[FriarTuck]

How come all anamorphic DVDs take a 4x3 image and compress them to 16x9 to get the extra resolution, but all 2.35 aspects kind of start in 16x9 and are then compressed to 2.35:1.


I am quite surprised that there isn't a "super anamorphic" mode where 2.35 aspect films oocupy a full 4x3 screen and are then compressed to the correct ratio - in order to get the max resolution...


Would be a nice "extra" facility for the players... esp given the size of the 2.35DVD base?


Friar

 

[Tom Bley]

Huh? ....and welcome to the forum!

 

[FriarTuck]

Tom


Been a lurker for a long time and an addict of this site for ages... lost my pwd so many times that my modest posts look newbie ish.


I thought my question was eloquent and clear... Sounds like I may have been affected my my beer?


Friar

 

[Tom Bley]

"Sounds like I may have been affected by my my beer?"


I'll say you have! You studdered!


I'm on my third brewski so maybe that's why I can't decipher your code! Everything will be clearer in the morning!.....burp! lol

 

[Richard Slay]

I've thought about this one myself. The problem is that the only reason 16x9 was considered in the original DVD spec is that the TV manufacturers figured they would soon be selling a lot of 16x9 displays. Since they also were making the DVD players it wasn't a big hassle to put anamorphic into the spec and then create downconversion to make it backward compatible to 4x3 TVs. But a 2.35 format tube TV probably isn't practical, so why bother? Of course, what we would do if we had such discs is break into the 16x9 TV's service menu and turn down the vertical height the same way we did with 4x3 TVs, but we weren't supposed to do that and it took a lot of lobbying by people like us to get that included in American TVs as a regular feature.


16x9 plasmas with 720P and higher could easily be built to accept a 480P 2.35 signal and add black bars. Now, plasma TVs and all front projectors can be built 2.35, but the market would be extremely limited right now.


The TV companies might have worried that if these discs existed, some irresponsible people would try to take their 4x3 TVs and reduce the raster by nearly 50% to see the discs, risking damage to the phosphors on the tube.

I have heard of schemes to put out DVD-ROMs with high definition demos on them, and that might well have been an opportunity to start over and offer super anamorphic. However, HD video cams are all 16x9. The only 2.35 sources are movies and the movie studios do not want to put their movies out in what would be a hobbyist format - they're not big fans of HDTV anyway.


Wait a few years and see if organic LED displays take off. Those are a natural for extremely wide screens - even curved. It'll take longer than that for movie studios to ever get on board with HD DVD.

 

[Carey P]

Check about half way down this thread, for a similar discussion.


Carey

 

[meta]

Quote:

Originally posted by FriarTuck: I am quite surprised that there isn't a "super anamorphic" mode where 2.35 aspect films oocupy a full 4x3 screen and are then compressed to the correct ratio - in order to get the max resolution... Friar

i wished they built this into the DVD spec as well. i'm moving towards a 2.35 screen, and it is ironic that a picture that is supposed to be larger in size (WIDESCREEN SPECTACULAR!) is actually stored using not all the available DV D frame pixels.


would have even be better if they picked a 2:1 (960x480) array for the DVD frame, instead of the current lousy 3:2 (1.5 = 720x480)

 

[Torre]

I think when we start to see Hi-Def DVDs for actual Theater use, we will see 2.35:1 "Anamorphic" DVD's.


------------------

Mark A. Torre

NEC XG-8"CRT PJ, HTPC, HDTV and loving it! The Torre Home Theater

 

[Dave W]

The sad thing is, I heard the original DVD spec did include a 2.35:1 aspect ratio mode, but it was scrapped for simplicity. It would've just required DVD players to have a third display setting, in addition to 4:3 and 16:9. What a shame!

Quote:

would have even be better if they picked a 2:1 (960x480) array for the DVD frame, instead of the current lousy 3:2 (1.5 = 720x480)

I agree, but I can understand the reason, since only single layer discs were available when DVD was launched, and that would've only given approximately 100 minutes of play time per disc.


Dave

 

[FriarTuck]

This is sad to admit (I know) but this post has generated my biggest response yet.... normally I'm lucky to even get read!!!!


Am I breaking into the big time, or just becoming a sad AVSCIENCE junky?


Its amazing how I can find some things discussed on this forum that other (normal?) people would find VERY sad..


Thanks guys, I feel I am about to lose my AVSCIENCE virginity and move onto the next big phase ;-)


Friar

 

[dreamer]

I think this was a standards decision geared for the lowest common denominator.


Although it would be great for those of us that are scaling an image UP to have started with 720x480 active pixels for any aspect ratio film -- the more resolution the better -- the DOWN scaling necessary for most analog NTSC TVs would be kind of ugly. So much information would be thrown away that the resulting image would look worse than a non-anamorphic recording.


If DVD players did an intelligent interpolation in their downconversion, then it might have looked OK, but the first DVD players just threw the lines away. DVD may not have been successful if three years ago the players had been required to do this kind of processing -- players were already deemed too expensive for the mass-market when they were introduced.


I agree there was no reason why the standard could not have included the option. In this case, they underestimated the speed with which technology would be able to cope with it at reasonable prices.


I think the same argument can be made for HDTV even more emphatically. Six years ago, when I saw the ATSC "standard" was to have 18 allowable formats, my complaint was not that they didn't settle on a single format. My complaint was that they didn't simply define the bitstream to include packets that told the display device what display resolution the image was in -- and let the display process it to best effect. I had no doubt the processing power would exist to handle it. Instead we will be complaining in five years that we have source material with a lousy 2 million pixel maximum.



------------------

*********************

Kirk Ellis

G1000 D-ILA, HTPC, Panamorph (soon I hope),

Dish 6000 (HBOHD,SHOHD,CBS,NBC,ABC,WB,FOX,UPN, KCET -- does it get any better ?)


[This message has been edited by dreamer (edited 08-14-2001).]