Why do I still see black bars on my widescreen TV when viewing certain widescreen DVDs and HDTV broadcasts?
Your widescreen TV has an aspect ratio of 16:9 (1.78:1), which is the aspect ratio of HDTV. However, movies are filmed at several different aspect ratios, including 2.35:1. Also referred to as “scope”, 2.35:1 is a panoramic aspect ratio that provides a wide field of view in the theater. Scope is much wider than your widescreen TV, so it still requires the use of letterboxing (“black bars”) to fit the entire image on screen. Some TVs and DVD players have a zoom function that allows you to blow up the image so it fills the screen, but the sides of the image must be cropped in order to do so.
Even though a television station may be broadcasting in a high definition format, they may still make use of standard (or analog) video signals as a source. In order to accommodate the wide screen format of high definition digital transmissions, vertical side bars are inserted by the broadcaster. By default, Panasonic plasmas display 720P and 1080i high definition transmissions in their native FULL aspect mode. Your widescreen TV has an aspect ratio of 16:9 (1.78:1), which is the aspect ratio of HDTV. However, movies are filmed at several different aspect ratios, including 2.35:1. Also referred to as “CinemaScope”, 2.35:1 is a very panoramic aspect ratio that provides a wide field of view in the theater. CinemaScope is much wider than your widescreen TV, so it still requires the use of letterboxing (“black bars”) to fit the entire image on screen. Some TVs and DVD players have a zoom function that allows you to blow up the image so it fills the screen, but the sides of the image must b
Related Questions
- Some widescreen DVDs and HDTV broadcasts still show black bars. Why doesnt the 16:9 aspect ratio on my TV remove this letterboxing?
- Why do I still see black bars on my widescreen TV when viewing certain widescreen DVDs and HDTV broadcasts?
- Why do I still see black bars on my widescreen TV when viewing certain widescreen DVDs and HD broadcast?
