Blu Ray question

95Honda

OK, I really don't know a whole bunch about video, so I hope these questions don't sound stupid...

A little over a year ago I was at Best Buy and saw an open box deal for a 42" Samsung DLP rear projection TV. I bought it and brought it home all excited because it had HDMI inputs, was 16:9 ratio, blah blah blah...

Well my dismay began the minute I threw in my first DVD... WTF is this letter box crap??? I (ignorrantly) thought that the DVDs were all 16:9 and would fit the entire screen without stretching or black area on the screen I paid for...

So I have been watching all my DVDs either zoomed or letter box because I can't stand to watch anything where it is stretched or squeezed...

Sooo, I guess my question is, if I go buy a new Blu Ray player this week, are they already formated in 16:9 or is it going to vary from title to title? And if so, is HDMI the best way to feed the TV? IS there anything else I should really worry about?

Thanks in advance and sorry about such an ignorrant question(s).

P.S. I build my own amplifiers... OK, that made me feel better...:)

Polkitup2

Nope, same mess as before. Some fit the whole screen but most will give you the black bars unless you zoom/stretch the picture. That's because most movies now are 2.35:1 aspect ratio not 16:9. When they start making 2.35:1 screens I imagine the movie industry will start shooting in some other format.

cheddar

You will always have to put up with letterboxing to some extent as not all films are shot in the same aspect ratio. There are many wide screen formats that don't fit 16:9 exactly. 2.35:1 for instance is just one.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aspect_ratio_(image))

And it's always up to the director what 'artistic' format they want to use. However, some movies, like pixar's cars, do fit nicely on the hdtv screens. And all the wide screen ratios look better than the 4:3 of 'full screen' dvds or 480i television.

HDMI is always the best way to feed the new tvs as you don't have to worry about upconversion or copy-protection issues. HDCP copy protection is enabled on all new hardware with HDMI connections (leading even to rare cases of hdmi connections having problems because of handshaking issues). Hardware is often designed to be incompatible with transmitting the best picture over lesser connections.

HDMI is also the only way to transmit lossless audio digitally, although you can have the player decode the audio and transmit it over analog outs just like SACD and DVD-A.

95Honda

Thanks guys, that is what I was kind of afraid of.

I guess the increased resolution will at least make it worth the purchase?

cheddar

95Honda wrote: »

Thanks guys, that is what I was kind of afraid of.

I guess the increased resolution will at least make it worth the purchase?

This will vary on a disk by disk basis. It all depends on how much money was spent remastering the original work. Some stuff, like the all digital pixar movies, are already perfect for the blu-ray format as they just have to transfer the already pristine high resolution images to the disk.

Film is an entirely different matter in that it is often shot without digital cameras. It has dust and grit on the original masters with film grain often intended to be included because of a director's stylistic choices (like 300).

If all they do is take the DVD masters and make high bit video transfers from them, you might not see that much improvement. In fact they may look even worse because the increased resolution can reveal flaws in the original work (They had to reshoot the scene in Blade Runner where the snake woman falls through the glass after being shot because you could easily tell it was a stunt woman in the new blu-ray remaster). However recent movies, especially those shot with digital cameras and with digital effects, are much more likely to benefit from a blu-ray treatment. And catalog titles like Patton and Blade Runner are showing that even old film stock can be restored to great blu-ray quality. And the size of your screen also matters with the greatest gains in the over 50" group.

95Honda

Alright, thanks again.

I'll think I'll have a look Monday and see what is out there.

cheddar

You might try sites like

http://www.highdefdigest.com/

or

http://www.blu-ray.com/

to read detailed reviews that include both the audio and the video quality of movies before purchasing them. There are simplified tiered lists available in places like AVS. But you seem to really want the most from your blu-rays in terms of picture quality. So the in depth reviews might help you better set your expectations to what you'll see in the end.

95Honda

Really, thanks alot!