PS3 Blu-ray Letterboxing?

Vixen

Vixen

Vixen

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For a long time, we didn't buy any blu-ray discs, because the format war was still ongoing, but recently we've been renting them instead. Every disc we've put in has come up in letterbox, and my boyfriend can't find any options to stretch it out. Is this normal with all blu-ray, or is it a PS3 issue or something else?

It's really annoying that we have a 42" tv but lose out on about 4" across the screen :( Can anyone help?
 
Vixen said:
For a long time, we didn't buy any blu-ray discs, because the format war was still ongoing, but recently we've been renting them instead. Every disc we've put in has come up in letterbox, and my boyfriend can't find any options to stretch it out. Is this normal with all blu-ray, or is it a PS3 issue or something else?

It's really annoying that we have a 42" tv but lose out on about 4" across the screen :( Can anyone help?
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Do you mean black bands at the top and bottom of the screen? If so this is normal, as its a 2:35:1 ratio, which is the cinematic ratio.
 
2.35:1
/pedant :p

but yeah thats normal.

I'm sure there is a setting on the tv and/or PS3 to eliminate this but you will end up with a stretched/squashed picture.
 
Its normal. On my TV settings I have an option allowing me to manipulate the zoom of the TV, which lets me zoom the image to remove the black bars, but it does stretch the image a bit.
 
Vixen said:
It's a widescreen tv though, so surely there's no need to further narrow the picture?
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You would think so wouldn't you. Perhaps check the Picture settings on your particular TV, There may be an option in there to stretch the image and remove the black lines as Stellios does.
 
Vixen said:
It's a widescreen tv though, so surely there's no need to further narrow the picture?
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This will be a good starting point to read:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aspect_ratio_(image)

But basically a lot of films are 2:35:1 OTA/Satellite/Cable/Digital TV shows are usually 16:9. (Your TV is prob 16:9 or 16:10).

I can't believe you have never noticed at the cinema that the screen is a wider aspect than your own TV?


rp2000
 
It's annoying, I really appreciate it when films are 1:85:1 or whatever but they are quite rare.

It would be less of an issue on a Plasma due to superior black levels but on LCD the bars can be kind of offputting. (Though some LCD's are very good at keeping them black)
 
rp2000 said:
I can't believe you have never noticed at the cinema that the screen is a wider aspect than your own TV?
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I'm not an audio/videophile, why would I care? If I'm at the cinema, I'm paying attention to the film, not how wide it is. The black bars are, however, highly distracting.

If there's no way to fix it without stetching the image, I guess I'll be sticking to dvds for a while :(.
 
this is why i hate this whole widescreen thing, why cant they have 1 set ratio that everyone uses?

wouldnt that be a hell of a lot easier, all dvd's, tv shows, games, etc should all be set to 16:9 ratio.

another fix would be, why not be able to change the resolution on tv's, for example change it from 16:9 to 16:10 or to 4:3 or to "cinema" (dunno what cinema is but im guessing its like 18:9
 
Simon said:
Cover the 'grey' bars in black tape
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...or paint your whole room black. :)

Seriously though, pretty much all TVs have the zoom features, and there should be no need to stretch as well. The zoom in will only crop the left and right sides. As long as you're not fussed about cinematography you should be fine with that.

Also, with blu-ray, you shouldn't notice much degradation in picture quality when you do zoom in. In fact, depending on your set-up, you might even notice slightly more overall detail as you will be utilising your TV's full vertical resolution.

Worth a try anyway - if your boyfriend can't work it out, try asking a local schoolkid.... :)
 
Next time your in the cinema look out for the screen changing size when they go from adverts to film. It's changes quite a bit, and you would need a rather wide tv to fit it all in perfectly.

Personally the bars have never bothered me as I watch films in the dark, but I did notice some letterbox options in the ps3 settings.
 
HDTVs are 16:9, films are mostly 2.35:1. The bars are supposed to be there, anything you do to get rid of them is going to impact image quality, plus it will either stretch the image so it's out of proportion (which looks nasty) or cut part of the picture off.
 
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