How is 2.35:1 stored in Bluray?

[shae]

Are 2.35 ratio videos stored in Bluray as a ~800 pixel high frame, or as full 1080 with black bars?

[Sharc]

Are 2.35 ratio videos stored in Bluray as a ~800 pixel high frame, or as full 1080 with black bars?
1080 with black borders.

[shae]

Any idea why it's done like that?

It seems like the worst way. DVD's anamorphic used at least all pixels. If not anamorphic, using a lower vertical resolution would save some bits and avoid the hard edges to black.

[Sharc]

Any idea why it's done like that?

It seems like the worst way. DVD's anamorphic used at least all pixels. If not anamorphic, using a lower vertical resolution would save some bits and avoid the hard edges to black.
DVD anamorphic adds borders as well for 2.35 movies.
The reason is standardizing the frame resolution for encoding and playback. Any movie picture aspect ratio (1.7778, 1.85, 2.35, 2.39, 2.40 etc.) has to be fitted withing the standard frame resolution, means borders (letterbox or pillows) have to be added accordingly. This applies for both DVD and Blu-ray.

[Ghitulescu]

Any idea why it's done like that?

It seems like the worst way. DVD's anamorphic used at least all pixels. If not anamorphic, using a lower vertical resolution would save some bits and avoid the hard edges to black.

It is as that because the movie industry wanted this way.

They "invented" widescreen principially to get an incentive of people to go in theatres instead of watching the same movie on television. When the TVs went 16:9 they already anticipated it (as they sat also in the standardisation boards) and went 2.35 or 2.4:1.

The ridiculous part is that the movie is shot 4:3 and the frame is cut (or matted) to fit the "artistic vision". Some used anamorphic lenses, but this is rare as it involved costly distribution. I've even found 16:9 movies in fullscreen (4:3) in underdevelopped countries, id est showing details not visible on their western counterparts. The poor excuse that "one could see the props" (eg mikes) doesn't hold. Also AFAIK Titanic was shown in pure 16:9 on German PayTV premium.

And for the last issue - it doesn't matter the number of pixels, but the optical resolution. With the same number of pixels, some recordings look like HDTV (like my MiniDV shootings) and others look like youtube (in the past).

In my view it's better to keep the PAR 1:1, because this is the natural thing.

[ChiDragon]

When the TVs went 16:9 they already anticipated it (as they sat also in the standardisation boards) and went 2.35 or 2.4:1.
They "went" 2.35? Interesting conspiracy theory, but anamorphic dates back to 1953...

The ridiculous part is that the movie is shot 4:3 and the frame is cut (or matted) to fit the "artistic vision".
Oooo scare quotes!

[hello_hello]

When the TVs went 16:9 they already anticipated it (as they sat also in the standardisation boards) and went 2.35 or 2.4:1.

That's some pretty amazing foresight, given the first 2.35 aspect ratio movie was in the early 1950's. ;)
16:9 for HDTV was a compromise between the two most common existing aspect ratios. It's the geometric mean between 1.33 and 2.35.

The poor excuse that "one could see the props" (eg mikes) doesn't hold. Also AFAIK Titanic was shown in pure 16:9 on German PayTV premium.

Movies are "framed" according to the "vision" of the director. I don't think it's an excuse as such.
The open matte version of Titanic has been released on Bluray.
There's also one of those crappy 3D conversions, but we won't mention that.
http://bluray.highdefdigest.com/6928/titanic_97_3d.html

[shae]

DVD anamorphic adds borders as well for 2.35 movies.I mean the actual stored pixels. Maybe some DVDs actually store black bars, but mostly it's a full frame in 720x480 or 720x576 stretched horizontally for display.

In my view it's better to keep the PAR 1:1, because this is the natural thing.Yes, but if you don't allow for varying resolutions for different ratios you're wasting pixels. I guess the idea was to limit the decoding power needed, and maybe storage, so no more than ~2M pixels. In that case, wider pixels that stretch 1920 to 2544 (for 2.35) is probably the best compromise. But according to Sharc that's not what Bluray does, unlike DVD.

[Sharc]

I mean the actual stored pixels. Maybe some DVDs actually store black bars, but mostly it's a full frame in 720x480 or 720x576 stretched horizontally for display.

You have been asking for a 2.35 movie.
The 2.35 movie picture is stored on an anamorphic PAL DVD as 720x436 pixels plus a black bar on top of 70 pixels plus a black bar at the bottom of 70 pixel => makes 720x576 pixels stored PAL DVD frame size.
At playback time the picture is stretched by 1.42222 horizontally, which eventually makes 720x1.4222/436 = 2.35.
Only "native" 16:9 pictures do not get borders added, which is however the minority. All other formats get borders added.

Similar rules apply for NTSC 720x480 DVDs.

You find a lot about aspect ratios and anamorphic storage in wikipedia and in this forum.

[ChiDragon]

(And native 4:3 images on DVD / SD BD.)

[hello_hello]

I mean the actual stored pixels. Maybe some DVDs actually store black bars, but mostly it's a full frame in 720x480 or 720x576 stretched horizontally for display.

Wider aspect ratios on DVDs with black bars top and bottom are pretty common. At least for movies.
There's probably more of a tendency to change the aspect ratio of movies for DVD release (cropping the sides, increasing the height of the video, maybe even using pan and scan (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan_and_scan)) whereas for Bluray using the maximum number of available pixels for quality isn't so much of an issue, and DVDs would mostly have been viewed on smaller screens (CRT TVs) for quite a while, so a larger picture area might be more attractive for that reason.
If I recall correctly the DVD release of Terminator 2 (the PAL version, at least) had less picture removed from the top and bottom of the frame than the Bluray version, which had a wider aspect ratio (probably the same as the cinema version).

