Video

Widescreen

One of the greatest advantages with DVD is that virtually any film is released in the original theatrical format, and often optimized for widescreen TV sets (we'll get to that in the next paragraph). However, Some unexperienced DVD users find the "black bars" or so-called letterbox images on films irritating – and want to get rid of them. In most cases you can't «remove» them, and there's no reason to do so, either. What you really removes to avoid the black bars is up to 50% of the original cinematic image, because the black bars are not part of the picture, they are outside the image area. Since the cinematic aspect ratio logically won't fit in the almost quadratic TV screen it has to be so. The technic to modify the picture for normal 4:3 TVs is called Pan&Scan, and it's not popular among film lovers. For normal, unknowing, video renters can widescreen or letterbox on the other hand be found very irritating. Many region 1 editions are released in two versions - one Widescreen and one Pan&Scan. Some has also Widescreen on one side and Pan&Scan on the other. This is rather rare with region 2 editions, so if this is important for you you're most likely no real film enthusiast and you can most likely manage with VHS another while. Another alternative is of course to buy a 16:9 Widescreen TV, because then you'll as good as will get rid of the black bars. DVD is released as the video format of the future - and Widescreen is the future. Try to watch some films in Widescreen, and after a while you'll get irritaded of the amount of picture information that is cut away from the Pan&Scan editions. The format also won't give the cinematic aspect on the film experience. Check out the examples below and also read below with the overview of the various picture formats.

Here's the complete Widescreen picture (2.35:1 aspect ratio) of an image from Wild Things

This is the result with Pan&Scan. It's nearly 50% of the picture that's cut away (you can't even see the man to the right) - not black bars...

Anamorphic widescreen

Pierce Brosnan doesn't look like that (or a car in this case)! Unexperienced DVD users (like myself a some years ago) could accidently sit there watching movies in a completely wrong aspect ratio. Most (widescreen) DVD movies are stored in a way that it must be «pushed together» (look under picture formats) called anamorphic widescreen. To get the image right, you have to adjust your DVD player according to the type of TV you have; 4:3 Standard or 16:9 Widescreen. This can also be the case for PC, i.e. Creative's Dxr2 (even if you biew the movie on the PC monitor you must set the aspect ratio to Standard TV).

 
Anamorphic Widescreen in a 2.35:1 aspect ratio wrongly adjusted on a Standard TV (to the left). Correctly adjusted to the right.

Formats

Before the 1960's it was usual to shoot films in 4:3. When the video was introduced and became a rival to the cinemas, they had to make the cinematic experience more special and then Cinemascope (2.35:1) or Widescreen was born. Well, I guess the aspect ratio 1.85:1 was more common in the beginning, and is still a usual format for low-budget and non-effect films. In addition is the widescreen format a lot more adapted to humans visual angle, in difference to the almost quadratic 4:3 (or 1.33:1) TV format. The TV sets of the future, HDTV, will have the aspect ratio 16:9 (or 1.78:1), that is, a bit shorter than the cimatic format, but all the same a great enhancement. If the format should have been even longer, that would of course demanded even bigger TV screens. For instance, a 28" Widescreen TV doesn't seem as big as a 28" Standard TV. In fact, there is little use in bying a Widescreen TV smaller than 32". Most TV broadcasts are still in 4:3 and this will result in black bars on the left and right side. You will also need a digital receiver to get true 16:9.

Standard
Fills the whole screen on a Standard 4:3 TV. Gives black bars in the left and right edge of a 16:9 Widescreen TV. The image is in it's original ascpect ratio, it's not modified in any way. Usual for series and films made for video- or TV. In addition all cinema films produced before the 1970s (when 4:3 also was used on the cinema).

Pan&Scan
Fills the whole screen on a Standard 4:3 TV. Gives black bars in the left and right edge of a 16:9 Widescreen TV. The image is modified to fit a Standard 4:3 TV screen by paning along the widescreen image and show sections (we'll accordingly not see a fixed cut the whole time). Still, this is an absurdity, because it removes up to 50% of the original cinema picture. The widescreen aspect ratio fits, as formerly mentioned, also better to the human vision angle, and personally I find it very irritating (after being watching only widescreen since 1997) both because of this and the sections of the image which obvious is cut away.

