Squint really hard.
Is there any way to have widescreen versions of TOS?
- Thread starter Commander Kielbasa
- Start date
Televisions now have the power where you can adjust aspect ratio or zoom in. The traditional television aspect ratio on shows filmed in it has been a victim of the widescreen era. This is an odd turn of events, as it used to be the film aspect ratio that was the victim of cropping to fit square TVs. Now it's square picture cropped to be the victim of widescreen television.
Well, many people do have HDTV projectors. I don't know how good the quality is, but doesn't that make 'black bars' irrelevant?
Yes.
Do I still want a holographic television? Also yes.
Get yourself a projector and a big white wall and yeah, it does.Well, many people do have HDTV projectors. I don't know how good the quality is, but doesn't that make 'black bars' irrelevant?
It should.
Every time I mention it, somebody brings up The Dark Knight IMAX version and says the changing aspect ratios are "distracting".
Supposedly the Xbox Live release of the TOS-R episodes is just that way; digital effects widescreen, OAR for the live-action.
Is there a way to confirm this?
1) Yes, absolutely
2) No, I'm not the sharpest techie in the bunch.
I'll have another look at the settings, but I doubt I'll find anything I missed. 
.
Its an old complaint dating back to a generation that was used to TV series "filling the screen" and movies brought to television using the screen-filling, pan-and-scan process and/or "squeezing" the image. Once home video arrived, it was not long before films (to accommodate those who appreciated a film's original aspect ratio) were "letterboxed" on tape and laserdisc (which was not a common practice early on in home video history). At that point, some then complained that the film was "reduced" in size...sigh...despite the fact they were seeing exactly what was projected in theatres. In fact, the complaint (where movies is concerned) is odd, since anyone in a theatre cannot help notice all of the dark space around the theatre screen, so they should be used to the effect.
I agree with you mostly. The only thing I'd add is that way back in the day, when letterboxed home video was becoming more common, TVs were smaller. On smaller TVs, pan and scan can be an improvement because the letterboxed video could lose too much area on an already small screen. Nowadays, with larger TVs that's not a problem.
Mr Awe
I guess for myself, I don't mind the pillarboxing 2:35 films get on 16;9 TVs. It seems natural for a film to be letterboxed on the top and bottom, and the bars are rather thin (for example, watch STIV on a 16:9 TV) - 2:. The thick black bars though on 4:3 films and tv shows just makes it look cheap somehow to me - it's just visually unappealing. I also worry that within my lifetime (I'm 26) 21:9 will become the standard...Look how small a 4:3 image is on a 21:9 screen. It looks like an old fashioned photographic slide negative:
it just looks utterly visually unappealing and cheap. It takes away from the grandeur of the presented image.
I hope that 16;9 remains the standard for the rest of my life.
it just looks utterly visually unappealing and cheap. It takes away from the grandeur of the presented image.
I hope that 16;9 remains the standard for the rest of my life.
If the screen is as small as an inset image on a BBS, then of course the image looks small. If the screen is this massive piece of hardware filling half your wall, then the 4:3 image won't look small at all. You persist in confusing relative ratio with absolute size.
And if there is a problem with what you're pointing out, then clearly the problem is not with the original picture, but with the frame. Obviously, an image that was meant for 4:3 should be shown in 4:3; anything else is vandalism. The problem is that the TV frame can't reshape itself to fit different images. If you had a painting to display and the frame you had was the wrong shape for it, you wouldn't chop off pieces of the painting -- you'd get a frame that fit it better. But since TV screens can't actually change their physical proportions, the black bars are an attempt to approximate doing so. Just think of them as extensions of the black frame of the TV itself.
I guess for myself, I don't mind the pillarboxing 2:35 films get on 16;9 TVs. It seems natural for a film to be letterboxed on the top and bottom, and the bars are rather thin (for example, watch STIV on a 16:9 TV) - 2:. The thick black bars though on 4:3 films and tv shows just makes it look cheap somehow to me - it's just visually unappealing. I also worry that within my lifetime (I'm 26) 21:9 will become the standard...Look how small a 4:3 image is on a 21:9 screen. It looks like an old fashioned photographic slide negative:
it just looks utterly visually unappealing and cheap. It takes away from the grandeur of the presented image.
I hope that 16;9 remains the standard for the rest of my life.
Do you have any evidence to back up this allegation that TVs will go over to a 21:9 AR, or is this more speculation? The industry standard is 16:9, and I doubt it's going to change any time soon.
It's interesting that you use a frame from Gone With the Wind, because 5 shots from the movie were permanently disfigured when MGM created 70mm blowups from the OCNs for its 1967 re-release. Not only did the blowup to 2.20:1 seriously compromise the visual compositions created for the Academy ratio, but it damaged the movie for all time to come. Yet another reason why I do not support the revision of film history - it's done for reasons that, at the time, seem right, but later prove to be a travesty.
4:3 went from being the industry standard for roughly 40-50 years, to no longer even being available as an alternative - it's hard for example to find a 4:3 laptop nowadays - quickly - why should I not expect a jump to 21:9 AR within the next few years? Say ten years, twenty at best.
Because that makes no sense. As I've pointed out before, there are already two theatrical formats that are even wider than 16:9, and they are routinely displayed on 16:9 screens in letterbox form. You're talking about wider images as if they were some hypothetical future possibility, but they are already perfectly normal and routine today, and 16:9 screens are perfectly able to handle them via letterboxing. The screens we have are already perfectly capable of displaying both wider and narrower formats.
And, as I have also already pointed out, you're mistaken in assuming that the trend has to be toward ever wider and wider screens. The IMAX format is becoming more popular theatrically, and IMAX ratio is essentially 16:9, the same as the current standard TV ratio. Movies have stopped getting wider and are starting to get taller again.
All this has been pointed out already. But you'd apparently rather listen to your fears than to the facts.
4:3 was an industry standard from the very start of cinema in the late 1800's, lasting all the way (including Television) until the late 1990's - that's well over 100 years. Even 35mm processes like Super 35 are filmed full aperture at 4:3 and are cropped as needed. The transition to widescreen television took a considerable time before it became a standard itself, at least 20 years. Even the widest version of the widescreen processes - Cinerama and Ultra Panavision 70 - were short-lived, only lasting a decade. There is no indications the standards are going to change any time soon.
I love how at first people complained that 16:9 movies showed little black bars at the top and bottom of their screens - so they came up with Pan & Scan which cropped it to 4:3. But then the size of your TV changed - now they're complaining about their 4:3 media showing black bars on the left and right sides!
I don't understand those complaints either way. It's like complaining because your plate isn't exactly the same shape as the sandwich or pizza slice it's holding. So what? As long as it can hold both of them, and other, differently-shaped foods, so much the better.
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