Yes, but if you don't allow for varying resolutions for different ratios you're wasting pixels. I guess the idea was to limit the decoding power needed, and maybe storage, so no more than ~2M pixels. In that case, wider pixels that stretch 1920 to 2544 (for 2.35) is probably the best compromise. But according to Sharc that's not what Bluray does, unlike DVD.

Some itunes video is 960x720 with a 16:9 aspect ratio (to cater for old AppleTV devices which had a maximum resolution of 1280x720 at 24fps). Higher frame rates require a lower resolution so 960x720 is used and it's stretched to 16:9 on playback the same way DVDs are stretched.

Bluray doesn't work the same way though.

[Ghitulescu]

They "went" 2.35? Interesting conspiracy theory, but anamorphic dates back to 1953...
That's some pretty amazing foresight, given the first 2.35 aspect ratio movie was in the early 1950's. ;)

True, but "using since..." is a bit vague :) ...
Surely Jules Verne invented the submarine, but since it was described on paper until it re-floated for real from the deep sea, there was a lot of things passed.

As I said, there were mainly two methods 8and a third one, derived from the first one).
One is to develop the whole frame (4:3) and to use matting in theatres. This way the projectionist got the reels and the plates. Relatively cheap, as a perforated plate is cheap and easy to make, and it also works in the absence of one (just in 4:3). Surely at different zoom ratios.
The second one is to use anamorphic lenses. The frame is still 4:3 but the content is anamorphic (like in 16:9 DVDs). The projectionist needed a set of anamorphic lenses, thus this method was less used in reality.

The third, even less used was to store two images on the same photographic frame of 4:3. That used again another type of projector, but the frames, together with their guards were close to 2.35:1.

16:9 for HDTV was a compromise between the two most common existing aspect ratios. It's the geometric mean between 1.33 and 2.35.
HDTV was not a compromise, at least not as you implied.

It's not a conspiracy theory. It's simple how big business is made. It's also how audiophiles are driven to pay fortunes for their players and small fortunes for their media (since it's a Platinum edition, or collector, or direct master transfer or whatever works).

Besides, when one knows the number, he can play with them as he wish, giving the impression of a logical consequence.

Surely it's worth mentioning that the most 4 stores buildings (plus street level) are around 14-15 m high. I am sure their constructors thought of Sun-Earth distance when they designed these :) :) :) .

HDTV was a new format. They could do this "properly", ie in my opinion, to store the movies as they were intended (2.4:1). Instead they used 16:9, and claimed the natural viewing field of a human (well? :) ), but the mathematical reason was 4x4:3x3. If the movie directors were so fond about the best visual field being 2.4:1, why it hasn't been adopted as such? In the end, nothing passes well into the new world (neither NTSC, nor PAL fits as an integer sub-multiple to 1080/1088) so backwards compatibility is not really a reason.

Movies are "framed" according to the "vision" of the director. I don't think it's an excuse as such.
The open matte version of Titanic has been released on Bluray.
There's also one of those crappy 3D conversions, but we won't mention that.
http://bluray.highdefdigest.com/6928/titanic_97_3d.html
And this is the Titanic as it was shown before, also in theatres.
http://www.highdefdiscnews.com/screenshots/titanic_16.png
The point was, that you got what they give you, not what it was supposed to receive.
If they want to give you a movie formatted in 12:1, to fit maybe the horses' visual field, they can do. And also fit on any media, analogue or digital, since VCD. And if someone wants a movie formatted for humans, he can nevertheless buy the premium edition, three times the price.

[Sharc]

.... HDTV was a new format. They could do this "properly", ie in my opinion, to store the movies as they were intended (2.4:1). Instead they used 16:9 .....

And how would you then store native 16:9 or 1.85 productions in a 2.40 frame ? Anamorphic squeezing vertically - back to the future?

[Ghitulescu]

And how would you then store native 16:9 or 1.85 productions in a 2.40 frame ? Anamorphic squeezing vertically - back to the future?

These were by far less used (mainly with small productions which used tape cameras, which actually were designed around the HDTV standards, not viceversa).

The point was still another one - they had (once again the history repeats here) the opportunity to set a standard that is almost universal. Due to marketing reasons they failed to do it.

Maybe it's not useless to mention that 2k and 4k storage (ie the Kodak standards) were used also in the times when CIF was an advanced format for personal computers :) .

[Ghitulescu]

The point of the two Titanics is that, if the movie was shot 16:9 then why it was cut to 2.35:1? And if it was shot at 2.35:1 how could be the missing bits reconstructed? :)

Besides, one could clearly see, and this in many movies, that the head of a person would have been perfectly framed for 4:3 but missing a lot because it was matted to fit 16:9 or 2.34:1. Ok, the upperhead of Willis doesn't carry too much information :)

http://i59.tinypic.com/2iuc6cz.png
Sorry for my inability to use MSPaint better than this :)

[Sharc]

The point was still another one - they had (once again the history repeats here) the opportunity to set a standard that is almost universal. Due to marketing reasons they failed to do it.

Sorry, but the 1920x1080 (16:9) standard frame is much more "universal" than anything else, because it easily accommodates all common formats like 1.7778, 1.85, 2.35, 2.39 and 2.40, all with PAR 1:1. This has little to do with marketing but much to do with universality and simplicity. What is wrong with the borders? They hardly eat up any bits .....

If we would standardize on say 1920x800 (=2.40) DAR we would have to add left and right borders (pillows) for all the other movie aspect ratios. Would this be any better?

[Ghitulescu]

I understand all these reasonings.

What I don't understand (actually I can, just that I don't want to understand) is the intentional departure from the standards.

I am not talking here about bitrate, lost space, missing bits or whatever.