This is the picture from Wild Things in a Pan&Scan release (1.33:1) on a Standard 4:3 TV.

Letterbox
You'll get black bars on the upper and lower edge on the screen on a Standard 4:3 TV. Gives a black bars around the edge on a 16:9 Widescreen TV! This, because the black bars are saved in the picture information itself. The picture on a 16:9 Widescreen TV can be zoomed, but it'll decrease the quality, and besides are the subtitles in most cases placed under the picture. For owners of Standard 4:3 TVs are this actually an advance; you'll get the subtitles under the picture and it may actually give a bit higher image quality than Anamorphic Widescreen. On the other hand it's very irritating for owners of 16:9 Widescreen TVs, and besides very little turned toward the future. The DVD format will hopefully last 10- 15 years more, and in that time most people will have a 16:9 TV (or HDTV, which is the futures standard), also because of the introduction of Digital TV.

NB! Wild Things is Anamorphic Widescreen. This only shows how Letterbox/ Widescreen (2.35:1) is viewed on a Standard 4:3 TV.

Amamorphic Widescreen
You'll get black bars on the top and bottom on a normal4:3 TV. Shows bigger or smaller black bars on a 16:9 Widescreen TV, depending on the aspect ratio. The picture below is from Wild Things, which is in 2.35:1. Anamorphic is the original cinematic film format. Every films must be filmed in 4:3, but the picture is decresed in lenght, so it later can be stretched out again to get the correct aspect ratio. This is the best method to store DVD films on, according to many people, because it utilize the possibilities of the format and provides the basis for the best picture quality that's possible to get on a 16:9 Widescreen TV. On the other hand will users of normal 4:3 TVs get a slight drop in qualuty compared to a Letterbox presentation. To create most confusion possible chooses some to call Anamorphic Widescreen 4:3 full screen letterbox/ widescreen, since the picture information is saved (and filmed) in approximately 4:3-format, but pressed together in height. But that's really every format, so this just creates confusion, if you ask me. Another common description is «16:9 optimised Widescreen», or «optimised for Widescreen TVs».

This is how the picture from Wild Things (2.35:1) will look on a 16:9 TV.

Visit widescreen.org for more information about widescreen, pan&scan and aspect ratios in general.

Aspect ratios

Here's a summary of the various aspect ratios that are mainly used (or stated). Many movies have indeed an aspect ratio between 1.66:1 and 1.85:1, and between 1.85:1 and 2.35:1, but mainly these standard aspect ratios are stated on the box. On Internet Movie Database you can find out which ratio your film really has, even though they are either not always correct...

1.33:1 (or 4:3)
Standard/ Pan&Scan TV picture. As good as all TV productions and films older than 1970.

1.66:1
Normal on some TV productions, a few films and some cartoons.

1.78:1 (or 16:9)
Widescreen TV picture. Series, films produced especially for 16:9 TVs. Rarely used for cinema productions as far as I know.

1.85:1
Very common format earlier and is now getting more popular again among directors – unfortunately for us who like Cinemascope best. A lot of low-budget and non-effect films use this aspect ratio (Congo, American Pie), and now even big-budget films. It's a lot easier to shoot this format than 2.35:1 because it's not so demanding when it comes to cameras, light conditions etc. Can be shot either hard-matted or soft-matted. It's new popularity might also have to do with the introduction of widescreen TVs so the studios want to make films that fit these screens perfectly. Practically a 1.85:1 film will be formated to 1:78:1 when transferred to DVD, or the TV overscan will simply eat up the difference. Have a look under picture formats for more information.

2.35:1
Real Widescreen or Cinemascope. Even if there's even longer formats are they often stated in 2.35:1 (and some times 2.40:1, for instance Boogie Nights). This aspect ratio even has more names. Can be shot either hard-matted or soft-matted (Super 35). Have a look under picture formats for more information.

