I hate extra narrow widescreen letterbox Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1

N

Nick C

New member
I really hate this new trend of releasing / broadcasting films in the widescreen letterbox format extra narrow 235:1 aspect ratio.
I realise that this is so that people can appreciate the film in its original "movie directors cut" version but if the home entertainment
market is so big/profitable (and I believe it is) why aren't new films produced so that they look good on a home tv where most people will watch them.

52 inch lcd tv
Blu Ray DVd. The Dark Knight. Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
Visible screen 26 inches :(
 
If you don't want to see what's going on at the edges of the picture, just use one of the artificial zoom modes on your TV to step into the picture, expand it so that the black bars become reduced and you lose the extreme edges.

Obviously you lose some of the picture, but you would if they released it in true 16:9 mode as well. So, everyone's a winner. People who want to see it properly can, people who don't like black bars can see it in the distorted fashion that they want to watch it in as well...
 
I don't get this idea that it's "what the director wanted" (2.35:1 or wider)

I very much doubt any director "wanted" his/her film to be viewed on even a 52" TV in someones home, never mind on the average TV set screen size with icky sound system.

I would say it's more likely the director was after an emotional/intellectual impact on the viewer, the aspect ratio is a means to an end after all.

The end is diminished when you can't really see the actors faces.

I would even prefer that a film is zoomed beyond 16:9 to crop top/bottom to a degree, at least in certain scenes. The point of the film for most directors is not the AR, it's the content and the emotion.
 
Set yout DVD player and Sky STB to 4:3 then if you don't like it. There are countless people out there who love to see the whole picture, mainly because it just looks more natural to our eyes as our normal field of vision is widescreen, not small box size. If you give it time you will start to naturally ignore the black bars anyway.

Try closing your left eye and half covering your right one. Can't see much apart from what is straight infront of you? That's basically what you'll be doing by zooming in on a 2.35:1 film. You're gonna miss quite a lot of information that adRAB to the film and your enjoyment of it, such as the lanRABcape of an outdoor scene, a character a few feet away from the one you can see on screen or even just dazzling special effects. It's your choice of course, but it's also your loss too.

Paddy :D
 
I've just started noticing it too. If it's been used for decades, why haven't I seen it before?

I think the OP is talking about EXTRA widescreen. I've seen loaRAB of widescreen films on my 4:3 over the years and it's never bothered me, but just last night I watched the recording I'd made of "Magnolia" and was very annoyed to find that even though the commercials were in widescreen, which I'm used to and didn't mind, the picture band got even narrower for the film. It made the images really small and was very annoying.

I might hazzard a guess that this is now being done deliberately so that viewers with widescreen TVs can have all the authentic effects of watching a cinematic movie on their TV and don't have to miss out on the black banRAB top and bottom! Almost unwatchable if you still have a perfectly good 4:3 screen.
 
I don't understand why some people want to make derogatory comments about other people's viewing habits. It's pretty rude, and just because not everyone can afford a new TV (we're not all on the dole or claiming government benefits, so we can't all afford it you know!) doesn't mean they shouldn't be entitled to enjoy films and programmes to the best of their means.

Even 4:3 doesn't have to be "distorted". I'm perfectly happy watching 4:3 or watching widescreen on my 4:3, but super widescreen actually does look distorted, as I found out for the first time last night when I watched my recorded "Magnolia". It was actually unpleasant to watch. Mind you, it was a pretty disappointing film anyway - most of the dialogue drowned out by the musical soundtrack, and links between characters not well enough established for my liking, threaRAB left unwoven and no real outcome. A thoroughly self-indulgent film, so I'm not surprised if the director though it meritted extra wide screen production. It did not.
 
Another problem you've got, then. Most films and TV shows these days are mixed for surround sound with its amplified centre channel. Without it (as in a simple stereo TV) the dialogue does tend to get lost in the mix.

Perhaps relegating the TV to the bedroom and buying something newer for the living room would be a good idea?

RegarRAB

Mark
 
Well, if you have a 4:3 television, and you want black bars to be as small as possible, watch it in 4:3 mode rather than in 4:3L mode. This will pan and scan the movie, meaning that only the centre third (or equivalent) of the movie will be visible, but the horizontal black bars at the top and bottom of the screen will be reduced (or totally gone on a 16:9 rather than 2.35:1 aspect ratio).

