| Comments: |
Regarding Section B:
IIRC, #2 is exactly how 35mm film is projected in theaters. That's the idea behind anamorphic... A full frame is shot, and anamorphic lenses are used to provide the correct aspect ratio. The problem I see with this is that if you then want to watch 4:3 content, you'd either need to switch out lenses or have an input which would shrink the content automatically.
I personally think the idea solution is to go with #1 would be the best idea, as it would do precisely what you want, and without any sort of hacks. I remember 16:9 projectors being rather pricey, but if you can find a reasonable one, I'd go with that.
![[User Picture]](http://p-userpic.livejournal.com/16244764/302519) | From: ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) nmg
Thu, 19-May-2005 5:44 AM (UTC)
| (Link)
|
#2 is how Cinemascope film (2.35:1) is projected in cinemas; an anamorphic lens is used to stretch an Academy aperture frame (1.37:1) to full screen.
That said, there are many 35mm films which are not projected using anamorphics. The standard aspect ratio for European film is 1.66:1 (that for US films is 1.85:1), both of which use a reduced area of the 35mm frame.
![[User Picture]](http://p-userpic.livejournal.com/4980108/1052633) | From: edm
Sun, 15-May-2005 9:30 PM (UTC)
| (Link)
|
Movies range between about 1.66:1 to 2.33:1 (ignoring the old 1.33:1 movies), depending on the process used. From what I remember of my DVD collection 1.85:1 and 2.33:1 are about equally represented.
I believe the 16:9 ratio (1.77:1) was chosen for widescreen TV because it was reasonably close to both 1.33:1 (4:3, ie "fullscreen"), and 1.85:1 (common widescreen movies) without leaving excessively large parts of the screen unused in either case. But you still get sigificant parts of the screen unused in the 2.33:1 situations; that's kind of a "no win" situation, as if the screen were 2.33:1 then 1.33:1 ("fullscreen") would like pretty horrible on it.
I'm not really sure what the right answer would be with a projector. I believe the movie theatres actually use anamorphic lenses (and other appropriate lenses), but that seems far too much like hard work for "home theatre". If I were doing it I suspect I'd get a 1.33:1 projector (since they're readily obtainable), and a screen something like 16:9, and set it up to project slightly larger (vertically) than the screen and live with the compromise. YMMV.
Ewen
... except when you're watching 4:3, you have to shrink it down in software, leaving you projecting black bars on the top, bottom, left and right sides. Uhhuh.
If your 4:3 viewing habits include more than a tiny minority, I'd just recommend getting a larger 4:3 screen and living with bars on the top and bottom during widescreen viewings.
![[User Picture]](http://p-userpic.livejournal.com/54541970/2) | From: brad
Sun, 15-May-2005 10:09 PM (UTC)
| (Link)
|
Movies range all over in size. The HDTV ratio of 16/9 (1.778) was chosen because it was about halfway between TV (4:3) and movies (often 2.35:1).
Another common aspect ratio, often used in comedies, is 1.85:1. They shoot in that because comedies are sold often in VHS/DVD, and it makes the pan & scan process (cropping the sides off and focusing on the "main" area) easier, without pissing people off who don't understand black bars.
So widescreen isn't too painful... half the movies fill your whole TV, and half only have minor black bars on top/bottom.
From: edolnx
Sun, 15-May-2005 10:09 PM (UTC)
What we have | (Link)
|
My friends and I all have 4:3 projectors. We looked into 16:9, but decided that full screen video games, computer, and to a lesser extent DirecTV were going to loose out on 16:9 gear. We had the advantage of playing with a 4:3 for a while (first person who bought one) and finding a very cool local home theater store that encourages you to test equipment and content on the equipment you are planning on purchasing in store. In the end, we agree that 4:3 is the right choice. Our screens are all 6'x8' and up - so the movies are huge anyway. GT4 at that size is quite amazing as well.
As for all content being 1.85:1 - you'll note that a lot of new movies (and theaters) are 16:9. This is because the HD movie standard is 16:9 - so most stuff shot digitally is now 16:9. For example, I know Sin City was 16:9, and I believe that Star Wars 1, 2, and 3 are as well.
![[User Picture]](http://p-userpic.livejournal.com/946187/401344) | From: citizenx
Mon, 16-May-2005 2:18 PM (UTC)
Am I the only one? | (Link)
|
…who expected this comment to start with "a failure to communicate".
Anyone?
Anyone else?
Okay, fine.
http://www.wave-report.com/tutorials/VC.htm I thought that directTV was sending stuff as mpeg4 but I could be wrong. That would imply that it's using some ratio based on the cif standard 704x576. But that's probably not relevant.
