Season TWO OFFICIAL TNG Blu-Ray Discussion Thread

[Doug Otte]

GNDN wrote:

---

-STOP MAKING ME CHOOSE ENGLISH EVERY TIME I LOAD A DISC! As others have mentioned, blu ray players should be able to remember choices made in the past when replaying a disc. Is this how CBS handles every one of their bd releases? It's rather annoying and obnoxious. Sometimes I'll load a disc and walk away (knowing there's so much unskippable fluff at the head of the disc anyway) then I'll return to the room and remember, 'oh, crap, I forgot to choose ENGLISH so now I have more nonsense to wait through.' I understand it's an international product, but there has to be a better way.

Thanks. This one is really, really getting on my nerves. The Universal BD Monsters and Hitchcock sets have the same issue.

[Reeborg]

BillJ wrote:

---

If you use the 'zoom' function the top and bottom of the picture will be cut off as well. If you use the 'stretch' function, the picture will be distorted.

Is there a strech function? I have not found such a function on my BD-player or HD-TV. I have a "user zoom" that basically does a strech but only in the Y (vertical) direction. I can't change the width of the image with it.

If I could do such a horizontal stretch, I really would use it, even obtaining a distorded image.

[Reeborg]

Doug Otte wrote:

---

Thanks. This one is really, really getting on my nerves. The Universal BD Monsters and Hitchcock sets have the same issue.

US-Americans have to be (regularly) reminded that the world is a little bigger than the one they know, and English is not the one and only existing communication form.

[NewHorizon]

Reeborg wrote:

---

US-Americans have to be (regularly) remembered that the world is a little bigger than the one they know, and English is not the one and only existing communication form.

Yes, but it's possible for the selection to be 'remembered'. That's what they're annoyed with.

[jimbotron]

Every time someone asks how to get rid of the black bars, somewhere a videophile drops dead.

The language selection at boot-up is annoying. But think of the alternative. If these used BD-Java, it would be able to save the information, but the load times would be much longer, the discs would be loaded with bloat, and you wouldn't be able to stop and resume like a DVD. I'll take the good with the bad.

[davejames]

Patrick O'Brien wrote:

---

I was hoping I would not notice all the errors you guys have been pointing out but they are everywhere

They're not in every episode, but yeah, they are pretty apparent when they're there.

I just watched "Unnatural Selection", and that's another one where the ships look like cut-outs on the screen, and the starfield has no depth whatsoever.

Which is a shame, because there's some pretty cool shots in that episode of the shuttlecraft leaving the Enterprise, and of the Enterprise through the shuttle's windows.

[LOKAI of CHERON]

Reeborg wrote:

---

Is there a strech function? I have not found such a function on my BD-player or HD-TV. I have a "user zoom" that basically does a strech but only in the Y (vertical) direction. I can't change the width of the image with it.

If I could do such a horizontal stretch, I really would use it, even obtaining a distorded image.

If you must fill the whole screen, I recommend getting a media player and ripping the episodes to an HDD. An acceptable, OK-ish solution is to use the players zoom function and then pan down by about 25%. This largely eliminates "cut off head" syndrome and is much better than straight zoom. It's not without its drawbacks though - particularly when an important prop or whatever is on screen towards the lower half of the image.

Really, you should just stick to the OAR.

[Doug Otte]

Reeborg wrote:

---

US-Americans have to be (regularly) remembered that the world is a little bigger than the one they know, and English is not the one and only existing communication form.

You've put your foot in it again, Reeborg. I bought those BD sets from the UK, and I'm not a jingoistic xenophobic Yank.

Thanks to NewHorizon for stepping up and explaining the actual issue.

[Mutai Sho-Rin]

^ ^ ^ ^ ^
Easy with the angry slurs there, Ott. In fact, I think you misread the remark. Don't stray too close to the flame.

[LitmusDragon]

Reeborg wrote:

---

How can I get rid of the black side lines? I tried already any kind of zoom on the TV AND the HD-player. Strangely, I can only zoom vertically but horizontally it (almost) stays the same.