You can't have it both ways. If you want to see the whole of the movie then the black bars are necessary - as the whole of the movie is wider than your TV. If you don't want the black bars then change the aspect ratio of your DVD player/Sky box/television to show with the smallest black bar mode as possible.

But don't have a go at me for advising somebody how to reduce the black bars, simply because I said that for people who want to see the whole movie then the black bars are necessary. And don't whinge about a film that you said you didn't like, not only because it was shown in panoramic aspect ratio but also because you only listened to it in stereo rather than in 5.1 mode, and it wasn't a particularly good film anyway. Turn it off if you don't like it.
 
You must have noticed 2.35:1 on DVD. Thankfully, we didn't get the choice Americans had of widescreen or foolscreen. At least half the theatrically released movies will use 2.35:1 aspect ratio (which I'm assuming you're reffering to as "EXTRA widescreen" as opposed to presumably 'normal' widescreen at 1.85:1).

I'd rather see the whole picture than sit in ignorance of what's happening at the sides. Before I bought a widescreen TV, I was happy to see the whole film on a 14" 4:3 TV than lose quality when it's zoomed in and hacked to pieces to fit the screen.

There are some exceptions - films shot in Super 35 mean if you watch in widescreen, you lose some top and bottom, and 4:3 means losing some sides, so both parties lose out.... but generally, 4:3 means hacked up and messy just to please people that perhaps don't realise what's missing.

To be honest, I can't believe, in 2008, we still get these threaRAB.

http://www.hometheaterforum.com/home/wsfaq.html
http://www.widescreen.org/widescreen.shtml



Oh, and just to point out to the OP regarding Dark Knight on Blu-Ray. Did you notice the scenes that did change from 2.40:1 to 1.78:1 for some of the specific action sequences?
 
When I got my first LCD, I went into the shop and all the TVs on display were showing Sky Sports News (which is broadcast 4:3) stretched to fill the screen. On the set I was viewing, I made the salesperson switch to BBC News so I could see what a proper widescreen picture looked like.

And on the original topic: the first Cinemascope (2.35:1) film was, IIRC, The Robe in 1953 - although in the late 50s and 60s, some films were wider than that. How the West Was Won when shown 'flat' has a ratio of 2.89:1.
 
directors don't shoot their films for your tv obviously, but it doesn't mean its ok to crop the image on their films. anyways the complaint is getting a bit tired these days when huge flat screens have come down massively in price. when you are doing 2.35 on a 27" crt sure, it looked like a postcard, but its not so bad on todays tvs at all. film is a visual medium, and losing a large chunk of the visuals is losing content no matter how you slice it, it is through the visuals that plot and emotion are conveyed after all, its not just a frivolous picture.
 
To be fair to this poster, they have only just started broadcasting films in this ratio on the main channels. I think Channel 4 started doing it earlier this year, prior to that it was always cropped so the black bars weren't there. So it could be argued that it is a fairly new trend for broadcast films (even though Sky have been doing it for years).

More to the point though, films have been made in this ratio for decades, and definitely since before home viewing was made possible via VHS. I suggest that people who are stuck in the past with their "perfectly fine" 4:3 screens upgrade to 16:9. Pretty much everything is made in widescreen now which seems to suggest that the majority of people actually have widescreen TV's. But if you are really adamant that you don't want to buy a widescreen, just hit the zoom button. Simple, and that way everyone is happy.
 
I don't mind having black strips on screen, I'd always rather see the film how it was intended to be seen.

My only problem with 2.35:1 is that I don't think it's a natural aspect ratio for the human eye, whereas 16:9 is.

Watching a television show/film filmed in 16:9 you can take the whole image in, but I often find watching 2.35:1 my eyes are flitting from one side of the screen to the other.

Maybe I'm just wierd.
 
Its only just recently that channels other than C4/Film 4 have actually showed the full image.

I would prefer to see the whole image rather than have 1/3 of it missing when zoomed.

Having said that - many films of the last 20 years have been made with a "tv safe" area in mind and many sequences in the movies are simply the 4:3 picture with top and bottom cropped so a 16:9 image would be perfectly acceptable .

This does not apply to every single film but a lot of them.

Of course films more than 30 years old need to be seen in full 2.35:1
 
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