Movies to fit 16:9(widescreen)

[cozm0]

I would to enlarge all my movies to 16:9, so there are no borders when I watch them on tv.

Is this possible?... If yes, are there any guides?(can't find any)

[manono]

Movies are meant to be viewed in their Original Aspect Ratio. This means that older movies that were originally 1.33:1 will be viewed pillarboxed (black bars on the left and right sides) on a 16:9 TV. 2.35:1 movies are meant to be viewed on a widescreen TV with black bars on the top and bottom.

What you want to do, as near as I can tell, is either to stretch 1.33:1 movies to fill the screen (your remote can do that, but you'll destroy the AR and make everybody look fat), or to crop from the top and bottom so they can be viewed in proper AR, but no longer OAR. Your remote's Zoom feature can also do that. The Zoom feature will also enlarge 2.35:1 movies to fill the screen, cutting from the sides.

Cropping means reencoding. It can be done easily enough if you're comfortable with encoding tools, but reencoding also means quality loss. In my opinion it's not such a good idea to do what you're asking. But there's also a chance that I've misunderstood your question.

[Darth Paris]

What type of TV do you have?

Eiether way I wouldn't reccomend what you are wanting to do. Movies are presented in the aspect ration that they are in for a reason. Most people around here are pro widescreen so it may be difficult to find a guide.

manono is right that you will have to reencode, and unless you know how to replace files in the DVD structure you will lose the menus.

If you really want the picture to take up the enitre screen just use the zoom key.

[cozm0]

I have a Sony widescreen 32".. When I zoom only half the black border disappears. Which leaves about half picture, half borders.

Why would someone be against widescreen?

[manono]

Why would someone be against widescreen?

Sounds to me like you are, if you are trying to get rid of black bars that are meant to be there. However, your last post raised a couple of more questions in my mind.

First, are you sure you have your DVD player setup correctly? That is, is it outputting for a 16:9 or widescreen TV, or do you still have it set to output to a 4:3 or standard TV? You should have some kind of a setup menu for the DVD player that will tell you.

Also, are you sure that you're not talking about a 4:3 widescreen DVD? Those will show up onscreen with black bars on all 4 sides. Using the Zoom once will stretch the sides to the edges (and beyond, because of overscan), but will still leave some black above and below for 2.35:1 movies. I guess your TV doesn't have a second Zoom to increase the size once more.

[cozm0]

I had 4:3 in dvd player setup
Much better now. Cheers

There is also another option in setup.. NTSC or PAL60hz ?

[monzie]

Lets first start with widescreen TV's.

They usualy have different modes:

4:3 > this will display a full res picture centred into the middle of the screen (so borders all round, or large borders left and right)

14:9 > not all TV's have this mode and its use is dubious, but some UK TV progs (for instance Coronation Street) are broadcast at this res so full hight res and borders left and right on TV broadcasts at this res (noticably smaller than 4:3 mode).

16:9 > now depending on which TV you have you get different results.....some TV's use this for 4:3 movies (like mine) with a res of 16:9 (ie borders top and bottom) from either DVD or broadcast TV source and, by selecting this mode, fills the entire screen by lopping of the top and bottom borders but keeping the width....or as in my sisters TV, this mode is for DVD 16:9 enhanced (ie Widescreen anomorphic) res which require 'stretching' to uncompress the DAR (as all other modes will result in the TALL and THIN..also see Widescreen mode).

Movie > Not used on all TV's, this is the same as 16:9 mode from a 4:3 source ie Broadcast or DVD (4:3 16:9 non-enhanced)..but on other TV's it can be the same as WIDESCREEN.

Subtitle Zoom > the same as ZOOM/SUPER ZOOM but also shifts the picture upwards (or downwards) so you can see the top or bottom of the TV broadcast..ie. sports coverage so you can see the scores/results. Not available on all TV's.

Widescreen > this mode is for DVD Widescreen (16:9 enhanced) playback (it streches 16:9 enhanced 'anomorphic' movies back to the correct DAR) and DOES NOT crop (other than possible overscan).

