No. /thread

 

I'm not bothered by the different aspect ratios. They don't make good movies bad or bad movies good.

 

I believe you are referring to Univision. 2-1. I like it for tv shows.

 

All TVs are 16:9 aspect ratio. Film and TV are usually presented in a variety of aspect ratios, sometimes within the same movie. The TV fills in the unused space with black bars. If you're seeing horizontal or vertical distortion, then there's a miss-match between your playback device (streaming box, blu-ray player, cable box) and you're display, or you've set the aspect of your display incorrectly, which is usually a button in the remote labelled "aspect" or "picture size". These issues can all be compounded if the video has the black bars baked-in to the image, which means you have to zoom the picture resulting in a very low resolution presentation. My local PBS station was doing this with their standard definition sub-channels, which meant they were taking a 16:9 image and adding black bars to make it 4:3 for broadcast. They fixed this recently, and now the standard def subchannels are broadcast without bars, and with the correct 16:9 flag so the TV shows them correctly.

Here's a good article from Empire Magazine about aspect ratios.

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Not all films/shows are in the 16:9 aspect ratio. In order for your TV to show these pictures in their original aspect ratio, it may have to use black bars on the top and bottom or on the sides. If this bothers you, then having to press a button once or twice to remove the bars is really not that big of an inconvenience. Personally, I'd much rather see the entire picture, as intended by the director vs such abominations as pan&scan, or stretching the picture so that everything is too fat or too thin, or just moving some portion of the picture off the screen entirely.

Life is full of little inconveniences. If this one is really bothering you, I suggest you just turn off your TV and live happily, without the annoyance.

 

I prefer when movies are done in 16:9. It’s most annoying when you see TV shows with black bars on top and bottom that were never meant be shown in a theater so why not make use of the full screen…

 

I hate it too! then I got an OLED and have zero problems now

 

Most of our screens are 16:9 correct? Well is anyone else tired of that other resolution that leaves roughly 25% of the screen unused? I forget what the ratio is but I'm sure you know what I'm talking about. Then if you right click and tell your media player to set it to 16:9, suddenly everything looks all stretched.

Is there any particular reason they film with this? Are there TV's made where this is the native aspect ratio? I find the whole problem to be pretty annoying.

You mean 14:9?

 

Are you referring to movies that are 2.35:1? If so, there's a reason that directors choose specific aspect ratios. It's like listening to music and saying, I wish that they would stop doing Stereo only for music when I have 4 more speakers that aren't playing music.

That being said, there's an easy solution to making the picture larger. Buy a bigger TV.

 

Nah. I have an 82" and letterbox bars are still annoying. All those years when marketing was trying to convince me I was seeing more of the movies with letterbox bars because they didn't have to cut off the sides of the movies for 16:9 aspect ratios. And now, marketing for IMAX Enhanced is now telling me I've been missing part of the movies because of the letterbox bars -- "see 26% more of the picture!". LOL, it's incredibly dumb and there should be one standard aspect ratio for movies.

 

Ye olde display ratio conundrum...

 

There will never be a perfect answer.

 

Wide screen movies were invented promoted in the 50's largely to combat the new format Hollywood feared would eat into their profits: TV. Making their medium incompatible with 1.33 aspect ratio TVs was the point. If you wanted to see a movie uncompromised, without pan and scan, etc., you had to go to the movies!

 

Wide screen movies were invented in the 50's largely to combat the new format Hollywood feared would eat into their profits: TV. Making their medium incompatible with 1.33 aspect ratio TVs was the point. If you wanted to see a movie uncompromised, without pan and scan, etc., you had to go to the movies!

Correction: Widescreen cinematography was invented at least 20 years prior to the 1950's. The Great Depression and WWII sidelined the technique until TV started making inroads.

 

2022 and people are still complaining about black bars ?? Way back in the day here the term 'Joe Sixpack' was used to describe those who 'Don't want back bars on my screen !' as a non-endearing term for those who didn't understand why there are various aspect ratios. Thought that was cleared up as haven't seen this complaint for quite a while.

 

Are things the same as they were way back in the day? I don't think so. It might be time to revisit this conversation. Movie theaters dying while streaming services going crazy.... Disney releasing movies straight to streaming service...

Maybe you ought to tell us why we shouldn't hate black bars on our screens again if it's already been settled and is so easily understood. I seem to have forgotten.

