Non-anamorphic 1.66:1 DVD on LCD TVs ?

[Kweldood]

As we know, most (?) widescreen CRT TVs can't zoom a non-anamorphic 1.66:1 DVD without cropping the top and bottom of the image.

Meaning, you either have to leave it at the default (non-zoomed) letterboxed frame surrounded by black bars on all four sides, or watch it with the cropping (I suppose you could also watch it with a squashed, distorted picture by forcing it to 16:9, but for the present topic I'm assuming intelligent and informed people).

My question, since I don't own nor do I have access to LCD TVs so that I could verify for myself, is if they suffer from the same limitation as above, or if they can zoom a non-anamorphic 1.66:1 DVD by filling the left and right sides with black bars as it should be.

Thank you very much!

[jman98]

My older Samsung 1080p LCD HDTV would crop the top and bottom if I zoomed on such a DVD. Some of the more recent models have a more intelligent zoom function than mine though, but I can only report on what mine does.

[Cornucopia]

Not sure if you're aware of this, but for the benefit of both yourself and future users: DVDs ONLY support 2 ARs... 4:3 (aka 1.333:1) and 16:9 (aka 1.777:1).

If you've got a DVD that ?to you? seems to be 1.666:1, it REALLY ISN'T. Part of the encoded picture must be including some black bars on the left & right (so that it is correctly padded out to the 16:9 AR).

Therefore, to correctly show in a true 16:9 TV, you would rightly expect there to show pillarbox bars on the left and right, just as if it had been a 4:3 title pillarboxed & encoded but with less sizable bars.

And on a 4:3 TV, you would rightly expect there to show both letterbox (for the conversion of presumably 16:9 coded material) AND pillarbox (for the padding required to fill a 1.666:1 out to 1.777:1), so you would see bars all around!

Scott

[edDV]

In addition, high quality incremental zoom (other than pixel replication skip) is very expensive currenly to implement. HDTV upscale is highly tuned for standard resolution upscales, not general (e.g. 704 or 1280 to 1920).

[MOVIEGEEK]

Wasn't 1.66:1 a film standard in the UK? I believe they still release DVD's and BD in that OAR: http://www.hammerfilms.com/news/article/newsid/310/hammer-titles-to-uk-blu-ray-and-dvd

[Cornucopia]

No. It might have been a "film" standard, but for DVD universally & globally, there is ONLY 4:3 and 16:9.

So if the original film was 1.6666:1, then when it was digitized (scanned), it was either to 4:3 (with letterboxing slightly smaller than normal 16:9 letterboxing), or to 16:9 (with pillarboxing slightly smaller than normal 4:3 pillarboxing). In either case, there SHOULD be black bars included/hardcoded into the video image...AND LEFT THERE.

Scott

[netmask56]

An article with images as examples http://dvd-b.com/Pages/Ana166.html

[manono]

No. It might have been a "film" standard, but for DVD universally & globally, there is ONLY 4:3 and 16:9.

He said it's non-anamorphic, meaning 4:3. Everything else he said (black on all 4 sides when viewed on a widescreen TV) supports that contention.

[davexnet]

Even if the 1.66 4:3 DVD has black top/bottom as part of the picture (as you'd expect),
you would have thought by now that TV's would be able to deal with it and zoom as the OP suggests.

I don't think it's unreasonable - some method, perhaps, to detect the black top and bottom and zoom it enough to
get it out of the visible picture. (similar to how "auto cropping" works in a variety of software programs !)

[edDV]

Even if the 1.66 4:3 DVD has black top/bottom as part of the picture (as you'd expect),
you would have thought by now that TV's would be able to deal with it and zoom as the OP suggests.

I don't think it's unreasonable - some method, perhaps, to detect the black top and bottom and zoom it enough to
get it out of the visible picture. (similar to how "auto cropping" works in a variety of software programs !)

But they don't. Even if they did the picture would take a quality hit.

[davexnet]

But they don't. Even if they did the picture would take a quality hit.

Of course, I was just thinking out loud. Surely the existing zoom methods also take
the quality hit?

[edDV]

But they don't. Even if they did the picture would take a quality hit.

Of course, I was just thinking out loud. Surely the existing zoom methods also take
the quality hit?

Yes. Most just pixel replicate/decimate with very little filtering.

[Cornucopia]

So the answer is that modern 16:9 TVs (LCD, Plasma, etc) can:

1. Leave it as is (where it will be windowboxed, all 4 sides)
2. Zoom to inner 16:9 window (which will crop small part of top & bottom)
3. Stretch to 16:9 (which distorts picture, and still would have some black bars)
4. (occasionally) non-linear stretch (where Center-Of-Interest isn't distorted, but edges are more distorted)

That's about it for most of the TVs. There are some models with a few other options.

