Blu-ray Question

My husband and I just bought our first Blu-ray player, and most of the Blu-Ray DVD's we have tested still have the black bars. 

We originally purchased a Samsung, and returned it after getting black bars on all the blu-ray DVD's we rented from Blockbuster.  We researched the problem, and found out the Samsung is notorius for making crappy blu-ray players.  We decided to purchase a Panasonic, which has rave reviews.  But, we are still getting the stupid black bars.  We have tried every possible setting on the actual player and on our very compatible 42" LCD 1080p. 

Some websites suggest "zooming" the picture, but it doesn't change a thing.  Plus, wouldn't this defeat the purpose?!  You would be losing data on the left and right side of the screen.  Another suggestion was that some Blu-ray DVD's are meant to be shown with black bars.  If this is the case, I am overwhelmed that the majority of DVD's have this issue.   

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!  

Read this! It's a guide to understanding aspect ratio - the (very) basic idea is that movie directors shoot their films with a different aspect ratio than is ideal for your TV (because they are filmed for theatres), and so you end up with black bars. And I would buy a PS3 instead of a stand alone blue ray player - (I think, and others agree) they're the best players on the market because they have an internet connection so they can do dynamic firmware updates.

Take this with a grain of salt since I don't acctually have any Blu-Ray discs, but from what I know of AV equipment, here's what I'd think is happening. 

This assumes your talking about horizontal black bars.  If you're talking about vertical bars, then it is your TV and that's because the movie is in 4:3 not 16:9 (widescreen)

Firstly you're confusing HD with aspect ratio (which sort of goes together, but not always).  HD has more pixels (making it clearer) and they should be rectangular in shape.  Traditional TVs have square pixels. 

There's nothing that stops a person from hooking up a HD player to a non-HD set providing the player and the set have somekind of compatible jack set up.  Also the oldest HDs were square in shape, like old analogue TVs.

So the 'black bars' aren't from your player, they're part of the DVD video footage.  Letterboxing (the bars) are there to let people with square tvs view widescreen footage properly.  To make sure they don't leave anybody out, the companies use letterboxing. 

 My guess is that the companies are also being cheap, meaning that there compositing one version (letterboxed) and just up or down rezing the footage as needed to create the 'HD' and 'standard' versions.

I'd guess this will change when the digital switch happens, because a lot of people will be switching to the new TVs making the old TV audience small enough to be ignored (although with the economy who knows.)

As to what you can do, not much.  You can, if your TV's capable, zoom in.  Some TVs are better than others.  Mine, for instance, has a Zoom that takes just the letterbox, but, yes, it also take a bit of the stuff on the side.  Also, the only way a DVD would be 'meant' to be viewed with letterboxing is if it where part of the original movie, which happens but not frequently.

Hope this makes some sense

I'm pretty sure blu-ray and anything with a widescreen format will have bars.  I have a Sony 40"/Sony Blu-ray and regular DVD's play with no bars, but widescreen DVD's and Blu-ray has them.  There should be options to zoom in or or get more of a full size version but these only help the problem, they won't totally remove the black bars. 

 And I would buy a PS3 instead of a stand alone blue ray player - (I think, and others agree) they're the best players on the market because they have an internet connection so they can do dynamic firmware updates.

The only problem with this is you cut the PS3's life expectancy in half if you use it mostly as a movie player.  This is what I was told anyway...something about the game system and player using the same drive.  XBOX actually has seperate drives so you don't run into this problem.

I could be wrong here, but I am pretty sure that the letterboxing (black bars on the top and bottom) appear based on the resolution of the movie you are watching.  It has nothing to do with the blu-ray player or your tv.  But to my knowledge most movies are shot in 2.40:1 ratio, where as tv has an aspect ratio of 16:9 (1.78:1) so, much like when widescreen dvd's came out on older tv's, the way to keep the full resolution is to keep it the same aspect ratio, which means having the bars on top and bottom. 

