get
you to see your argument in a different light.

In the mean time, rock on WidescreenI'm forward-thinking too.

In <2BSk4.67794$D1.on.home.com>, on 30/01/00
at 08:26 AM, "Aaron Fillion" <> said:

No one is *forcing* you to look at them. Concentrate on the middle portion
on your TV, and voil?? - you see no black bars...

I agree with you there - there should be a choice. Do you want black bars
now or in the future?

LetterBox = Black bars on 4:3 TVs, none on 16:9 TVs (assuming a 1.85:1
movie).
Pan'n'Scan = No black bars on 4:3 TVs, but black side bars on 16:9 TVs (any
ratio).

Since we are all moving to 16:9 TVs in the next few years (HDTV), you can
decide as to *when* you want black bars, not IF you want them. Now
(LetterBoxed on 4:3 TVs) or later (Pan'n'Scan on 16:9 TVs).

I prefer to look ahead - so I would choose LetterBox'ed movies every time. I
have just gotten a 16:9 TV, and watching an anamorphic DVD on it just blows
you away. Watching Pan'n'Scan movies, I get black bars at the sides, as well
as losing up to 40% of the image as seen in the theatres.

They will fill (almost) all the available screen real esate, depending on
the apsect ration it was recorded in.

Agreed - and if they would use the "on-the-fly" positioning of 4:3 modes,
they could even - with ONE movie track on the DVD - have both a WS and a LB
edition of the movie. Just let people select 4:3 mode in their DVD player
and let the player zoom in on the appropriate area. This, of course, only
works if the movie is anamorphic - otherwise you will lose resolution.

Keld R. Hansen
#

(email replyers: Change domain name to the above www domain)

I was THINKING when I responded the first time. Sony makes good units. As
does Philips (I own four). My beef with Toshiba?...I personally wouldn't
buy one, but obviously, there are people out there who willthat's up to
them. There are other units out there that are better performers (at lower
and higher prices). I mark Toshiba as a "wannabe" in the DVD hardware
market - they have never been a "leader" (only a follower) in the
development of new hardware, such as Pioneer or Sony.

Regarding your comment about "anecdotal bull shit"if you don't like what
I have to say, then don't read itnobody's forcing you toand
"BTW"by making comments like that, aren't you in effect, "stooping to my
level" (heaven forbid!) and providing your own "anecdotal bull shit"?

...

In <2BSk4.67794$D1.on.home.com>, on 30/01/00
at 08:26 AM, "Aaron Fillion" <> said:

No one is *forcing* you to look at them. Concentrate on the middle portion on your TV, and voil?? - you see no black bars...

I agree with you there - there should be a choice. Do you want black bars now or in the future?

LetterBox = Black bars on 4:3 TVs, none on 16:9 TVs (assuming a 1.85:1 movie).
Pan'n'Scan = No black bars on 4:3 TVs, but black side bars on 16:9 TVs (any ratio).

Since we are all moving to 16:9 TVs in the next few years (HDTV), you can decide as to *when* you want black bars, not IF you want them. Now (LetterBoxed on 4:3 TVs) or later (Pan'n'Scan on 16:9 TVs).

I prefer to look ahead - so I would choose LetterBox'ed movies every time. I have just gotten a 16:9 TV, and watching an anamorphic DVD on it just blows you away. Watching Pan'n'Scan movies, I get black bars at the sides, as well as losing up to 40% of the image as seen in the theatres.

They will fill (almost) all the available screen real esate, depending on the apsect ration it was recorded in.

Agreed - and if they would use the "on-the-fly" positioning of 4:3 modes, they could even - with ONE movie track on the DVD - have both a WS and a LB edition of the movie. Just let people select 4:3 mode in their DVD player and let the player zoom in on the appropriate area. This, of course, only works if the movie is anamorphic - otherwise you will lose resolution.

Keld R. Hansen
#

(email replyers: Change domain name to the above www domain)

Letterbox is stupid I don't care what anyone says, forcing you to look at 2
black bars is not a good idea. Why not give everyone an option ? Widescreen or
Pan and Scan

Oh ya, what is going to happen to letterbox titles when you get your new HDTV
with a widescreen aspect ratio ?

All DVD's should have been Anamorphic from the start.

#

Maybe be with large projection screens, the widescreen format is fine.
But to me, with a a 34" screen, I have 20" of height (20x26 screen).

I hate to give up 2 inches on top and 2 inches on the bottom, leaving
me with a 16 inch tall movie, 26 inches wide. That ends up being
quite a bit of real estate I am losing (4 x 26 = 104 square inches).
I am sure it does not bother somepeopl, but to me the picture looks to
be a narrow band of video going across the middle of the screen.

This effect does not happen at the cinema where the screen is so huge,
but does happen in a living room when viewing a relatively small area
made ever so much smaller by the widescreen format.

On Sat, 29 Jan 2000 03:42:52 GMT, "Patrick"

Actually, I have a Sony DVD player but bought my sister a Toshiba
player for X-mas. It seems to be a good practical choice for those who
don't care for WS only DVD's, or most the current mainstream new
buyers converting from VHS.

BTW, what's your beef with Toshiba? My Sony was more expensive,
generally has more features but the toshiba (with it's zoom option)
seemed to be a good quality machine.

