[arkid]

O.K. i've just read the note above. I've read others too and they made complete sense, no problem. I've never had a wide screen tv before so i've not been able to see the differences with my own eyes until now.

So last night I put in the Blade 2 DVD which on the back says...

"Widescreen version: presented in a "letterboxed" widescreen format preserving the aspect ratio 2.35:1 of it's original theatrical exhibition."

Black bars, right?

No black bars. The picture filled the whole screen, it looked great but I was expecting the black bars. I cycled through all the aspect ratios on the tv but nothing. The DVD player is set to 16*9.

So after all the stuff i've read this puts me back to being confused again.




Am I missing something?

 

[zvogt]

Two theories pop to mind.

1) You have a 2.35:1 tv

2) Your 16:9 set has hella overscan


Of course neither of these two options are plausible.


You said you cycled thru the aspect settings on your tv.

Does your DVD player too have it's own aspect ratio settings

independent of your tv? That's something worth checking.


You're right that you should be confused.

 

[tbass2k]

Blade 2's aspect ratio is mislabeled, it was filmed in a 1:85 aspect ratio. Your tv is fine.

 

[Michael TLV]

Greetings


See sticky thread at top ...

 

[zvogt]

He HAS read it... this thread was a response to it.

That was kind of the point.

 

[seezar]

Quote:

Originally posted by tbass2k Blade 2's aspect ratio is mislabeled, it was filmed in a 1:85 aspect ratio. Your tv is fine.

That is exactly correct, Blade 2 is incorrectly labelled on the package. If you try another DVD that is actually filmed with a 2.35 aspect you will see some black bars.

 

[Michael TLV]

Greetings


Sorry about that ...


Regards

 

[arkid]

Thanks everyone!!! I thought I was losing it.

 

[Paul Clancy]

Far from losing it you bring up an excellent point. That is the confusing way , and sometimes outright incorrect way,so many dvds are labelled to indicate aspect ratio and anamorphic content. The dvd standards people need to get involved and spank some of these goofs at the studios for adding to the total confusion this causes. I stopped buying or renting non anamorphic, non widescreen titles some time ago and get very frustrated when browsing and trying to figure out the nonsense some studios put on labels...unforgivable really considering many places won't let you return an open dvd. Makes you wonder if any of these studio people own widescreens.

 

[Salmoneous]

I totally agree about the confusing packaging. How many times have you searched and searched all over the front and back of the DVD box trying to figure out the aspect information.


For video games, they have a rule that the icon for the rating be not only be the same for all games, but also that it must be in the same place. Wouldn't it be great if they would do that for technical infomation on DVD's.

 

[vmark]

I ended up accidentally buying the 4:3 version of the 1st Harry Potter DVD when they first came out.


The shop had apparently sold out all the widescreen copies (which I later found out had "WIDESCREEN EDITION" in a nice big yellow banner at the top of the packaging) and all that were left were the fullscreen copies with no indication that they were fullscreen at all except for the note "This film has been formatted to fit your screen" (not my screen!) printed in 1pt flyspeck font at the bottom of the box in the back and almost totally obscured by stickers on the plastic shrink wrap.


I've since given that copy away to family and got the fullscreen edition for myself, but suffice it to say there was almost no screen format indication on the packing.

 

[Astropin]

I watched G.I. Jane.....???? Has anyone watched this? It says 2.35:1 on the back......it's 2.35:1 alright and it takes up about 1/2 of my Sammy 61" It appears as a small "wide" picture in the middle of my screen with black bars on ALL sides....what's up with that? I actually had to Zoom the picture on my Bravo in order to expand it to the left and right and only have bars at the top and bottom. Yes...all of my equipment is set up correctly (set to "Wide" or 16x9).

 

[Ken Garrison]

G.I. Jane must not be anamorphic then. Nothing to worry about. A lot of movies aren't anamorphic. Just watch it zoomed. It may looks a little fuzzier, but it'll still be watchable.

 

[Ken Garrison]

I looked it up on IMDB. It's NOT anamorphic. It just says Letterbox. But the ones from the other regions that are PAL are Anamorphic Widescreen.

 

[xbrjoe]

What about "Castaway" ? It says 2.35:1 anamorphic on the back and it takes up the full screen...ie, no black bars while "Gladiator" 2.35:1 anamorphic shows the black bars...Are there many more movies that are labeled incorrectly...or shall I say...."misrepresented" ? Can I assume that my "Castaway" disc is also "incorrectly" labeled?

 

[Salmoneous]

Quote:

Originally posted by Ken Garrison G.I. Jane must not be anamorphic then. Nothing to worry about. A lot of movies aren't anamorphic. Just watch it zoomed. It may looks a little fuzzier, but it'll still be watchable.

It's G.I. Jane. It's not watchable in any format.