Unlike analogue, digital displays are discrete, they use a finite number of displaying elements. There is a cost issue (after being engineeringly solved :) ), as each cell has to be manufactured, and 2 millions are costly than 1.7 - it also correlates with the addressing logic (which is binary) and I am afraid 1080/1088 while looking like 1024 it is not and a lot of other technical issue I do not want to get into details now.

After displaying (which is the main aspect) comes the distribution and storage. Or bandwidth and size.

The only good thing (besides a PAR 1:1) of BD is that, like DVD, allowed for a backwards compatibility of one technical generation.

[hello_hello]

True, but "using since..." is a bit vague

No it's not. It's a fact. Not even a vague one. The first wide-screen 2.35 aspect ratio move was released in the early 1950's.

HDTV was not a compromise, at least not as you implied.

Yes it is. I won't bother pasting the whole section, just a link, given you'll no doubt be editing the Wikipedia page to correct all the misinformation it contains.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/16:9

http://www.sundoginteractive.com/sunblog/posts/why-16-9
This is where we get the now standard aspect ratio of 16:9. It’s not because it’s the best, nor because it mimics our eye’s field of view; the only reason is that it is a peace treaty between all other ratios.

Besides, when one knows the number, he can play with them as he wish, giving the impression of a logical consequence.

He can give the impression of a conspiracy theory too if he wants to ignore the facts.

Surely it's worth mentioning that the most 4 stores buildings (plus street level) are around 14-15 m high. I am sure their constructors thought of Sun-Earth distance when they designed these :) :) :) .

You forgot to mention that high rise buildings became commonplace after the movie execs realised anyone could have a four story building so they invented the higher aspect ratio skyscraper to give people incentive to go into buildings again. :)

The point was, that you got what they give you, not what it was supposed to receive.

In some respects, home viewing and cinema viewing have different aspect ratio restraints. You can put a huge screen in a cinema and make it whatever aspect ratio you like, At home, we're a little more restricted. If someone buys a TV with a screen "x" inches wide, they'll probably buy an "X" inch wide TV whether it's a foot tall or four foot tall, because the amount of free space in a room doesn't change for different aspect ratios.

If they want to give you a movie formatted in 12:1, to fit maybe the horses' visual field, they can do. And also fit on any media, analogue or digital, since VCD. And if someone wants a movie formatted for humans, he can nevertheless buy the premium edition, three times the price.

There's plenty of movies released with aspect ratios close to 1.78. (1.80 or whatever they use). It's not compulsory to release movies with a 2.35 aspect ratio for cinemas.
Why Titanic was released in widescreen format originally, then open matte later on, I have no idea, but I'm fairly confident it's not because they couldn't have released it with a 16:9 aspect ratio in the first place if they wanted to.


Besides, one could clearly see, and this in many movies, that the head of a person would have been perfectly framed for 4:3 but missing a lot because it was matted to fit 16:9 or 2.34:1. Ok, the upperhead of Willis doesn't carry too much information :)

Maybe not so much these days, but video was often released on DVD in 4:3 format. Maybe Willis's head would fill up some more space if the movie was released in 4:3 format, or even use some more of the resolution for 16:9 DVDs, so maybe it's shot with that in mind, but it doesn't mean that's the way it was intended to be viewed.

I don't know if you've seen many "leaked" movies which haven't been completely edited, or the effects haven't been added, or.... would you believe...., haven't been matted for a 2.35 aspect ratio. I've seen a few, and it's fairly obvious the rest of the picture wasn't always intended to be seen. Mic booms hovering around the top of the frame, shadows which shouldn't be there.... that sort of thing.

[ChiDragon]

Besides, one could clearly see, and this in many movies, that the head of a person would have been perfectly framed for 4:3 but missing a lot because it was matted to fit 16:9 or 2.34:1. Ok, the upperhead of Willis doesn't carry too much information :)

http://i59.tinypic.com/2iuc6cz.png
Is this a joke? That's the Die Hard 4 poster, not a movie frame that was composed for 4:3.

http://s11.postimg.org/bph8gn7fn/live_free_or_die_hard.jpghttp://s11.postimg.org/50ap0mm3n/live_free_or_die_hard_ver3.jpg

[hello_hello]

Is this a joke? That's the Die Hard 4 poster, not a movie frame that was composed for 4:3.

Comedy Gold!

[shae]

What is wrong with the borders? They hardly eat up any bitsThe hard edges do use up some, but mainly it's a lost opportunity to store more picture detail. If you stretch horizontally you don't get more horizontal detail, but vertically you do.

[Sharc]

The hard edges do use up some, but mainly it's a lost opportunity to store more picture detail. If you stretch horizontally you don't get more horizontal detail, but vertically you do.
Yes, but if we would be using the full vertical resolution of 1080 for e.g. 2.35 movies we would be back to anamorphic storage formats. It has been a big relief for many that the PAR (pixel aspect ratio) for Blu-Ray is normally 1:1 (square pixels).

[Ghitulescu]

The hard edges do use up some, but mainly it's a lost opportunity to store more picture detail. If you stretch horizontally you don't get more horizontal detail, but vertically you do.

The point is not to store more details.

The point should have been to store the details one can see.

Due to physical and anatomic laws of nature, the perfect format would have been a circle. Storing a circle is however a daring adventure. So the next one is the square.

But the humans have a broader field of view - although one only has this impression. The details are still perceived on a circular pattern, the sides being only "warning" signals.

A broader screen was devised, with no regard to anatomical or whatever other laws than the simple mathematical "joke" of 4:3 x 4:3 = 16:9.

And how it came to 1080? The very same way the French had 819 scanlines, Bauird had 30 scanlines, Marconi 405. No reason other than what one had at hand. At least for 1080 a certain approach has been made to implement the Japanese NHK HDTV standards while having regard to computer requirements.