BTW, THINK before you respond to this last question as this is a DVD
tech group and anecdotal 'bull shit' responses as yours will be
treated will very very low tolerance. IOW, some valid technical
reason, or keep your opinions to yourself.

[...]
Bob Nixon
#

I'm guessing Mr Nixon is a Toshiba ownerpoor, misguided soul.

...

Buy a New Toshiba DVD player. They have a built in zoom that will get
rid of those black bars on the WS only DVDs.

[snip...]

Not if you buy a toshiba player.

1) About 5-10% of DVDs are P&S only but most these are either old or b
grade movies.
2) About 20% of DVDs have both versions on the disk. Some are dual
sided and others are dual layer.

3) The rest are Widescreen only or 1.85:1 or 2.35:1 aspect ratios.
Normally the former has small black bars and is not much different
than viewing full screen but the later (2.35:1) comes with large black
bars and several resolution concerns to those of us without 16:9 TV
sets. So, once again. Buy a Toshiba DVD player.

Yes! (see above)

Bob Nixon
#

If I were you I'd build a box that goes over your eyes and is about the size
of a shoebox. Put it over your face so you can't see those black bars. It
will make you so happy.

In article <> you write:

I'm sure 50 million other people have tried explaining to you
what's going on, but I'll give it a try anyway.

Have you seen movies in a movie theater? If so, have you noticed
that the movie looks wider that a TV screen? That is, if you projected
the movie onto a small screen and had a TV of the same height next to it,
the movie would be wider. Some movies are wider than others, so let me use
Ben Hur (a really wide movie) as an example.

TV screen Movie
++ #~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~#
| | ! !
| | ! insert exciting chariot !
| | ! race scene here !
| | ! !
| | ! !
++ #~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~#

Now, if you project the movie on top of the TV screen, what happens?

++~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~#
| | !
| | !
| BEN HUR !
| | !
| | !
++~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~#

There's a chunk of the picture that won't fit on a TV screen,
it's just too wide! So whenever you watch a movie on TV,
you're missing a chunk of the image you'd see in a movie
theater. The engineer that does the transfer to TV will usually
try to focus on the part of the screen where interesting stuff
is happening, kinda like using the TV as a sliding window to
see portions of the movie image. That's why they call this method
"Pan and scan". But you'll still miss a chunk of the image.

Is there something else we can do to see the entire movie?
You could buy a wider TV (the so-called 16:9 aspect ratio),
but those are expensive and there are movies wider than that.

What if you shrunk the movie picture so the width fits in
the TV screen?

++
| |
#~~~~~~~~~~~~#
! BEN HUR !
#~~~~~~~~~~~~#
| |
++

This method of shrinking the picture so you can see all of it is known
as "letterbox" or "widescreen format". Now you can see the entire
picture, but it's also smaller. You also get unused "space" on the top
and bottom... your black bars. It's a simple matter of geometry, can't
be helped.

Now, most movie buffs would rather watch the letterbox version, it gives
them the *entire* image as it would be seen in a movie theater. To make
up for the smaller size they buy bigger/wider TVs and view their movies
in a format with higher resolution, like laserdisc or DVD.

There are people, like yourself, who would rather have the image fill
the entire screen, even if they're missing that chunk of the movie I
explained earlier. For that reason, most DVDs come with a "pan and scan"
version in one side, and a "widescreen format" version on the other,
so you can choose the one you want.

Does that help?

--
E n r i q u e C o n t y

#
Official Home of The Great Anime Sub Sale

Then don't buy a DVDblack bars were not new to the world when DVD was
realized.

Do you understand that when youu see a movie in 4:3 format(like VHS)
that you are losing a large portion of the movie? You lose something
along the lines of 40%(i could be off on this but not by much) of the
film. If you watch a movie in 16:9 that you preieviousley watched in
4:3 you will be amazed at how much was cut out so that it could be
formatted to your TV. And yes, the majority of TVs are 4:3 that will
slowly change as this format becomes more polular and HDTV becomes
less expensive.

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So I guess the majority of DVD movies are 16:9 while the majority of
Projection TV's are 4:3. Therefore the consumer will watch the
majority of movies with black bars. Not good.

On Fri, 28 Jan 2000 08:25:29 -0500, Im Watching U

Most movies on DVD are in the 16:9 format. You get to see the whole
movie in this format. Not the hacked up version you usually get on
VHS. Some movies have both versions on the CD. You do get used to the
black bars very quickly. Ther are 16:9 TVs available but theyre very
expensive and with the 16:9 tvs you will have black bars on both sides
when you watch a 'normal' TV broadcast.

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Boy, you are new to thisyou're just looking for a flame-bashing aren't
youa comment like that is bound to start another one just like the one
batted around a few days agosee earlier postings. Try and take it easy
on this one guysunless he/she is just posting flamebaitin that
caseGET 'EM!!!!!!!!

As I'm sure more than a few people will respondalot of DVD titles come
in both formats on the same disc. Some are released in wide-screen only,
due to space limitations on the disc, and some (believe it or not) are
released only in standard format (no black bars). I think you'll find the
majority of people in this group will try and explain that widescreen is
better, because of compositionI completely agree, but everyone is
entitled to their own opinion.