h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I did try to read the whole entry, but it was very technical and I got lost. So can someone answer me a question?

Why is the 16.9 format never used for film? I bought a widescreen telly so I got a better picture, but I still always get the black bars for films. Or rather the question should be - why invent a format for tv that is no bleeding use at all and not compatible for films? I don't care what the picture is like when I'm watching Eastenders, but I would like to get a better picture on films!

The 16:9 format is nothing but a compromise. As described in the entry there are so many different formats used in cinema that you'd need a telly in each format in order not to see black bars.

Why can't they just pick one and all stick to it?

Each format has pros and cons. The director picks the format that suits his requirements best. Considering that these directors are producing for movie theaters they hardly care what their movies will look like on TV.

I got a bit lost reading all the technical stuff too. When I watch some DVDs, the picture looks stretched vertically so the people look tall and thin. Why is that and can't anything be done about it?

It also depends on where the film was made.

US blockbusters are made in widescreen 'cinemascope' (2.35 anomophic) versions. These pictures are so wide (and in big cinemas the screens can be huge) that they take up your peripheral vision and give you a overwhealming visual experience.

European films are normally projected in 1.66 which is a very pleasing shape (it is close to the golden ratio).

The academy ratio of 1.33 (4:3) was picked in the silent era of movies and it is the same shape as the film - from sprocket to sprocket. In the early days of cinema, a lot of films were shown in very second rate venues and 1.33 made sense.

On the television, keep in mind that the stations crop the image that they transmit and that your television crops the image again before it displays it. Television stations and consumer electronics companies are both commonly described as philistines.

This is a possibly a problem with your DVD player. Essentially, the DVD stores the image, audio, subtitles etc all in different streams. The DVD player's job is to remix them and send the combined signal on the output cable into your TV.

But, of course, not all TVs are equal: they can be conventional 3:4, widescreen, high-definition, office digital projectors, cinema quality digital projectors. Each of these have different pixel densities and display aspect ratios (consider PAL/NTSC/Secam!). Some displays process the image as well (think of the buttons on the front of a computer monitor to deal with the visual effects of pin-cushion, trapezoid, stretching the image horizontally/vertically etc)

So the DVD player chooses the aspect ratio and, possibly, puts the black lines on the tops and bottoms of your picture. Alternatively, it might squeeze the picture because it thinks your display will unsqueeze it. If you play with enough buttons on your DVD you might be able to solve the problem there. If your telly has enough buttons, you might be able to solve it that way.



PS: have a look at www.vidiolan.org. They are an open source software project for all of this sort of technology.

The web address should be www.videolan.org!

Sorry.