All these standards, PAL, NTSC, HDTV, NHK etc. are not movie standards. These are television standards. The difference is huge.

Movie (ie film) standards are mainly based on two physical formats: 35mm (Edison) and 70mm. Mainly a frame is 4:3. And mostly this frame is filled up completely, then the "artistic" mattes are placed in the projector to suit this format. Mattes are also used for FullFrame (4:3), this time to cover the possible irregularities of the margins.

The other technical method is to use anamorphic lenses both on camera and projector. The frame is stored 4:3 but the image is anamorphic, like on 16:9 DVDs.

Once you got this in your mind, the things are pretty clear ...

Because the question would be why would a manufacturer spend materials and energy and man-hours to manufacture panels that contain 26% unused pixels? I am old enough to remember that the industry said "we can't make Full HD panels (but only 768 scanlines AKA HDReady) because we cannot put more pixels in this tiny space" - and guess what, they managed to do it, but only to leave them unused :) ? In the relationship customer-industry only the consumer is the stupid one (this is a known fact, and it's learn as one of the first rules at MBA).

PS: CinemaScope died in 1967 (yes, born in 1953).
PS2: Archival formats for 35mm (and 70) were designed towards the end of the '80ies to be what now are called 2k and 4k.

[filler56789]

@Ghitulescu: thanks for the helpful && useful insight(s).

I already knew "everything sucks", but now you have just demonstrated that
*everything sucks much more than I thought* :D

[hello_hello]

Due to physical and anatomic laws of nature, the perfect format would have been a circle. Storing a circle is however a daring adventure. So the next one is the square.

All sorts of aspect ratios can be projected in Cinemas. In your endeavour to repeat yourself you listed some of them again.
An "artistic" matte on a projector.... there's a reason why it couldn't be round? Is it impossible, or could there be a reason nobody wants to do it?
Or what about making the frames of film round? Would it be too hard for the perfect format?

And I'm confused. If television picture tubes had the perfect aspect ratio in the 40's, why did they change?
The Porthole television (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zenith_Electronics#The_Porthole_television)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xS9pXdSdS8

A broader screen was devised, with no regard to anatomical or whatever other laws than the simple mathematical "joke" of 4:3 x 4:3 = 16:9.

Complete nonsense. Or are you planning on editing the Wikipedia page to correct it?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/16:9

And how it came to 1080? The very same way the French had 819 scanlines, Bauird had 30 scanlines, Marconi 405. No reason other than what one had at hand.

So how did it come to be 1080?

Because the question would be why would a manufacturer spend materials and energy and man-hours to manufacture panels that contain 26% unused pixels?

They don't. It's not a movie aspect ratio, it's a HDTV aspect ratio. All the pixels are used unless displaying wider aspect ratio movies. What exactly, is your point?

I am old enough to remember that the industry said "we can't make Full HD panels (but only 768 scanlines AKA HDReady) because we cannot put more pixels in this tiny space"

Old enough to remember it, or old enough to imagine it?

[QBhd]

My "720p" TV is 768 scanlines (1024x768 rectangular pixels)... so it's not imaged that the industry at the time said it was too expensive/difficult to do more.

QB

[hello_hello]

My "720p" TV is 768 scanlines (1024x768 rectangular pixels)... so it's not imaged that the industry at the time said it was too expensive/difficult to do more.

There's a difference between "can't put that many pixels in such a small space, so it can't be done" and being more expensive, or even too expensive to manufacture.

You can probably still buy 720p TV's today, although I'm petty confident it doesn't prove an inability to manufacture Full HD TVs, but maybe we'll learn the source of the "can't be done" quote.

[Asmodian]

There's a difference between "can't put that many pixels in such a small space, so it can't be done" and being more expensive, or even too expensive to manufacture.

No there actually isn't. From a TV manufacturing point of view too expensive to make lots of money selling lots of them is exactly the same as "it cannot be done".

And I'm confused. If television picture tubes had the perfect aspect ratio in the 40's, why did they change?
The Porthole television (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zenith_Electronics#The_Porthole_television)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xS9pXdSdS8

I am pretty sure it had to do with saving space, you can get more picture in a smaller box using a square image.

I found this thread quite interesting but I have the impression that some people believe big media would never play with the standards so as to give people a worse experience with the standard stuff so they would be able to sell premium experiences (like movie theaters or platinum edition audio). Since big businesses do this crap all the time and in every way they can think of I am surprised by the naivete.

The ability to keep selling the Theater experience was a huge concern for the movie industry (and rightly so) when each new consumer format has been released.

Even my small company would love to figure out how to give a "good enough" experience at one price point and a "great" experience at a higher one using the same content. Or be able to sell the same content to the same customer multiple times. I have sat in meetings trying to brain storm techniques. It is simply good business and your share holders could and would sue you if you didn't.

It is all about maximizing profits. If I get enough more buyers at a lower price point I will lower the price, but then I have lost all the money everyone who would have been willing to pay more is willing to pay me. So I need to figure out how bad I can make the cheap version before I start hurting sales too much. I can then sell the high quality version to the people willing to pay more. This way I can get the money from the (mostly) uncaring masses who aren't willing to pay much but I also get to keep making the huge margins off the people who are willing to pay more. Win-Win.

This is real businesses, not a conspiracy theory. It isn't a conspiracy at all, it is simply the way it is done.

So only 16:9 1920x1080, no exceptions unless lower quality (1440x1080 16:9), was picked as a compromise aspect ratio and because big media tries to prevent a perfect "Movie Theater Experience" making it into the standard consumer formats. It is against their best interests, at least they think it is. I believe they are finally realizing the theater as the premium experience is not realistic but they have not figured out what the next premium experience is going to be. They were still in fantasy land when the bluray standards were done however.

edit: The question "how much worse does the cheap one need to be for people to still buy the expensive one" also counts a lot. Often only a small increase in quality/cost of an item can offer a huge premium simply because there are people willing to pay more and it is slightly better. Comparing a [consumer video format] to a theater is apples to oranges but it took a long time for the industry to admit it, I am not even sure they totally have yet.

