Xcard black bars / Pulling my hair out.

[chrispy]

I am thinking that I need to go back to ground zero on this one. I am really at a loss and could use some help.

I recently switched from the VGA connector on the Xcard to the Svideo card to get some of the issues I have with black bars.

I guess I will use my favorite DVD as an example (actually a ripped DVD, but I also have the original DVD) "Pink Floyd The Wall". It is the widescreen version, and I have always thought this was the same as 16:9. Somebody correct me if I am wrong.

Now when I switched over to the Svideo out on the Xcard, I swear I had the thing at full screen. No I am back with the bars at the top and bottom when at 16:9 (or what the TV calls "wide"). Nothing has changed since then, and restarting the whole computer does not fix it. I have played with some of the settings but I am at a loss now.

Some random details :

52" Samsung LCD TV.

I have the Xcard software set at 16:9

I have the detailed setup- video set to source (switching it seems to not make a difference).

All other video settings are set to default except for the Sigma / Xcard driver.

The height / width ratio seems to be fine on the TV even with the black bars.

Picture quality is excellent.

Using the latest Beta version, but I had the same problems in the non Beta version.

The menus on the "The Wall" DVD fill the screen. Just the movie itself has the bars.

This is a headless system.

Any other questions I will be glad to answer.


Thanks in advance,
Chris

[waynedunham]

I wondered the same thing when I got my widescreen TV and noted that many DVD's listed as "Widescreen" would sometimes be letterboxed on my screen. There are several "Widescreen" formats. For instance the first 2 DVD's I pulled off my shelf that are in "Widescreen" show this on the back:

Intolerable Cruelty: Anamorphic Widescreen 1.85:1
The Incredibles : Theatrical Widescreen Viewing Presentation (2.39:1) - enhanced for 16:9 televisions

Here's a Wickipedia link to some more info. Take a look towards the bottom of the page in the DVD section and you'll see both of the formats I noted above. There's also some info there about how a DVD player may "talk" to a widescreen TV in some special instances for certain formats in order to get the best picture.

Many widescreen TV's will have one or more "fill" modes that will stretch the image to fill the screen. Depending on the source material the results of the various modes will vary from excellant picture to horrific stretching/squashing.
For instance my widescreen HDTV Ready TV has 3 different fill modes that may be used or turned off. I've found one of them that works well for SD Tv since that's 99% of what I watch. It does a variable stretch so that things near the center are stretched less than the image near the edges. On my TV it works quite well and when I put in a DVD it's going off another input on the back of the TV so the DVD's show as they are intended unless I manually turn on one of the fill modes.

[chrispy]

Wayne,

Thanks for the link. It is no wonder why I am confused. Some of that info at least gets me pointed in the right direction.

No real mention screen size on "The Wall" DVD jacket. If does mention "New Hi Definition film transfer from the original wide screen interpositive". Yet another word (interpositive) that us not clearly defined in your link.

I was under the impression that 16:9 was the ratio that a theater has. Now I see it is a lot more complicated than that. I just thought that a movie on a 16:9 screen at the theater, should fill the TV at 16:9

I do have the "panorama" feature on the TV. Have no idea what that does to the picture, but it does not look any different that the "wide". I also have the "zoom1" and "zoom2" on the TV as well. Both of these are unacceptable as they cutoff the picture, and the video is fuzzy.

I am still confused though. If I went to see "The Wall" at a theater, I would be watching it on a 16:9 screen. What am I watching on the 16:9 TV with the picture filling to the sides and the bars at the top an bottom?

Thanks again,
Chris

[stanger89]

According to this, that DVD is 1.85:1 Widescreen. What that should mean is that it will have small bars top and bottom (which could easilly be obscured by overscan).

Here's the short-ish version:
DVDs come in 2, and only 2 aspect ratios, 4:3 and 16:9.
16:9 DVDs are usually denoted by the descriptions "Widescreen", "Anamorphic", "16x9 Enhanced", "Enhanced for widescreen TVs", etc, to name a few.
4:3 DVDs will either say nothing, or "Fullscreen" often (especially if there's a "Widescreen" version also.
These are the only two ways the data is stored on the DVD, it always has 720x480 pixels, and a flag that says Anamorphic (16:9) or not (4:3).

Now movies, on the other hand come in a WIDE variety of ARs, including 1.33 (4x3), 1.66, 1.78 (16x9), 1.85, 2.0, 2.2, 2.35, 2.40, 2.5 off the top of my head.

What happens is you take your movie, say it's 1.33:1, and pick a way to store it on the disk. In this case non-anamorphic would be the best choice. Say you've got a 1.78:1 movie, in that case, anamorphic is the best choice. These are the ways most new DVDs are made.

What happens with the other ones? Well the video is padded with black bars to make it fit. So a 2.35:1 movie will have bars (rather large ones) top and bottom to make it fit a 16:9 frame size for storage on a DVD.

Of course there's also the horrid "Letterbox" /shudder, where they take a wide movie (say 2.35:1 Star Wars) and pad it down to a 4:3 frame /shudder

What you need to figure out is:[LIST=1][*]What's the actual AR of the movie? - Seems to be 1.85[*]Are bars expected? - Yes[*]Is the movie anamorphic? - Looks like it[*]How big should the bars be? - 1.85:1 anamorphic on a 1.78:1 TV - they should be small[/QUOTE]

Now that should get you to what you should have, if you don't have it, what you need to check first is that your playback device knows your TV is 16x9, if it thinks it's 4x3 it will add bars to anamorphic video to make it fit a 4x3 screen, resulting in (on a 16x9 TV) a picture with bars that are too big, or shouldn't be there at all.

[ke6guj]

Originally Posted by chrispy

I am still confused though. If I went to see "The Wall" at a theater, I would be watching it on a 16:9 screen. What am I watching on the 16:9 TV with the picture filling to the sides and the bars at the top an bottom?

Thanks again,
Chris

The problem is that the movie theather is not a 16:9 screen, it is just the projection of the film at whatever ratio the film is at. They may adjust the curtains to frame in the film properly, but not always.

The director of the movie desides what ratio he wants his movie played at, and either the film company makes the masters at that ratio, or else, IIRC, the film is sent to the theater with instructions to set the projector to show the proper ratio.

Sometimes they mess up, and that is why you can occasionally see a boom mic in a scene. However, go to a different theater, and the boom mic is not in the scene

[chrispy]

FYI it is this one . Which I think is just a remastered version?? I looked at Sony's sight earlier and could not fin the ratio No at least I know it is 1.85.

Thanks for the detailed info. I think I got the jist of it. I now see it pretty clear. So I can only assume that I am setup 100% correct for this DVD. The menus running at 16:9 with no bars, as well as the commentary, leads me to believe that I am ok.

I very rarely watch any real movies on the thing, just music related stuff. For some reason, a good majority of the widescreen versions seem to be 1.78. Even the older ones like Led Zeppelin "The Song Remains the Same" DVD is Widescreen 1.85:1 Color (Anamorphic), so it fills the screen nicely.

I did find a great link that explains it all pretty well.
http://gregl.net/videophile/anamorphic.htm

This along with the help of you guys here, I have a much better understanding. I guess I am stuck with the bars in "The Wall", as overscanning is not really something I like.

As far as music DVDs I have found the Who's "Live At The Royal Albert Hall " to be an excellent recording that I use as a reference for all my settings.

Thanks for the DVD site link. It does seem to provide ratios for all the DVDS. Now if I see a DVD with bars, I can at least check this site.