Question for you big screen TV, DVD, and Blu Ray experts

[Doc Safari]

My girlfriend went out and bought a huge, big screen HD TV the other night.

First of all, I'm amazed at the picture quality even for twenty-year-old movies, but something is puzzling me.

First, we watched "The Wedding Singer". The movie filled the entire 52-inch screen.

Next, we watched "The Peacemaker." It was in letterbox format, but filled the screen as much as it could allowing for the black strip at the top and bottom. The picture filled the big screen TV all the way to the side edges, though.

Finally, we tried to watch "Broken Arrow", and the movie was like a "centerpiece" only filling the middle of the screen. In fact, if she had bought that TV just to watch broken arrow on a widescreen TV I would have advised her to take the TV back, because clearly the movie didn't even come as close as "The Peacemaker" to filling the whole screen.

The question is: WTF is up with the way the three different movies displayed? Is there any way to make "Broken Arrow" fill the whole screen?

[BufordTJustice]

It's an aspect ratio issue of the movie as it is recorded on the disc. It is in letterbox format and you want wide screen.

[Whiskey_Bravo]

Like he said. Depending on what you are watching they were filmed in different ratios. There are several very popular ones. If you are watching an older DVD you probably do not have the wide screen version. For a while you could purchase DVDs in either wide screen or 4:3(basically the shape of older tube TVs and early rear/front projection TVs).

Even with a 16:9(1:78:1) "wide screen" tv, you can still have the black bars at the top/bottom if you are watching a movie that is in say a 2:35:1 ratio. There are a lot of different aspec ratios that have been used over the years but 16:9 and 2:35:1 are the two most popular.


If you want, you can set your tv to "stretch" and it will get rid of the black bars, but keep in mind it will distort the picture to a degree. You may not notice enough of a difference to care if you just want the bars gone.

[wildcard600]

You silly kids and you electronic toys....

[SteyrAUG]

Yep. DVDs come in several formats from standard, widescreen and anamorphic.

The original 1931 Frankenstein can never be widescreen unless you chop off the top and bottom because in theaters it was the same aspect ration as your old school TV sets. And for this same reason old TV shows are also going to be in a standard format which means black bars on the side.

You also have two versions of widescreen. Lacking correct terms you have widescreen and super panoramic wide screen. One will fill your screen, the other will show thin black boxes on the top and bottom. In the 60s we did a lot of super panorama aspect films which are wider than your typical letterbox format.

Anamorphic is my favorite as it usually can play in any format and adapts to the specific screen you are using.

[Straight Shooter]

On my Vizio I can choose from 4 formats, each take up a different amount of screen. One even magnifies.