Also life is easier for engineers if there is only one output resolution, they then tell upper management this means cheaper... it was an easy sell all around. :p

[hello_hello]

No there actually isn't. From a TV manufacturing point of view too expensive to make lots of money selling lots of them is exactly the same as "it cannot be done".

I'd disagree. It's all semantics though.

So only 16:9 1920x1080, no exceptions unless lower quality (1440x1080 16:9), was picked as a compromise aspect ratio and because big media tries to prevent a perfect "Movie Theater Experience" making it into the standard consumer formats.

So the ability to display 2.40 aspect ratio video on a 16:9 screen..... that somehow prevents home viewers from having a "Movie Theater Experience"? Maybe that works the same way surround sound being available for home theatres prevents a "Movie Theater Experience" too, ;)
How does 4K fit into the conspiracy theory? Sure, the screens are 16:9, but they can display a 2.40 video at a higher resolution than 1920x800.

[Sharc]

The question remains why not take advantage of the native 1920x1080 blu-ray resolution by storing the movies at a higher vertical resolution in an anamorph format, similar to DVD practice.
The answer is probably simplification and to avoid all the SAR/PAR/DAR/MAR.... debates of which this forum is full of.
(Just to mention that the blu-ray standard has one anamorph format which is 1440x1080 with a pixel aspect ratio of 4:3).

[Ghitulescu]

It appears that the antipodes causes to our dear friend Hello_Hello as his mind seems to be attracted to the opposite end of his body rather than being kept in its intended place.

Moe, the points are:

1. HDTV and cinema are two completely different things.
Cinema is based on film, and up to a certain physical resolution (roughly equal to 24Mpixels) can be freely scaled (the optical way). It can also be matted at will, simply by placing the mattes between the film transport and the lenses. To this extent, this can be simplified as a vector (see below).
HDTV is on the other hand a pixel-oriented format. Like DVD and before it VCD. An image has to be stored as pixels. In the same idea, it may simplified as a bitmap. Yes, there are (better said were) also analogue HDTV, but they vanished and lost any importance.
And everyone knows the difference between a TTF and a bitmap one (well, the bitmap fonts disappeared for long, those that do not remember them can launch the character map proggy and see the fonts System and Terminal - or double click on them).

An optical scaling as in cinemas is excluded here. The playable format must fit the displaying panel. If the formats are different, there are two solutions - linear/anamorphic scaling, and matting. I hope everyone remember how bad youtube videos (say 240 or 360) could been seen on big screens. That's scaling. Otherwise, a smaller video can be surrounded by black borders as needed (matting).

In other words, if a display has a certain number of pixels, wouldn't be logical to feed it with corresponding files?

And we come to the second item.

2. What's the DAR on a movie? What's the DAR on a videocamera?
A movie is shot mainly on 35mm (with some exceptions also on 70mm, but this format is used only for special occasions, where quality is paramount, as it costs a lot more). The laws of nature says that the definition is the same on all directions. The PAR should have been 1:1. And it is with the exception of anamorphic productions, where special lenses were used during filming, and had to be used in theatres. The frame format on 35mm is governed by only a few standards. I don't know how is it in the States or in Terra Australis, but in Germany, in some theatres, one could actually see the analogue projectors (that were replaced by digital ones) and the film stripes used. There are no 2.40:1 frames, but 4:3, there are no anamoprhic (stretched) frames, again 4:3.
The videocamera had to obey the HDTV standards (and before the other television standards). Therefore a TV camera will ALWAYS output a 4:3 (or 16:9) image, the latter either anamorphic or letterboxed, or a 16:9 HD image (HDTV is always 16:9, even if some formats are not 1920x1080, like HDV).

3. why would the studios issue 2.40:1 versions of movies for HDTV (BD) when they could cut the existing 4:3 image to 16:9?
Simply, because in theatres people do not sense the image is cut, but on their TV set they will see it. Premium PayTV channels broadcast sometimes 16:9 versions of the movies, whereas BD versions are extra cut top and bottom.
Why would do the studios this thing?
As they did in 1953, to force people go into theatres, instead of watching them in homes. Well, the calculus is simple: a pair can go in theatres and pay 2x5€ = 10€. If they want to see it again, they pay again 10€. The theatres also win a lot of money from selling popcorn and beer and whatever. If the same pair buy the BD, they pay 5-10-15-20-25€ (according to the marketing criteria) once and they can watch it a million of times. Or they can simply wait until the two previous phases are finished and watch it for free at home. The three phases are: cinema/theatres, physical medium (DVD/BD), broadcasting. Surely, additional money can be obtained from a fourth phase, the "free" DVDs glued to magazines.

My point was therefore, that the mattes do not represent a "vacuum" but underneath was indeed content, which was cut because of commercial interests. They could have let it be there.

PS: another trick, designed to promote the selling of VHS cassettes, was "Enhanced for your TV" which in crude words meant a pan&scan edition of already matted movies (the image was twice cut, once by matting, secondly by PS) - valid of course for non-anamorphic and/or true WS (like 70mm) movies which were cut only once.

[hello_hello]

It appears that the antipodes causes to our dear friend Hello_Hello as his mind seems to be attracted to the opposite end of his body rather than being kept in its intended place.

It appears our friend Ghitulescu has settled in for an extended waffle.

You ignored the question as to why a 1080p resolution was eventually chosen, instead offering amusing attempts at personal insults to make yourself look foolish.