Zoom or Super Zoom > this is THE NORMAL mode for watching 4:3 broadcast TV which will fill the screen in all directions but it WILL crop the picture but this is small price to pay compared to BLACK BARS..

Now, widescreen TV's are ONLY 16:9 resolution so any DVD movie or broadcast TV prog (inc films) OVER (or indead under) this resoltuon will NOT fit, they will either have black bars top and bottom (ie a 16:9 enhanced DVD 'anomorphic' with a film resolution of 2.35:1) or even BIGGER bars if viewed in say SuperZoom when they should be viewed in 16:9 (4:3) mode.

Confusing isn't it? The TV manu's cant even set their terminology to a set 'common' standard....

I cant wait for the typical North American kiddie to start using widescreen TV's so that they stop using the expression FULLSCREEN which means absolutely NOTHING to the rest of us...but is dam annoying to read.

As for encoding, that pretty easy to do, whats your source and more importantly the aspect ratio of your source (AR or DAR)?

[MrMoody]

I cant wait for the typical North American kiddie to start using widescreen TV's so that they stop using the expression FULLSCREEN which means absolutely NOTHING to the rest of us...but is dam annoying to read.

Unfortunately DVD cases use this terminology too. It should be called "Cheap TV Fill Screen" or "Narrow Screen."

Most people can be educated about widescreen, but a few I know are absolutely stubborn about filling that $100 square screen TV and will search out DVDs that say "Full Screen." They don't give a rat's butt what gets cut off or added onto the picture to do it.

[MrMoody]

There is also another option in setup.. NTSC or PAL60hz ?

I'm assuming you're in UK/Europe? This is a setting for the signal to output when playing an NTSC disc. Use whichever gives you a color picture with an NTSC DVD. Depending on your TV it may not work either way.

[monzie]

Unfortunately DVD cases use this terminology too. It should be called "Cheap TV Fill Screen" or "Narrow Screen."

Most people can be educated about widescreen, but a few I know are absolutely stubborn about filling that $100 square screen TV and will search out DVDs that say "Full Screen." They don't give a rat's butt what gets cut off or added onto the picture to do it.

Lets call FULLSCREEN 'the TV that is Crap And Now Belongs In the Kids bedroom' .....or..... roughly abrieviated to CANBIK-TV.

Yeh, all those I WANT FULLSCREEN TV from my AVI's/mpgs/DVD's etc (you can virtually here them crying) but I still want the FULL picture and correct resoltution posts...................yeh right, so miracles still happen eh? And what about 'pan and scan'.......WTF that all about?

PS...Sledgy was THE man....a typical american, no?

[cozm0]

Why do I need to zoom on all my movies to fill the screen?, why don't people who create these movies use the standard widescreen size? pretty dam annoying.

[monzie]

See the post above ^^^^^^^^

[manono]

Hi-

Zoom or Super Zoom > this is THE NORMAL mode for watching 4:3 broadcast TV which will fill the screen in all directions but it WILL crop the picture but this is small price to pay compared to BLACK BARS..

It may be your preferred mode, but it is far from the NORMAL mode. If your widescreen suffers from burn-in, then you may be able to build a case for people's heads being cut off above the eyes. Me, I like to see the whole picture. Pillarboxes don't bother me in the least. That's the NORMAL setting on my widescreen.

Why do I need to zoom on all my movies to fill the screen?, why don't people who create these movies use the standard widescreen size? pretty dam annoying.

Movies are created for movie theaters, and 2.35:1 fills your field of vision nicely. 2.35:1 is pretty much the standard for Hollywood movies. (with many exceptions, including most animated movies). So, you might then ask, why aren't widescreen TV sets made 2.35:1? One good reason is that Hi-Def TV programs are broadcast in 16:9. Within a couple of years (in the US, unless it's delayed some more) all TV programs will be broadcast in 16:9, and they'll fill your widescreen nicely, if you can receive the Hi-Def signal. As for 2.35:1 movies leaving some black bars; well, just compare the amount of black remaining on your widescreen with the amount you used to have on your 1.33:1 standard TV (or before you fixed the DVD player output to your widescreen). Glad you got it going OK.