![[User Picture]](http://p-userpic.livejournal.com/4333157/890615) | From: tfofurn
Sun, 15-May-2005 10:27 PM (UTC)
anamorphic lens sounds bad | (Link)
|
You have already mentioned that you think an anamorphic lens is a kludgey solution. I concur. You're going to end up with individual pixels having a wide aspect ratio. I'd want to see a demo of this technique before buying it. I suspect that movie theaters get away with it because 35mm has so much detail.
<wank>I'm thinking back to the brief time I spent working with video capture . . . an anamorphic signal looks no different to an analog display, as there's still the same amount of time between horizontal retraces. The rate at which the signal changes, though, is higher. Thus, an anamorphic signal would be resampled on-the-fly on a 4:3 set. </wank>
One of the Done Things is to use more than one normal 4:3 projector. Expensive, and you have to have the projectors aligned well.
Your option 3 has the side benefit of cropping off the annoying scrolling tickers often seen on news channels. That beats the duck tape method.
Anamorphic lenses ONLY stretch the image horizontally. So if you show a 4:3 movie through a 16:9 anamorphic lens, you'll see a bunch of wide stretched out people looking silly. If you watch a 16:9 movie on a 4:3 projector with such a lens, you'll see wide stretched out people with wide stretched out black bars at the top and bottom.
What you'd need to do is "squish" the image horizontally but not vertically in software. Then let the lens "unsquish" it. I dont believe 4:3 projectors do that automagic squishification do they?
I don't know what the Done Thing is, but I'd just get a 16:9 projector. There are even native 1080p projectors available now, though they're pricey (like this Fujitsu LPF-D711). And at least I'd rather have too many pixels for most of what I watch and have it scaled up than have too few for the really good stuff and have it scaled down.
The 'aspect ratio' switch in the TIVO should:
When set to 4:3 and the device is outputting full-frame 16:9 content (where the 'square' frame contains data that is squished horizontally): add black bars top and bottom & resize/resample downwards the full frame 16:9 content so the vertical resolution is lessened but the horizontal resolution is unchanged.
When set to 16:9 and outputting full-frame 16:9: output the full-frame as-is (i.e. if you view it on a dumb terminal you get thin people) and also encode the 'this is 16:9' signal in the video subcarrier or wherever this goes. A smart display unit will then change aspect ratios automatically.
What you want really is to avoid at all costs losing pixels. If you get good optics, #2 will give you the best quality as it avoids all resampling but you'll have to switch the lens out when viewing 4:3 content.
#3 is basically how most people use their widescreen TVs as they never seem to bother to set them back to 4:3 for 4:3 content, they just let the set chop off the top and bottom, which is really irritating.
#1 would be best if the projector has extended resolution in the horizontal, so when displaying 4:3 content it won't be crippled (i.e. make sure the projector has square pixels.)
Also, as has been said a lot of films are 2.35:1 (Cinemascope, Panavision, etc) so you'll still get black bars top and bottom for those that are. It's not quite so annoying there because the data was never recorded onto the DVD in the first place, so it's not like you're missing anything.
I would buy a standard 4:3 projector with optical zoom, if such a beast exists. That way when 16:9 content comes on, you zoom in the appropriate direction - this assumes your projection screen is 16:9 and you have the projector zoomed to display 4:3 content with bars either side.
Really I'd rather have a 116" diagonal LCD instead of a projector, but they don't exist.
Plasma screen? But they are expensive...
I've had my wide-screen TV for about a month. Most shows are broadcast as 4:3, and thats what my DirecTivo records. Some shows, such as West Wing, will appear in 4:3 with horizontal bars above and below. For those, I have to switch modes on my tv to Zoom or Letterbox. For DVDs, I must also manually choose which framing to use. In other words, it doesn't seem to be smart at all.
Ultimately, the thing that will take advantage will be HDTV. But as you and I know, and HD DirecTivo is not inexpensive. So for now I'll just enjoy the fact that on rare occasions I do get to see stuff as wide-screen.