You didn't actually explain why round aspect ratios were never used in cinemas, given you claimed it'd be the perfect aspect ratio, although you did offer some meaningless aspect ratio waffle.

You're still ignoring the information I linked to regarding why the 16:9 aspect ratio was chosen. Burying your head in the sand to avoid facts is certainly an art you've mastered.

Bitmaps, tiffs, YouTube resolutions..... the price of movie tickets was good for a laugh, but you really outdid yourself discussing popcorn and beer in the off-topic waffle department. Another cropped movie poster to illustrate the irrelevancy of your argument would have topped it off nicely.

[Ghitulescu]

http://www.sundoginteractive.com/sunblog/posts/why-16-9
This is where we get the now standard aspect ratio of 16:9. It’s not because it’s the best, nor because it mimics our eye’s field of view; the only reason is that it is a peace treaty between all other ratios.
You're still ignoring the information I linked to regarding why the 16:9 aspect ratio was chosen. Burying your head in the sand to avoid facts is certainly an art you've mastered.
Well, it's somehow strange that you quoted a secondary aspect, which had almost nothing to do with the original question, but claim to be a conspiracy theory (why would be?) disregarding the content of the article as a whole.
It's not a conspiracy theory, it is how business is conducted.
Reading this article it appears that it sustain my inept theories that the movie industry intentionally went astray with aspect ratios.

The widescreen was the logical step, from a different point of view.
You ignored the question as to why a 1080p resolution was eventually chosen, instead offering amusing attempts at personal insults to make yourself look foolish.
This wasn't the question. The question was how they fit broader formats onto a BD (BD do not have only 1920x1080 pixels, other resolutions are envisaged as well).

The 4:3 ratio has no mathematical meaning, although a lot of "reasearchers" and in particular forum members spread nonsenses about golden cuts, archimedian means, square roots, a whole lotta bunch of ex post facto theories.
Not even the human viewfield seems to fit within (it's close, like the 16:9 myth but let's not anticipate).
In fact 4:3 came from a simple engineering restriction - a frame had to be synchronised with the blades of the projector and therefore to be comprised between an integer of sprockets holes - it was to be 4. If the frame wouldn't start exactly at every fourth hole the image wouldn't be displayed, or unnecessary mechanical complications would have been used.

Why 16:9?
The story tells that Kerns Powers played with coloured rectangles and suddenly discovered that 16:9 is the best compromise.
Well, as anyone knows, 4:3 can comprise any of these rectangles, just fine, as VHS and the DVD showed us. And as HDTV satellite later showed us (pillarbox), also 4:3 can be fit into wider formats, by just adding black borders.
One can cut the margins to get 4:3 (as Pan&Scan shows us) or cut/matte the unneeded parts of a 4:3 image to make it 2.40:1.

Besides, the internal 16:9 would be 1.8 (exactly):1 not 1.777777:1. Close, but not identical.

No big deal. Like claiming that someone designed the square of the integers to be in odd progression (as 2x2=4 - 1x1=1 = 3, 3x3=9 - 4 = 5, 4x4=16 - 9 = 7 and so on) when this is a mathematical determinism (and equal with 2a+1 where a is the first number of the sequence, as any 12 year should be able to demonstrate). Believe it or not, this was a masonic secret about 2 centuries ago.

I don't buy it. It's a legend as the invention of the CD and whatever symphony.

To all those claiming various mathematical rules derived eg from pyramids (there are hundreds of them), I propose to give them the set of rules and let them construct the pyramids. That's ex post facto.

Besides. Why the movie studios haven't jump on this wonder DAR? I mean, not for movies made before whatever year, say 1990, but after.

The answer was simple: because they didn't want to. And if the HDTV would have had 2.40:1 instead of 16:9, back then, the movie industry would have had invented something else (going back to 4:3? :) ). Movie representatives sit in all the standardisation boards, and one can safely assume they at least know what's happening there, if not actively steering the proposals.

.... the price of movie tickets was good for a laugh ...
This was the price last time. If you pay more, then it's me the one who laughs, and big time .... An Oktoberfest beer costs more, and we also laugh about this ....
Another cropped movie poster to illustrate the irrelevancy of your argument would have topped it off nicely.
It was not a poster, it was a snapshot taken from the net. Besides it appears that you are convinced that no poster ever had images from the actual movie.

And even if, even if it were a poster, I am absolutely sure you never ever cross your heart have seen this situation, where the heads were cut but it would fit nicely on a 4:3 frame. Maybe I am not forced to do this extenuating mental exercise, not everyone is Einstein, but simply play the movie on my older but trusting Trinitron.

PS: I wonder why nobody "invented" a compromise fps to fit both NTSC and PAL? And launch another nice legend?

[Sharc]

....PS: I wonder why nobody "invented" a compromise fps to fit both NTSC and PAL? And launch another nice legend?
There exist no "PAL" or "NTSC" Blu-ray discs. This is different from DVD. Blu-Ray is Blu-Ray. Problem solved. The barrier is with the "Region code" only.

[filler56789]

It's not a conspiracy theory, it is how business is conducted.

I.O.W., it's a conspiracy fact :D

[hello_hello]

Well, it's somehow strange that you quoted a secondary aspect, which had almost nothing to do with the original question, but claim to be a conspiracy theory (why would be?) disregarding the content of the article as a whole.

It's not strange. You posted some of your typical conspiracy theory confabulating, and I questioned it. Had you not kept ignoring it in a typical Ghitulescu attempt to pretend you weren't making it up, there'd probably be be no reason to be discussing it now.
The thread topic is "How is 2.35:1 stored in Bluray?". Go back and read your last couple of posts if you want to have a laugh over secondary topics with nothing to do with the question. Bitmaps and tiffs and the price of popcorn......