Basically this is saying the image of the movie is longer than your tv, so in order to fit it all on your tv, it needs to shrink it.  When this is done they keep the aspect ratio the same so that means a height that is slightly smaller than the height of your tv. So instead of using the full 1080x1920 pixels, for 2.40:1 film it can only use ~ 800x1920, so the full width but not the full height.  But this is much clearer than zoming in and trying to make it full screen, and it also has the full picture rather than cutting anything off the ends.  Conversely though, if it is shot in 1.33:1 than you would have black boxes on the side rather then the tops, and you would use about 1080 x 1485 pixels, so the full height but not the full width.  

To my knowledge some movies and most hd tv channels do use a ratio closer to 16:9 and will apear to be 'full screen' but it all depends on the aspect ratio of the film it is shot on, and doesnt have anything to do with the quality of blu-ray player.  But I am also just an amatuere so some of my numbers or knowledge could be wrong. 

Thanks guys, I think I'm starting to get it. 

So, it's not a problem with my T.V., Blu-ray player, or the actual disc?  And, it's not a problem with any of the three not being compatible with each other? It just depends on how the movie is shot? 

Since we don't have a zoom option on our T.V., I guess we will just have to live with the letter-boxing (I finally know what the black bars are called).  I have to admit, I'm pretty disappointed.  Why buy a big HD T.V. and an insanely expensive Blu-ray player just to get a smaller, albeit clearer, picture?!

I'll have to show all of your responses to my husband, he is much more knowledgeable on the subject, so I'm sure it will all make more sense to him.  Thanks again!

Oh, and we'll both check out that website, it looks like it will be very helpful.

Original Post by cassrd05:

Thanks guys, I think I'm starting to get it. 

So, it's not a problem with my T.V., Blu-ray player, or the actual disc?  And, it's not a problem with any of the three not being compatible with each other? It just depends on how the movie is shot? 

Since we don't have a zoom option on our T.V., I guess we will just have to live with the letter-boxing (I finally know what the black bars are called).  I have to admit, I'm pretty disappointed.  Why buy a big HD T.V. and an insanely expensive Blu-ray player just to get a smaller, albeit clearer, picture?!

I'll have to show all of your responses to my husband, he is much more knowledgeable on the subject, so I'm sure it will all make more sense to him.  Thanks again!

Oh, and we'll both check out that website, it looks like it will be very helpful.

It's not a problem with the tv or BluRay player. It's a different way the movies are formatted and filmed.

You get the BluRay version to get the full experience of the way the movie was seen from the director's perspective. You're not really losing anything from the top and bottom but you are gaining on the sides.

There are BluRays that are filmed to where they will not have the "black bars" but kind of few and far between from what I've seen. (I'm at the video story weekly renting, and typically buying new ones every couple weeks)

You do have the option of changing your settings on a lot of tv's and players though so you could switch it out of that format somewhat, but then you'll be losing the extra footages from the sides.

It's a panoramic view is the easier way to put it. It's like when you watch a movie on tv and it comes up in the begining and says "Formatted to fit your tv" that's when they take the film that was shot (that you see on your BluRay) and they "zoom" it in. Cutting off the sides.

BTW - The PS3 is the ONLY Blu Ray player that can be updated and since there is no standard for Blu Ray you can rest assured that at some point in the near future your player will be obsolete. Sorry. =/

And the Xbox DOES NOT have a Blu Ray player. They, unfortunately, got on the HD bandwagon. Yeah, fail.

Original Post by cassrd05:

 

Since we don't have a zoom option on our T.V., I guess we will just have to live with the letter-boxing (I finally know what the black bars are called).  I have to admit, I'm pretty disappointed.  Why buy a big HD T.V. and an insanely expensive Blu-ray player just to get a smaller, albeit clearer, picture?!

 

And this is the reason I won't invest in more expensive equipment right now, lol.