Does anybody of you have the BD in full screen on a 16x9 format????

To explain in a bit more detail, Blu-ray video consists of a 1920x1080 image, or a roughly 16:9 aspect ratio, which is ALWAYS presented in 16:9. The old DVD format had a 720 x 480 image that could be "flagged" as either 4:3 or 16:9 content, and displayed as either. In the case of 4:3 content on Blu-ray, the bars have to be coded right into the image, because there is no native 4:3 1920 x 1080 mode. Your player can't simply stretch the image, because the bars are part of the image too, which was not the case for DVD video.

About the only way to get properly stretched content out of HD 4:3 like that would be to rip it to a PC or play it on a PC like others have mentioned. Handbrake is a software that can re-encode 4:3 HD content without the black bars. I use this myself, but not to stretch the video, I do it because I want to save space on my media center PC (believe it or not, those needless black bars do make a bigger video file).

[Borjis]

Don't most flat panels have a zoom setting to cut the black off for those not wanting it?

I have a panasonic plasma, it has a zoom that I use when there are postage stamp movies on cable (surrounded by black bars all around aka 4:3 letterboxed)

[BrEnDoN]

I'm currently re-watching DS9 on DVD and I've cropped it so that it fills my 16x9 screen and I gotta say it looks really good in that aspect ratio despite a drop in resolution (If I'm atleast 2 metres away from the screen, it isn't obvious), when I finally get around to getting the TNG bluray, I'm gonna try and watch TNG that way too. If a cropped DVD looks ok like that, I'm sure the bluray will too. (My tv aint that big...) I hope it gets cropped when the HD TNG episodes are aired on TV...

[Doug Otte]

Mutai Sho-Rin wrote:

---

^ ^ ^ ^ ^
Easy with the angry slurs there, Ott. In fact, I think you misread the remark. Don't stray too close to the flame.

I apologize if my response came off the wrong way. I perceived a slur against myself, and I am American, just not the type I thought I was being referred to.

And, my name is Doug Otte - not Ott.

[Trekker4747]

The problem is the way TVs stretch pictures to make a 4:3 picture into a 16x9 one. Usually the "stretch" the edges more than they stretch the middle, the result being that the bulk of the viewing area where all of the action takes place isn't as distorted. So the Trek DVDs can be stretched by a TV (or player) without too negative an impact on the picture. The most you'll see is some distortion between "the middle" and "the edge" and some "lensing" with lines and objects on a scan.

The TNG Blu-Rays are matted. On your standard settings the sides of the picture are black (easier on the TV, can prevent uneven wearing on the pixels) as opposed whatever color your TV uses for areas without a picture. The result is when use your TV to stretch/zoom it stretches the entire thing, including the black "matted" area which causes a much more distorted picture than you'd have with DVDs.

Excuse the quality of these pictures, took them with my camera so the quality is iffy. But it's less the colors and such I'm going for her and more the proportions.

From the opening scene of "The Child"

The BD on "Full" Screen (Maintains OAR. Shows the black "matting" used by CBS to frame the 4:3 picture.)



On "Horizontal-Fill" (Stretches picture horizontally, cuts off edges of picture.1)



On "Just"(ify) (Stretches picture to get the corners of the picture to fit the corners of the TV. Stretches the edges more than the center.)



Om "Zoom" (simply zooms in on the center of the picture. Ratio is likely whatever it takes to make a 4:3 picture fit on a 16:9 screen. Wildly cuts of parts of the image and can make things look blockier or out of focus.)



DVD on "Full" Screen. TV stretches it to fill the screen Stretching is more severe than either with Justify or H-Fill.



DVD on "H-Fill."



DVD on "Just."



DVD on "Zoom"



(My player also has a "4:3" setting which makes both pictures exactly the same. The 4:3 picture in the middle with light-gray edges. This can cause bit more wear on the TV and is less pleasant to look at (IMHO.)

[BrEnDoN]

'Zoom' is best. Any kind of stretching is just wrong...