 

Constant image height with draperies just like theaters used to do - problem solved. I love my anamorphic lens. You can find great deals on them now. A lot of people feel that they are not as necessary now with 4k. I like the brightness increase vs zooming and you are using all those pixels you paid for.

 

draperies AKA Masking.

 

I had never thought of this before and then when I first started reading I thought it was kind of a dumb conversation.... but after some thought I agree, we should just go 16:9 everywhere at this point.

How many people actually have a device that can display 2.35: 1 natively without the letter boxes?

How many movie theaters have a 16:9 screen?

Used to be we all had 4:3 TVs... Times have changed. I hate letter boxes. I have always hated letter boxes.

 

I've seen TV commercials shot in 2.35! Think about it: they are making content for 1.78 displays yet intentionally want people see black bars?! Huh? WTF!?

. . . . I guess it gives the commercial a "cinematic feel" or something.

 

I guess you wouldn't like Letterbox 2000 then.

 

I remember this discussion a long time ago in regards to retro gaming, it was a minefield there.
People going back and forth with playing in 1:1 ratio vs people playing in stretched 16:9.
I saw things...

 

For some years I've been watching CIH, constant image height, with zero screen and will never go back. This will never catch on however because dealers absolutely hate the idea of not selling a screen (sometimes the more profitable part of the deal for them, not the projector itself) so they'll come up with all sorts of song and dance about the absence of the black boundaries of the screen frame "reduces perceived contrast", etc. Baloney: while the movie is playing all you see is the image and black all around it. I love it! If this doesn't play here click "Youtube" to watch it there.

When the movie is over my lights come on and "POOF" the "screen" vanishes and I'm instantly back to a normal living room. Visitors have no idea I even watch via projection because all they see is a small LCD flat screen in the room, off to the side, and a normal white wall while my lights are on. My theater is "stealth".

 

Solid Snake Theatre.😉

 

Everybody has a different preference but as long as I'm watching in the directors intended aspect ratio I couldn't care less if movies are letterboxed/pillarboxed or not.

 

I generally agree with this statement especially with wider ratios. However, The Snyder Cut of Justice League just pissed me off as I didn’t feel like the square aspect ratio brought anything of value to the film.

 

With OLED + dark room I havn't seen these black bars you are talking about.

 

If there is a compelling reason to shoot in 2.35:1, then sure. Otherwise, I think it makes sense to match the aspect ratio that most of your viewers will have. If cinema is the target, then I suppose it still makes sense, but TV is killing the movie theater.

 

And that's the rub of this whole conversation. TV was killing the theater back then as well....or at least that was the fear that TV would kill the theater....so the movie industry started selling CinemaScope as a new thing that just had to be experienced in the theater. Then movie directors, who's jobs sort of depended on the film industry, dutifully played along by giving us epic scope movies like Ben-Hur and The Robe which would have to be shrunk down to basically a line through the middle of a TV screen, but could be zoomed out to fill a theater screen at the time using different lenses....so folks pretty much had to go to the theaters to see movies like this "in the way the director intended".

The best directors of our time, Martin Scorsese, Stanley Kubrick, Steven Spielberg, etc...they all "grew up" sorta speak in this time where people appreciated films at the theater, not in the home. That continues with even young directors such as Tarantino, etc. Basically, it's going to be some time i think before the standard movie aspect ratio is 16x9...which itself was a compromise because of the limits of CRT technology.

 

It's the directors decision on why there's different aspect ratios. The common ones are 16:9. 2:39. 2:1. 1.90 (imax) and 4:3

 

Unfortunately it is what it is. Either we do it their way or we do without. Or... Viewers of the world unite! You have nothing to lose but your ratios!

 

Isn’t this where the imax enhanced stuff comes in to play?

 

Quick point that I haven’t seen made yet - many movie theater screens are 2:35:1 ratio, so lots of films with a “cinematic intent” or for theatrical distribution are shot to fill that wider style, with no letterboxing. I’ve seen a few films at a local independent theater that they bring in the side curtains to change the ratio to 16:9 so that there aren’t vertical black bars on the sides. With TV you just gotta accept the bars.

 

Anyone get the feeling we'll still be talking about the aspect ratio controversy in ten years. And beyond..people will continue the discussion when we're all dead.

 

Pretty much, yeah.