A. This link will tell you the reason why there's different aspect ratios instead of the industry standardizing on one. It's really just film industry history. I think HDTV standardized on 16:9 instead of 1.85:1 because the latter would be too great of a departure from 4:3 for the typical TV buyer and probably delay HDTV adoption, or something. B. Don't do option #2. Unless I'm misunderstanding you, having non-square pixels nowadays is batty. #1 would be what I'd pick, since you'll buy less resolution with #3. As a stopgap, buying a 4:3 display is okay, but I don't see why anyone would spend any significant money on one anymore.. 4:3 is going away. It may take 10 years, but it's gonna go. C. Any good projector/HDTV will auto-sense the resolution changes like a PC monitor would, or at least provide a button on the remote for quick switches. However, you're not going to push HDTV or any aspect ratio other than 4:3 across a single Composite wire (think the single RCA-jack, like you get on the side of an NES) so that's why you probably don't see any change. You'll need Component (Y-Pb-PR) or DVI or HDMI to do that. To do movies right, get a proper DVD player with DVI out to the projector. You can cheat by just getting a component adapter for the PS2 but the quality probably won't even be as good as a dedicated DVD player with component.
![[User Picture]](http://p-userpic.livejournal.com/43717921/4152185) | From: divelog
Mon, 16-May-2005 11:21 AM (UTC)
Read this first | (Link)
|
![[User Picture]](http://p-userpic.livejournal.com/1340589/480892) | From: drbrain
Mon, 16-May-2005 11:41 AM (UTC)
I have a 16:9 TV | (Link)
|
A:
For "enhanced for widescreen TV" DVDs, the DVD player takes care of it for you, and it is much less annoying than on a 4:3 TV, because the image can get even shorter. Plus, you get more resolution out of a 16:9 display because some of those image lines you'd otherwise see are compressed out of existence on a 4:3 display.
B:
3 sounds as good as 1. I wouldn't want to have to fiddle with lenses (and cleaning them) just because I was watching a DVD or widescreen game instead of Tivo. I think 3 may take experimenting to set up correctly between the DVD player and the projector so you don't lose resolution. You may have to tell the DVD player "no, no, this is a 16:9 display" and have the projector take care of the aspect ratio (if it can, do they do that?).
C:
FWIW, I have 4 modes on my TV (Toshiba), 4:3 mode, 4:3 stretched-to-16:9 mode, cut-off-the-letterbox mode (expands 4:3 with black bars at top and bottom to fill the screen) and 16:9 mode. There's a handy button for it on the remote. I would be astonished if a widescreen projector didn't have a similar handy button.
The PS2 has the same setting as your Tivo in the setup menu, but it only seems to matter for "enhanced for widescreen TV" DVDs. If you have a 16:9 DVD and a 4:3 display the PS2 (and every DVD player that has this adjustment) will letterbox the video signal (its not on the DVD). If you have a 16:9 display you get an unaltered signal.
Games don't seem to use that setting to figure out if they should be widescreen or not.
Since you have a non-HD Tivo, I can't figure out what the aspect ratio setting is for. I bet its something somebody forgot to disable from HD Tivo.
i'm assuming that you don't want the image to be compressed or stretched (visually)?
for option #2 you'd have to pre-process (visually squish) the 16x9 image to fit the 4x3, which the lens would then expand out again. that works fine but you need everything running though some processor
i can't tell what you're talking about with option #3
this is really a non problem if you think about it from outside of the technology box-
it's a projector, not a TV- there are no hard edges, and if you project on a large wall instead of a screen there are no "black bars"
you simply have as many pixels as you can use, vertically and horizontally- and if you're able to position the projector so that it's zoom isn't already maxed out, you can move the image around to even fit a screen
(as in- project 16x9 image on 4x3 projector, zoom so image fills 16x9 screen- black bars are off the screen)
this usually isn't done because keeping the zoom at halfway and moving the projector back generally decreases performance and obviously requires more physical room, which is why to me the best solution is just to project on a wall and let the chips fall where they may
![[User Picture]](http://p-userpic.livejournal.com/4576544/868831) | From: wfaulk
Mon, 16-May-2005 4:45 PM (UTC)
Letterboxed movies | (Link)
|
When you say “letterboxed movies,” do you mean stuff on DVDs or do you mean any letterboxed material, like TV shows shot for HD and shown on NTSC letterboxed? Because anamorphic DVDs would help this a lot if that's largely what you're interested in, and, unless I'm mistaken, the Playstation 2 doesn't support anamorphic output. (Actually, now that I think about it, I may very well be mistaken. Please, someone confirm or deny.)
From: rob_from_ca
Tue, 17-May-2005 9:16 PM (UTC)
Always has been a pain, always will be. | (Link)
|
Been fighting with this since my friends and I went together in the pre-DVD days to buy a Proscan (aka RCA) 40" widescreen tube TV to watch our laserdiscs on. Then tried to hook the first round of DVD players into it later on...
