I just bought a new HDTV, and I had my brothers over to watch it. They had tons of questions, and one was what a lot of people seem to ask: "Why do I still get black bars at the top and bottom of widescreen DVDs? I have a widescreen TV now, so what gives?"
This link from CNET is old, and it doesn't really tell you what is going on. But the short answer is that there are different types of widescreen movies. Some will fill up your widescreen HDTV completely, others will not.
If I would have written the story, I would have started like this:
Movies marketed as "widescreen" come in mainly two different styles: scope and flat. This is a simplification, as there are other formats that exist, but the majority of widescreen movies fall into these two catagories.
Flat movies have an aspect ratio (that is, the ratio of the picture's width to height) of 1.85:1. This is sometimes referred to as Academy Standard Flat. Even though people like to use 16:9 to describe the aspect ratio of HDTV, it is a lot easier to compare ratios if you convert the height to 1. Thus, HDTV has an aspect ratio of 1.78:1. As you can see now, 1.85:1 movies are just a little bit wider than the HDTV screen. When you get a DVD of a 1.85:1 movie, it will fill the screen with no black bars (unless the telecine operator -- the guy who transferred the movie from film to DVD -- is really picky, then there will be the thinnest of black lines at the top and bottom, but you will probably not notice them).
Scope movies have an aspect ratio of 2.35:1 to 2.40:1. The full name is CinemaScope. Super-35 is another process to get these really wide movies. As you can see, comparing the the HDTV's ratio of 1.78:1, scope movies are a bit wider (still) than a HDTV screen. To fit the entire width of scope movies on a DVD, they will have to put black bars at the top and bottom of the screen.
To make all this work properly, you also have to tell your DVD player that you have a widescreen display. Otherwise it thinks you have an old 4:3 (1.33:1) TV, and it will always put black bars at the top and bottom of the picture, no matter if the movie is scope or flat. It is also throwing away every fourth scan line to fit the picture on your old TV. You get the full resolution of widescreen DVDs only on widescreen sets.
So take a look at your DVD cases to see if you can find what aspect ratio the movie is. Some labels make it very clear if the movie is 1.85:1 or 2.35:1. Others you have to read the tiny details to figure it out. Also, be sure that the DVD as the words "Enhanced for widescreen TVs" or "anamorphic" on the label to make sure that the DVD is authored to specifically support widescreen TVs. I think that every current DVD is authored that way, but some old DVDs were not.
Also, some movies were never widescreen. For example, "Gone With the Wind" was filmed in 1.33:1, the same ratio as our old TV sets. Thus, for such movies made around that time, you will have back bars on the sides(!) of your widescreen set instead of the top and bottom.
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