TV questions - 16:9 enhanced

[Abraxas]

OK, I'm about to buy a new TV and am not ready to jump to a big widescreen model.
I have narrowed my choices down to 2 sets, one of which offers the 16:9 widescreen mode.
My questions are:
How do widescreen DVDs look in the 16:9 mode compared to the letterbox on a conventional TV?
Does it provide a marked improvement in quality?
Are there any wierd visual effects?
Know any good websites to read up on such things?

Thanks

 

[reveal]

http://www.widescreen.org/widescreen_tv_qa.shtml

One thing that link doesn't address is what the image quality will be like. The is all dependent on your DVD player. If do not have a progressive scan DVD player, then the player you hook up will not look any different, quality-wise.

When I bought my widescreen, the picture didn't look any better. But then I bought a Progressive Scan DVD player and it's awesome. As close to HD as you can get on a DVD movie.

 

[Rackhir]

Are you talking about a 4:3 aspect ratio tv or a widescreen TV. I'm assuming the former.

Sony TVs offer a 16:9 enhanced mode where instead of drawing the picture with black bars at the top and bottom, the picture is drawn in the middle and nothing is drawn in the black bar areas at the top and bottom. It works very well on my sony 4:3 set. There are no distortion or picture quality issues aside from the inherent drawback that the picture is smaller.

 

[Ranger REG]

...where instead of drawing the picture with black bars at the top and bottom, the picture is drawn in the middle and nothing is drawn in the black bar areas at the top and bottom.

???

 

[reveal]

???

I think he's referring to the "Zoom" modes my Sony wide screen has available. Essentially, I zoom in to the picture and it fills up the whole screen with no distortion. It cuts about 1/4 inch off of the picture all the way around but it's hardly noticable. This way, I can watch regular tv (4:3) without having the black bars on the right and left.

 

[Ranger REG]

I'm fond of the letterboxed format. Having partially impaired hearing (I'm required to use hearing aids), the letterboxed format allow the caption or subtitle to appear in one of the black areas so it minimizes obstruction of the picture.

It seems what you are referring to is also called anamorphic formatl. You can adjust or zoom in on the picture so it will fill in the 4:3 standard TV video aspect.

 

[Rackhir]

???

With most 4:3 TVs, when a picture is displayed in letterbox, the resolution of the picture is effectively lowered, since "x" number of lines of resolution are used to "Display" the black bars at the top and bottom of the wide screen picture. So out of say 480 lines of resolution, 120 are reserved to draw a 60 line black box at the top and 60 lines are used to draw a black box at the bottom.

Sony 4:3 TVs with the 16:9 enhanced mode, refocus the display. So that instead of "drawing" black bars at the top and bottom, the 480 lines of resolution are all used to display the 16:9 image on the screen. The black bars at the top and bottom of the screen are created by there being no images drawn there as opposed to "Black" being drawn in those areas.

Is that clearer?

Also if you really care about 16:9 (widescreen) display, make sure the DVDs you buy specify that they are Anamorphic widescreen. Otherwise the picture won't be a true 16:9 full resolution image. It will have a 4:3 picture with the black bars on the top and bottom as part of the image. Essentially the difference between anamorphic ws and a non-anamorphic ws is similar to the difference between how conventional 4:3 TVs display a letterbox image and how the sony TVs display it.

 

[Ranger REG]

Sony 4:3 TVs with the 16:9 enhanced mode, refocus the display. So that instead of "drawing" black bars at the top and bottom, the 480 lines of resolution are all used to display the 16:9 image on the screen. The black bars at the top and bottom of the screen are created by there being no images drawn there as opposed to "Black" being drawn in those areas.

Is that clearer?

And it does so without stretching the picture vertically, nor does it zoom in like most fullscreen (sometimes pan-n-scan) viewing versions?

 

[Rackhir]

And it does so without stretching the picture vertically, nor does it zoom in like most fullscreen (sometimes pan-n-scan) viewing versions?

Correct. Effectively what it is doing is behaving as if it was a 16:9 Aspect ratio TV and only using that 16:9 portion of the screen. On my 40" set that means I'm looking at roughly a 35" widescreen picture. There is nothing being distorted or stretched in any way, it is simply focusing the picture over a somewhat smaller area.

It does have one drawback though. If you get 4:3 material broadcast in HDTV, where the 4:3 image is centered in the 16:9 frame (This is effectively the same thing as watching an unstretched 4:3 picture on a 16:9 tv), the sony will then give you the 4:3 image in the center of the 16:9 image which is only covering the 16:9 area of the full 4:3 tube.

 

[Chorn]

You can basically achieve the same effect by messing around with the service mode of your TV and adjusting the vertical size. Just set your DVD to output an anamorphic picture so it will use the entire 480 lines of vertical resolution for actual picture information and use the picture controls on the TV to squash the image back down to proper proportions. The drawbacks are that you have to find out how to activate the service mode if possible, make the adjustments in the proper ratio, then set it back to the way it was when you want to go back to normal 4:3 mode. TVs like the 4:3 Sony VVegas with their squeeze feature already have this setup to be end user friendly.