Most studio movies today are either 1:1.85 or 1:2.35. When they put a 2:35 movie onto DVD, they usually leave the aspect ratio alone. For 1.85 movies, they usually crop it, at least in the "enhanced for widescreen" mode, aka anamorphic. It's very rare for them to not do the slight cropping. If there is no widescreen enhanced version, then it usually is the actual 1.85 ratio, and when you zoom the picture to fill horizontally you'll have some small black bars.
It could be that the 16:9 switch on your tivo just places the onscreen menus in different places? Some people watch 1.33:1 content zoomed on thier widescreen TV, which tends to cut off on-screen menus. Maybe it just moves it more towards the center so they are still on the screen. It's doubtful that it would care much beyond that about the aspect ratio.
For projectors, high end people (which I'm really not) generally buy a 4:3 projector and size it to taste on their screen, depending on the content they have. Of course, said people also typically have expensive video processors and scalars that can make the image pretty much do whatever they want at the touch of a button. Mere mortals like me tend to end up having to switch manual switches back and forth (why on earth the resolution/output/screen size switches never make it onto the remotes is beyond me).
I can say that now that more and more things are going HD, or at least 16:9, including consoles, computer games, TV, etc.. If you buy an expensive enough 4:3 projector so you have the resolution/quality to spare on losing a percentage of the screen and you care that much, that's fine. For those of us without that financial option available, we'll probably just pick a mid-to-low level 16:9 and be happy enough with it.
From: wire_on_fire
Wed, 18-May-2005 8:56 AM (UTC)
You could always be like everybody else.... | (Link)
|
And watch all of you 4:3 TV in 16:9 mode where it stretches out everything!
Because then everybody will look at your screen and say "Wow. JWZ has a cool projector. Everything's widescreen!"
I've had a 16:9 widescreen TV for about five years now. It has both analog and digital tuners. With the digital tuner, most broadcast TV is received in 16:9 ratio on the main UK channels. Older replays are obviously broadcast in in 4:3. I buy DVDs in anamorphic widescreen wherever possible.
Basically the TV takes care of aspect ratios automatically, occasionally you'll see the picture adjust as the broadcast switches between 16:9 and 4:3 (e.g. at commercial breaks in an old film). If you fiddle with the remote's aspect-ratio controls then yes, you can make things squished or expanded but generally things work.
I have the TV set to zoom slightly on 4:3 stuff so that you lose a thin slice of the picture at the top and bottom but still have thinner black bars on each side. This compromise works best for me. Occasionally you get a widescreen film broadcast in letterboxed 4:3, this is really annoying since the TV shows a thick black border on all four sides. Using the zoom button just tends to emphasise the loss of resolution compared to a properly broadcast 16:9 film (UK Digital broadcast is not HDTV but is *much* sharper & than UK analogue PAL which is noticably better than NTSC so "normal" digital widescreen is hugely better than letterboxed PAL).
It's obvious, but I'd consider:
* the aspect ratio of the media you have already.
* how long you want to keep using this new equipment
* likely trends in film/TV/DVD media and equipment that you'll want to hook up to in that timeframe.
4:3 equipment has gone the way of compact audio tapes in my home. I still have them (e.g. VCR) but I can't remember the last time I used them.
These days, I'd think very long and hard before buying any AV gear that wasn't optimised for 16:9 HDTV (whilst still automatically handling old 4:3 signals the way I prefer). YMMV
From: klahnako
Fri, 20-May-2005 1:31 PM (UTC)
I have a 65" Sony HDTV | (Link)
|
I got it a couple of months ago, and am still fiddling with it.
The aspect ratio setting on my DVD player, (and your Tivo?) only works with the Component Video outputs. Composite is assumed 480i (Regular TV) format. S-video is assumed to be 4:3 ratio up to 800 pixels across (or was that 1024, anyway 1024 is too blurry anyway).
DVI is a little brighter than Component Video, but you will not be able to tell the difference unless you have a side-by-side comparison.
The projector/TV should auto-sense the input and project appropriately. My TV has a customizable default display format for 4:3 video input (I set it for gray bars on either side).
There should be a button that allows you to choose display format for 4:3 video:
Normal (Grey or black bars on sides)
Full (Stretched horizontally)
Wide Zoom (You loose only a little above and below, and the stretch is not too noticeable)
Zoom (You loose more above and below, but you keep the aspect ratio)
It does not matter if you go with 4:3 projector or 16:9. Just go for the cheapest per horizontal pixel.
I think you meant 2.35:1 instead of 1.77:1. 1.77:1 fills the whole screen as long as it's anamorphic whereas anamorphic 2.35:1 still has black bars on a widescreen TV. | |
