211 Posts

June 13th, 2006 22:00

A big chunk of movies are actually 2.35:1, which is very wide, so black bars are normal. Personally I think this would be too wide for a general purpose monitor.

16:9 or 16:10 is more like HD TV format, not necessarily movie format.

Here is a great tool for playing around with screen sizes and source aspect ratios:
http://tvcalculator.com/index.html?a2429231032ef711e143c4b97daf1273

12 Posts

June 14th, 2006 01:00

It also depends on the way the director sets the movie.  Many have the black bars no matter what.  One example is The Last Samuri with Tom Cruise.  The director's cut for sure and maybe the theatrical release are made with a wacky ratio such that on a 42" wide screen TV there are 3-4 inches of black on the top and bottom.  Not great but the is much better than a standard 4:3 screen.

3 Posts

June 14th, 2006 01:00

There will *always* be bars when you view a 16x9 source on a 16x10 monitor.


The DVD player application I use allows me to "discard the aspect ratio" and it vertically stretches the viewable image to fit the screen. (everything gets a little skinnier and taller and the bars are gone)I'd rather live with the bars...which really aren't as distracting as bars on a 4x3 monitor.

I have the 2007WFP. Watching DVDs on it is a huge improvement versus the 4x3 1905FP I used to have.
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