Some movies have a black border

hawthorn

I dont have sky movies but was flickingthrough the movies channels at my sisters house when I noticed the following:

Some of the channels looked normal, ie filled the 32" widescreen tv, but 2 or 3 channels had a black line at the top and bottom. Now they werent old movies or foreign or anything like that( well, I presume they were US which is of course foreign, but you know what I mean..!) but recent movies. I realize you can change settings on the TV but why would you have to?

Should all "modern" movies not be standard? i dont get it!

h

watty

Oh no!

When TV was 4:3 this was very close to shape of pre 1950 movies which are Acadamy Format.

To differentiate from TV they widely adopted "Widescreen" in the 1950s. Almost all movies were cropped (butchered) for TV. A few were letterboxed (black bands) so none of the film image is chopped out.

Cinema can use ANY format of widescreen, typically from 1.66:1 to 2.37:1, either the print is letterboxed (masked), or a different shape frame is used (limited as the projector has to advance each frame less, so only very few formats) or an Animorphic lens squashes the original WS view to an academy frame. Or you can use all three methods.

The projectors also have a physcally adjustable mask. (called "matte").

Dr. Strangelove uses MULTIPLE formats, I think even Portrait at one stage!

TV Widescreen is 16:9 = 1.78:1 format. No film has ever been shot this shape! All TVs over scan slightly so with for example "Spiderman" using the common 1.85:1 you will not see the very small black strip on top & bottom.

For more expensive delux features the typical shape is 2.37:1

Ben Hur is widest ever made:

The movie was filmed in a process known as "MGM Camera 65", 65mm negative stock from which was made into a 70mm anamorphic print with an aspect ratio of 2.76:1, one of the widest prints ever made, having a width of almost three times its height. A special lens which produced a 1.25X compression was used along with a 65mm negative (whose normal aspect ratio was 2.20:1) to produce this extremely wide aspect ratio. This allowed for spectacular panoramic shots in addition to six-channel audio. In practice, however, "Camera 65" prints were shown in an aspect ratio of 2.5:1 on most screens, so that theaters were not required to install new, wider screens or curtail the height of screens already installed.

Get used to black bands.

Also with LESS than 1.78:1 on a WS TV, then you will have black bands at sides (4:3, academy and 1.66:1 formats) or even a black border on some programs shown letterbox or Animorphic on some advanced 4:3TVs that can do true 16:9!

See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aspect_ratio_(image)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben-Hur_(1959_film)


Yes, considering how cheap a 4:3 CRT set is and amount of 4:3 programming and fact that almost all Large 4:3 CRTs can do TRUE widescreen without letterboxing (by height drive reduction as if a WS tube is fitted) with superior quality to any sub €2,000 LCD/Plasma, early adopters of WS CRT & WS LCD/PLasma have been "conned" out a lot of money:)

Mossy Monk

hawthorn wrote:

Should all "modern" movies not be standard? i dont get it!

h

:eek:

they are shown the way they should be

Ulsterman 1690

I get those damn black bars on my widescreen TV when watching ordinary programmes (not films) on Analouge BBC/ITV/C4 etc

I even get it on some satellite channels when they make a :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: s of their widescreen signalling

hawthorn

I know about different formats in the past but thought that today there would be a standard format. The films in question were around 2005 so not old at all.

Are you saying that my old jvc 32 CRT would show the films nearer to perfect than an LCD 32in. ?

So is there a tv you can buy that will show them properly...? Again Im talking about recent movies, I would expect the older ones to have lines, at least some of them.

h

Mossy Monk

no no no no no no no

no such thing as a standard format. some movies will fill the screen. others wont. nothing else to be said about it