None is "smart"-enough to your liking.
Certainly not enough incentive for manufacturers to get smarter zooms.

********

@manono
That's what I thought but I wasn't going to assume anything, and I was posting not just to answer him but to explain to the crowd as well.

Scott

[intracube]

Kweldood; it would help if you'd put your country in your profile as your location often makes a difference for video related queries.

I guess your TV doesn't have a 14:9 crop option?

14:9 formatting for broadcasts has been common in the UK, parts of Europe and Australia for years, a lot of 16:9 TVs have a 14:9 crop mode. But it's rarer elsewhere.

A 14:9 (1:1.555) crop would nearly expand the 1.66 image to the height of your screen. If your display has any overscan, then the image might even reach the top and bottom.

[netmask56]

14:9 is very rare in Australia except for foreign news items from the UK and Europe and USA news stuff appears 4:3 still! Virtually everything shot here is 16:9 for local TV production including news coverage. Many feature films are shown 2.35:1 with black bars top and bottom on widescreen TV's. All original 4:3 material is shown pillaboxed.

[intracube]

14:9 is very rare in Australia except for foreign news items from the UK and Europe.

Ah, looks like I got burned by Wikipedia

So how is 16:9 content formatted for analogue (4:3) distribution... Full letterboxing with thick black bars?

Kweldood; most TV manufacturers put their user manuals online, so you can check and see if a TV has a suitable zoom mode before you buy.

[netmask56]

It varies a bit with the different networks but basically for live TV current affairs, news they centre cut for the dwindling 4:3 market ie cut the sides off. Analog 4:3 ceases transmissions early next year and as flat panels are so cheap it's not worth repairing 4:3 TV's and in-fact I know a service man who simply won't and advises his customers to buy a new TV. You can get a full 46" HDTV with built in PVR for less than $500 and a 32" for about $350. I'm sure they would be as cheap now in the UK and Europe?

For feature movies if the supplied print/digital copy is in original aspect ratio then that the way it goes out, I don't think the networks really care about anyone who still has a 4:3 TV

[edDV]

...
I don't think the networks really care about anyone who still has a 4:3 TV

It seems "Hollywood" and USA commercial TV networks still frame all 16:9 production for side cropping to 4:3. Surprisingly the renegade is PBS the public network. They don't even scale titles or credits for 4:3. Routinely you see cropped titles when watching PBS in 4:3.

[Kweldood]

I see by the gist of the replies that even after all this time and a whole new video hardware generation, expecting something as simple as this is too much from a market destined at the general public. Oh, well. Thank you for the feedback.

intracube - thanks for the tip about 14:9 on some models, I wasn't aware of that. Maybe not ideal, but closer. It will certainly be worth to check for it in any future purchases. I don't expect overscan to help me with this since it's unlikely, due to the current state of the market, that my next (big size) TV purchase would be a CRT (unfortunately, since I'd gladly pay double the price of any LCD/Plasma/LED for one). Who knows, maybe I'll even stumble upon something which has 15:9 too.

[Cornucopia]

I see by the gist of the replies that even after all this time and a whole new video hardware generation, expecting something as simple as this is too much from a market destined at the general public. Oh, well. Thank you for the feedback...

Simple?
I think that's your problem - you think non-standard, program-dependent smart zooms are simple.
All the "simple" ones have been taken.

1. (shrink &/) Linear Pad to fit
2. (zoom &/) Linear Crop to fit
3. Linear Stretch to fit
4. Weighted (non-linear) stretch to fit

You asked for something "else", but honestly - what else is there? (that is program independent) and such a thing would have to be an easy/cheap algorithm to implement (or manufacturers wouldn't go for it).

I say, "live with the padded OAR", even if that happens to include occasional window boxing.

Scott

[intracube]

I don't expect overscan to help me with this since it's unlikely, due to the current state of the market, that my next (big size) TV purchase would be a CRT (unfortunately, since I'd gladly pay double the price of any LCD/Plasma/LED for one).

LCD TVs often have overscan to mimic CRTs. That's another thing to be careful of when buying a new LCD TV - not all displays have an option to disable overscan... however most do. Ask the salesman, or better still check the manual - different manufacturers use different wording for disabling overscan, such as 'Exact scan' mode or 1:1 mapping, etc.

If you've only got a limited number of 1.66:1 movies, another option would be to rip the DVD to your computer, convert it to fit into an anamorphic 16:9 frame, and burn back to a disc.

EDIT: If you want a CRT display, you should be able to get one for next to nothing these days. I got a 32 inch Sony 16:9 TV from a local charity shop for ~£80 5 years ago. Original price was around £1,500.