Ahhhhhhhhhhh you're all so confusing aaahh
my eyes they distooooorttttttt
This subject is very connvoluted and difficult to explain in all of it's variables (just see how mixed up MGM consumers <a href="
http://www.ultimatedisney.com/forum/vie ... 55">are</a>
)
I started to make a post twice and gave up in the middle of them. Too many variables.
Widescreen TVs theoretically are better cus:
A: Widescreen movies are taller on them (on 4:3 displays they are shrunk) while non widescreen movies and TV programs are still the same old height (comparatively). It's called the equal screen height principle. (Yes I know Scope type movies are still shrunk somewhat with their letterbozed black bars on 16:9 displays. That's why we need Ultra Wide 21:9 displays
)
B: 16:9 coded widescreen DVDs can be shown with their full vertical resolution. That's what the 16:9 coding is for. Widescreen movies coded for 16:9 have 33% more resolution than the equivalent "letterboxed" or open matted 4:3 versions., cus those 4:3 versions ar shrunk to fit the squarer screen. (The open matted versions just show up to 33% more image that's not meant to be seen but the central widescreen rectangle image area meant to be seen is still shrunk
)
On 4:3 TVs, 16:9 coded widescreen discs loose that extra 33% resolution when the DVD player throws it away to shrink the image to fit it on the 4:3 display* so there they look equivalent to regular 4:3 letterboxed discs
*(unless you have a 4:3 display with the vertical squeeze feature that James and Thiago have which squeezes the full 480 (or 576 PAL) pixels into shape without throwing part of them away)
If you don't have a widescreen display you can get an idea how much taller and sharper the image is by selecting the 16:9/Widescreen setting on the DVD player set up as some of you already have when xperimentin'
Of course your TV set not being 16:9 wide will show the image squeezed onto it's 4:3 "box"
the DVD player Set up 4:3/Pan Scan setting is there to un-squeeze that full resolution image so it looks normal on a 4:3 tv , but of course, by expanding the width 33%, so you get 33% pan scaned image of the 16:9 image on your 4:3 display. That is, if the 16:9 coded DVD has a pan/scan flag or your player can override it if the DVD doesn't have it.
There's no difference on a 4:3 display betwen the 4:3 pan scan setting and the 4:3 letterbox setting if the DVD doesn't have the flag: Both settings will letterbox the 16:9 coded widescreen movie (unless your DVD player is one of those that likes you more than usual and overrides the absence of the flag for you
)
The only DVDs I have that seem to have the Pan scan flag seem to be PAL discs (of course i haven't gone and tested all of them im too busy watching them in their proper ratios
)
For example, i have the PAL The Greatest Story Ever Told disc. This is a 16:9 coded disc of an UltraPanavision 2.75 wide movie. If I'm watching it on a 4:3 display with the 4:3 Letterbox setting the image is letterboxed less than half the height of the display. If I choose 16:9 Widescreen it becomes 33% taller but its distorted cus of the 16:9 coding (people are tall and thin cus they need the wider 16:9 display) Ahh but if I choose 4:3 PanScan which is meant to mantain the full height of a 16:9 coded movie on a 4:3 TV, the image widens (unsqueezes.) Now i get a pan scan of my movie (in this case since the movie was 2.75 i lose 33% so i end up with a 2.06 wide movie. I'm sure this disc has the Pan Scan flag because of its extreme wideness might been considered too extreme a letterboxing on a 4:3 display.
)
Which brings us to those other Widescreen movies :Scope
Scope movies being wider than 4:3 too, also benefit with the 16:9 coding extra resolution so that's why they are better in 16:9. But since Scope movies are even wider than the 16:9 frame (being from 2.00 wide to 2.75 wide), even on a 16:9 display they will have to be shrunk round 33% to fit the whole wide long image onto the 16:9 frame (for 4:3 tvs they are shrunk another 33%) so those will always be letterboxed on 4:3 displays AND 16:9 displays. (Unless you use a zoom feature to fill up the screen height by chopping off the sides.)
(Or they start using 21:9 coding and 21:9 displays.
)
When you put 4:3 coded movie on a 16:9 display, the display should pillarbox the 4:3 DVDs square image to mantain correct proportion and get the full image and OAR. If your 4:3 disc has a letterboxed widescreen movie , or an open matte version of a widescreen movie, you can use the zoom function to enlarge the mage tll it fills the screen to your satisfaction but those movies wont looks as good as 16:9 enhanced movies cus they have less resolution/pixels. You can also zoom non widescreen 4:3 disc to your hearts content chopping the top and bottom or xperimenting with the strech-o function
If a 4:3 Full frame disc looks fine zoomed it was probably composed or protected for a wider presentation or its actually a widescreen movie in disguised open matte version
Or the cameraman was veeery bad and didnt know how to frame
On HDTV from what I've seen 4:3 movies are coded in 16:9 with pillarboxed bars and the wider Scope movies are codded in 16:9 with letterboxed bars (unless the 4:3 are cropped head and feet, and the Scope are panscanned without their sides (the Super-35 Scopes open matted), all to 1.78
but that's another topic)
Also another topic would be if on HD Discs they could kept a 4:3 movie 4:3 coded and the Scope movies 21:9 coded (using the full 1080 x 1920 resolution for them too without pillarboxes or letterboxes) and the display or player resized the images for any size/shape display which would always give the best optimum quality for all film formats and display combinations. It could happen. Some day...
ok this one came shorter than the others.
Maybe i should invite Jafar to the batcave and show him Aladdin in 16:9 to spoil him
. with widescreen t.v.'s, there's not so much black space on the top and bottom as opposed to a full screen t.v. (I mainly get the widescreen version for DVDs). and i believe you see more!...or at least a bigger, better picture on widescreen to widescreen compared to widescreen picture on full screen t.v.
