another aspect ratio thread (sorry)

[fyrfytrhoges]

ok, i have a widescreen set. with the star wars dvds im perplexed to no end. i understand that the "bonus discs" that came with the supposedly limited edition issued last year that those were not anamorphic however, the anamorphic so called "updated" although i call them "futzed with", i still get bars on the top and bottom. my picture options are "wide, zoom, full". with the zoom and full options its obvious that those choices are not right. but for some reason the wide option just doesnt look right.

thoughts?????

and please dont direct me to other threads on this topic because they are wayyyyy over my head, this aspect ratio thing is so confusing to us laymen which i suspect is the case with many here as ive read them and they just muddy the issue more for me.

thanks,

paul

[Drifter]

The entire Star Wars saga was shot at the same wide aspect ratio, 2.35:1, which is much wider than your 1.78:1 widescreen set. There's no escaping the so-called "bars" on the top and bottom on a 1.78:1 widescreen set. Star Wars should fill the screen similarly to the way the image below does.

[fyrfytrhoges]

thanks Drifter, but why are the non-futzed with versions stretched to the max?

[Chip TRG]

The actual "signal" from the non-futzed DVD's is NON-Anamorphic. While the movie itself is indeed letterboxed CinemaScope, the actual "picture" from the DVD is 1:33, as the masters used for production were the LaserDisc masters!!!

It was as if Lucas said "so you want the old versions, well, take THIS!"

You're going to want to zoom in to try to get a decent sized picture on a widescreen TV.

[Drifter]

thanks Drifter, but why are the non-futzed with versions stretched to the max?Oh now I understand. I thought you were saying the latest Lucas CGI-enhanced versions looked stretched. What's happening is your DVD player is treating the non-futzed-with versions as anamorphic DVDs, stretching the image to fit the screen horizontally. You probably can fix the image by taking the DVD player off of "progressive scan" mode and then messing around with the picture options on your set.

[fyrfytrhoges]

The actual "signal" from the non-futzed DVD's is NON-Anamorphic. While the movie itself is indeed letterboxed CinemaScope, the actual "picture" from the DVD is 1:33, as the masters used for production were the LaserDisc masters!!!

It was as if Lucas said "so you want the old versions, well, take THIS!"

You're going to want to zoom in to try to get a decent sized picture on a widescreen TV.


as i said in my post above the zoom modes on this tv totally chop and vertically disort the picture, but thanks for your response!

drifter, ill try that thanks!

[Ken_McAlinden]

"zoom" modes should not vertically distort anything, although some upscaling DVD players connected via HDMI will cause them to not work correctly. If you have such an upscaling player, you should check if your player itself has a built in zoom mode. The only such players for which I have not been able to find such a mode are the Toshiba HD-DVD players. If you watch upscaled SD DVDs that are not 16:9 enhanced on one of these players, you are stuck watching them with black bars on all four sides unless you switch to component, composite, or S-video which will allow your 16:9 TV/projector's zoom mode to work corectly.

Regards,