Matted widescreen
Note that some films are shot in a «soft-matted» widescreen format, which meens that they can reveal more of the information beside the upper and lower edge while making a 4:3 video release. This is called Super 35 and has surely other names. James Cameron often uses this format, so Terminator 2 Judgment Day is shot in matted widescreen. So is Jurassic Park by Steven Spielberg. The 4:3 version of A Bug's Life reveals more information on the top and the bottom. But usually, mikes and cranes will be viewable in this area, so this picture information is not always used in the making of the 4:3 versions. I did a compare with Jurassic Park and there was indeed some more picture information on the top and the bottom, but there was also cut some information on the left and right side, and the left and right picture that was cut away seemed more important than the revealed information in a way. On the other hand, there wasn't so many cut faces. In dinosaur effect shots (CGI) traditional pan&scan was usually used, so you lost a lot of the image. Some would think it's best to release the film in the actual aspect ratio the film was shot (around 1.37:1 I think) or 1.78:1, so I would fit perfectly to a widescreen TV. But on the other hand this is not the director's vision at the time of shooting. The extra picture information will simply not give you any added experience of the film, it might actually distract you – especially if there are boom mikes etc. visible in this area. Have a look at widescreen.org for more information about this.

Visit widescreen.org for more information about widescreen, matted widescreen, pan&scan and aspect ratios in general.

Artifacts

TV Overscan

So you're sitting there with your new TV set and DVD player and belonging widescreen films. Now I'll be able to experence the films just like it was intended, you're thinking. But then you notice, by comparing the image on the computer screen and the TV screen, that a significant part of the image is cut on the left and right side on the TV screen! The answer to this very usual phenomen (who most people will overlook as a insignificant detail, but since you're reading this I guess you don't belong to them) is overscanning. To avoid picture noise in the edges of TV broadcasts and VHS video the picture is projected larger than what's actually viewable on the TV screen. Some of the image will simply be lying outside the screen (this also account for the upper and lower edge, but that has nothing to say for widescreen films). The problem with overscanning is that the value is most often set too high. Notice that normal TV broadcasts and VHS videos too are significant (relatively) larger than what you'll be able to see - and this seems to be quite pointless because I can't notice any noise on my TV Tuner on the PC, where there naturally is no overscanning (a PC monitor is of course totally adjustable when it comes to height and width of the picture). If you're lucky, you're TV has a zoom function so you can zoom the image the way you want it. A TV store in Norway recommended me to set the overscanning value to 1. But if you have an older TV, this will have to be set in the service menu, which can only be accessed by opening the TV chassis, and because of the high voltage, you're not allowed to mess around there yourself without being qualified. In the service menu you'll also be able to mess around with a lot of other settings that can destroy your TV. The TV service center I spoke to could fix this for about 25- 30 USD, but I guess you'll have to argue with them for a while to make them care about this at all. Notice that the shown picture on screen naturally will appear slightly smaller after changing the overscan factor. It seems like the aspect ratio on the real TV image (after testing with the TV Tuner on my PC) is more alike the aspect ratio of a PC monitor, which has a longer width than a TV screen (it's more rectangular, while the TV is almost quadratic). See the difference between real 4:3 full screen format and what appears on the TV screen. Notice that this applies for my 28" Philips FSQ Vision TV, and is measered by a visual estimate. You will most likely see a bit more in the left right edge (but a bit less in the left so then that's equal). I believe this is quite alike for all TV sets, allthough you will notice some differences if you compare the TVs in a store. You can also avoid this problem if you have a zoom function on the TV output from your graphics adaptor, but from my experience this will lead to a loss in quality compared to using the output from the MPEG card. The picture below is captured from the Pan&Scan version of Wild Things, if you're wondering.

 
To the left you see how the picture really looks (in a 4:3 aspect ratio), while the right picture shows how it would appear on a TV screen (an old Philips TV in this example)! Of course you don't see the black space, it is just presented this way to give you a better comparison.

HKFlix.com sells special players with a built-in zoom-function to eliminate overscan. They also have a nice article on the subject.

All screenshots on this page (except the car) are captured from the U.S. (Region 1) DVD release of Wild Things © Columbia/ Tristar Studios 2001. The quality of these pictures of course don't represent the quality of the DVD. The car was taken from an older version of a guide at Hjemmekino.no.