It's pretty simple. You said:
"When the TVs went 16:9 they already anticipated it (as they sat also in the standardisation boards) and went 2.35 or 2.4:1."
Which is nonsense. This aspect ratios had been in use for years. It was your conspiracy theory, not mine.
You said:
"HDTV was not a compromise, at least not as you implied."
I offered a link which explained why it was. You ignored it.
You said:
"A broader screen was devised, with no regard to anatomical or whatever other laws than the simple mathematical "joke" of 4:3 x 4:3 = 16:9."
More confabulation.
Here's the link again, although by now you're so invested in trying to not look silly by avoiding reality, you're even pretending the information supports what you said.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/16:9#History
"Powers cut out rectangles with equal areas, shaped to match each of the popular aspect ratios. When overlapped with their center points aligned, he found that all of those aspect ratio rectangles fit within an outer rectangle with an aspect ratio of 1.77:1 and all of them also covered a smaller common inner rectangle with the same aspect ratio 1.77:1.[1] The value found by Powers is exactly the geometric mean of the extreme aspect ratios, 4:3 (1.33:1) and 2.35:1, which is coincidentally close to 16:9 (1.77:1)."

This wasn't the question. The question was how they fit broader formats onto a BD (BD do not have only 1920x1080 pixels, other resolutions are envisaged as well).

I know you invariably go scurrying back to the shelter of the original topic when a discussion doesn't go your way or a question doesn't suit you, but it was the question I asked. Let's try again.
You said:
"And how it came to 1080? The very same way the French had 819 scanlines, Bauird had 30 scanlines, Marconi 405. No reason other than what one had at hand."
You apparently know, so I asked. Why did the resolution eventually come to be 1080p? I don't understand your original explanation. Can you clarify it?

The story tells that Kerns Powers played with coloured rectangles and suddenly discovered that 16:9 is the best compromise.
Well, as anyone knows, 4:3 can comprise any of these rectangles, just fine, as VHS and the DVD showed us. And as HDTV satellite later showed us (pillarbox), also 4:3 can be fit into wider formats, by just adding black borders.

And you know the real story when the rest of us don't because?
That's a load of nonsense. You're surely not that mathematically silly? 4:3 would waste way more screen real-estate when displaying wider aspect ratios than 16:9 does, so it makes no sense at all. Didn't you learn that when you had a 4:3 TV?

Besides. Why the movie studios haven't jump on this wonder DAR? I mean, not for movies made before whatever year, say 1990, but after.

More nonsense. They've been using it for years (well, 1.85 anyway) and still do (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2582846/technical?ref_=tt_dt_spec).
And I've already explained why wider aspect ratios are less practical in the home environment due to space restraints, but you've managed to pretend it was never mentioned.

And if the HDTV would have had 2.40:1 instead of 16:9, back then, the movie industry would have had invented something else (going back to 4:3?

Instead of just making stuff up, you could've answered my question regarding round aspect ratios, rather than putting your hands over your ears.
You claimed circular would be the perfect aspect ratio. Why then, do you think Cinema has never used it? Wouldn't that have been better than a wider aspect ratio in order to be different to television? Or did you just make it up again?

It was not a poster, it was a snapshot taken from the net. Besides it appears that you are convinced that no poster ever had images from the actual movie.

It was a poster. It was a snapshot of a poster taken from the net. You got caught out pretending it was a movie screenshot and it made you look a bit silly.

[Sharc]

Footnote to the "circular view field":
Don't you move your head when watching a movie? Are you fixing your eyes to the center of the picture during 2 hours, really? :p

[shae]

It has been a big relief for many that the PAR (pixel aspect ratio) for Blu-Ray is normally 1:1 (square pixels).I like square pixels just like anyone else, but if they decided to limit the horizontal resolution then non-square pixels would be my choice. Of course, I would still prefer, instead of hard resolution limits, limits based on total number of pixels or macroblocks.

The point is not to store more details. The point should have been to store the details one can see.
That depends on your screen size, viewing distance, viewing conditions, screen settings, vision, etc.

Footnote to the "circular view field":
Don't you move your head when watching a movie? Are you fixing your eyes to the center of the picture during 2 hours, really? :pOn my TV you'd better do exactly that if you don't want the blacks to shift. :) (That's on a supposedly good model. LCD is such sham. Just pitiful technology. I really hope OLED's problems can be solved.)

[ChiDragon]

The question remains why not take advantage of the native 1920x1080 blu-ray resolution by storing the movies at a higher vertical resolution in an anamorph format, similar to DVD practice.
Who could benefit from the added resolution at the time Blu-ray was released?

[shae]

Same as DVD. Computer monitors and future consumer devices.

[ChiDragon]

In my brief research I found that 2560x1600 (16:10) monitors first came out in 2007 while the BD-ROM spec was completed for Jan 2006.

Obviously they don't want us squeezing out extra resolution for the current-future 4K displays when they can instead sell us 4K content.

[Ghitulescu]

Footnote to the "circular view field":
Don't you move your head when watching a movie? Are you fixing your eyes to the center of the picture during 2 hours, really? :p

The point is that the fovea is round, so is the iris and all the internals of the eye.

We, as humans, have a broader viewfield (than circular) because we have two eyes and these are separated by a certain distance.

The "sidepanels" are only warnings, once movement is detected, the eyes involuntarily moves to that change, to fix it on the fovea.

If the resolution would be different from V to H, then one would sense it, by rotating the head. Surely, one can learn to correct for this disturbance, like we all do for reverse images (the image we receive is upside-down), but that would be too much for the brain to compute for all possible angles. This and the anatomy tell us the resolution is equal on both directions (all directions.

The broadest images in kinos have a completely different reasoning to be, than whatever mathematical calculations. It simply fill in the breadth of the canvas, so wider seat-lines could be used (remember how it was when all the neighbours gathered in the '70ies around a TV set to watch the WM?), with no visual discomfort.