I have no idea why people insist that the whole screen be filled with video, even if it means bad AR, or cropping, to achieve it.

[cozm0]

Movies are meant to have black bars?.. seems stupid to me.

[midnightsun]

cozmO are you reading or what??

widescreen tv's are 16:9. The widescreen display aspect ratio dvd's use is again 16:9 (1.778). If a movie is shot at 2.35:1 or 2.21:1, can you tell me how you fit that in a 1.778:1 frame without adding black bars AND without distorting the picture!!??

[monzie]

Hi-

Zoom or Super Zoom > this is THE NORMAL mode for watching 4:3 broadcast TV which will fill the screen in all directions but it WILL crop the picture but this is small price to pay compared to BLACK BARS..

It may be your preferred mode, but it is far from the NORMAL mode. If your widescreen suffers from burn-in, then you may be able to build a case for people's heads being cut off above the eyes. Me, I like to see the whole picture. Pillarboxes don't bother me in the least. That's the NORMAL setting on my widescreen.

Sorry to here about your poor Zoom control, but the (approx 8no. parents, siblings, neighbours, and 2 my own) Widesceens that i have access to NONE over Zoom like what you descibe.they all use Zoom or Super Zoom for normal 4:3 viewing.....on all it seems to crop around 40 to 50 pixels top and bottom and maybe 20 from each side......BUT as I said previous THERE IS NO STANDARD for what each 'mode' does.....but I still stand by what I said that ZOOM or SUPER ZOOM is THE standard way of watching 4:3's on a widescreen...yours just sounds crap.. similar to a DVD player that only has 2x zoom as a minimum....useless.

[MrMoody]

You're both wrong. Most people I know with widescreen TVs watch 4x3 programs in squish-o-vision, blissfully ignorant even that it IS squished. What's more, they become upset and hostile if you point it out to them.

[Darth Paris]

Movies are meant to have black bars?.. seems stupid to me.

Next time you go to a movie look at the screen. Now if you can make that movie fit in a standard widescreen(16:9) TV without cropping or distorting it, then I will consider you the second coming.

[manono]

Sorry to here about your poor Zoom control

Yeah, nice try monzie. I've got 5 different aspect controls on mine. They're called Wide, Panorama, Zoom 1, Zoom 2 and Normal. If you're not watching 4:3 material on yours with black bars on the sides (Normal on mine), then you're watching all your TV shows with bad AR, you're cropping too much, or both. No ifs, ands, or buts about it. How can it be any other way when you try and fit 1.33:1 material to a 1.78:1 screen? It's the same point that Darth Paris was making to cozm0 about playing 2.35:1 movies on a 1.78:1 TV screen without black bars. You may be talking about something similar to the Panorama on mine. It crops a bit from the top and bottom. The middle of the screen looks decent, and then it gets way stretched out at the sides. Watching any station with the scrolling text at the bottom, like CNN, will easily show the problems with doing it that way. You can watch your TV shows anyway you want. It's no skin off my back. I don't have to watch on your TV. Just don't delude yourself into thinking it's the "right" or "only" way to do it.

yours just sounds crap

I'm quite certain that mine's as good or better than yours, thank you.

Mr. Moody, I'm not sure what you thought was so wrong about my last post. If your friends are using a Wide setting, then I would classify that as more of a Stretch mode than a Zoom mode, and you completely lose proper AR. My Panorama setting is a bit of both, and Zoom means what it says; in effect to crop, but keeping the AR. I have a brother-in-law that uses the Wide setting on his too, to make everybody look short and fat. I've tried to explain AR to him until I'm blue in the face, but to no avail. It's like beating my head against a wall. He thinks that if you have a widescreen TV, then the video should fill the screen. He's been doing it for so long that it looks normal to him. Me, I refuse to watch his TV. It's like scratching fingernails on a blackboard to me.