[hello_hello]

The point is that the fovea is round, so is the iris and all the internals of the eye.

We, as humans, have a broader viewfield (than circular) because we have two eyes and these are separated by a certain distance.

The "sidepanels" are only warnings, once movement is detected, the eyes involuntarily moves to that change, to fix it on the fovea.

What's wrong with having "sidepanels" (as you put it) in your field of vision in the Cinema? Wouldn't excluding them from a Cinema picture make the whole experience somewhat unnatural?

We have two eyes. Combined, our field of view becomes more rectangular, but maybe the perfect aspect ratio would be a matt over the projector which results in a "looking through binoculars" aspect ratio. :)

There's nothing in your previous post which explains why the perfect aspect ratio would be "circular".

The broadest images in kinos have a completely different reasoning to be, than whatever mathematical calculations. It simply fill in the breadth of the canvas, so wider seat-lines could be used.....

Then it's not really just to have a "different to TV" aspect ratio?

[asarian]

Any idea why it's done like that?

It seems like the worst way. DVD's anamorphic used at least all pixels. If not anamorphic, using a lower vertical resolution would save some bits and avoid the hard edges to black.

A fair bet is that this is done to keep the movie at 1080p. I'm pretty sure, in fact, 1920x1080 is mandatory for the Blu-Ray format (so as to distinguish it, clearly, as 1080p, needing HDCP verification).

[Ghitulescu]

Then it's not really just to have a "different to TV" aspect ratio?
The reason was and still is to be different from other "competitors". The aspect ratio was chosen so wide to fit somehow the theatres, left unused after the real theatres went into bankruptcy. This required that the full frame (4:3) to be cut.

The BDs are also issued by the movie studios. And to give the impression that the movie is cut (well, it is) while in cinemas this cannot be seen, since the matting prevents this, they also matte the image although the frame is full, and some info is there, plus that it would better fill the human viewfield, bringing all necessary info within the field of attention. Therefore, even if the movies may be cut to 16:9 to fit all discrete HD panels, this won't be done.

It is not a new info that you don't read everything, and if you do then you might not understand everything. Look for instance for the word broadest and notice its superlative.

[Sharc]

This thread is a nice example of a derailed debate, considering the poster's original question in post #1 :devil:

[von Suppé]

... DVD's anamorphic used at least all pixels...
I am quite surprised not to read about what "anamorphic" is exactly or how it is/can be interpreted.

What is anamorphic in absolute terms? Doesn't it mean "deformed" or something?
If one would mean "pixel aspect ratio not being 1:1" then so-called "non-anamorphic" 4:3 dvd's are anamorphic too.
If you do the math on both PAL 720 x 576 and NTSC 720 x 480 for both 4:3 and 16:9 display ratios, none of the four have a pixel aspect ratio of 1:1. As both PAL and NTSC have 720 pixels horizontally, then in the case of pixel aspect ratio being 1:1, vertical resolution of the both should be 540 for 4:3 and 405 for 16:9.
Thereby, all pixels on a dvd are always used, but can be black. Both in 4:3 and 16:9. You can do the math and calculate how much of the bottom and top pixels are black in case of a 2.35:1 movie on a 16:9 authored dvd (or, for this matter, a 2.35:1 movie on a 4:3 authored dvd).

To make it more complete, your tv (being 4:3 or widescreen) will rescan this to the right proportions. Your dvd-player will recognise the aspect ratio flag on the dvd (if authored properly). Also it needs to know what sort of tv is connected. With a 16:9 widescreen tv and the tv-settings of the player being set to 16:9, in case of the so-called "anamorphic" 16:9 dvd, two things happen. It will feed all source-pixels - so vertically stretched - to the tv and it lets the tv know that it's 16:9 footage (this can be done by HDMI- or SCART-connection).

[hello_hello]

This thread is a nice example of a derailed debate, considering the poster's original question in post #1

I'd call it more the need to refute nonsense claims, such as the movie industry moving to a 2.35 aspect ratio after HDTV settled on 16:9, the 16:9 aspect ratio not being a compromise between the existing aspect ratios at the time, 16:9 being nothing more than a mathematical joke of 4:3 x 4:3, the perfect aspect ratio being "circular", 1080p being chosen because it was the resolution somebody "had at hand" and something about it relating to computer requirements, aspect ratios close to 16:9 never being used in cinemas, etc, etc....

The latest one was amusing..... the 2.35 aspect ratio giving the appearance the frame is "cut" when it's used on Bluray, but the matting prevents that when it's applied in Cinemas..... or however that's supposed to work.

It is not a new info that you don't read everything, and if you do then you might not understand everything.

It's not new info that you just make stuff up, but someone should point it out for anyone who might stumble across the threads in which you post and assume otherwise.

[Ghitulescu]

I am quite surprised not to read about what "anamorphic" is exactly or how it is/can be interpreted.

What is anamorphic in absolute terms? Doesn't it mean "deformed" or something?

Anamorphic means indeed deformed (distorted).
It has nothing to do with pixels, not originally.

Anamorphic appeared in the early postwar years, as a solution to wider canvas. Special cylindrical lenses were placed on the objective, and consequently the image was optically stretched onto a physical format of 4:3 (Academy format). In theatres, the operator had to place another cylindrical lens on the projector, so that the image is stretched back to its original format.

Because this was expensive, both for filming and distributing, it was dropped after some 10-15 years. Instead, fine grain films could accommodate matted images to be zoomed out.

The DVD makes use of pixels. There are exactly 720 pixels on the larger side and 576 on the shorter one. If PAR would be 1 (quadratic pixels), then the DAR would be 1.25:1 (or 5:4) for PAL, or 1.5:1 (or 3:2) for NTSC. However the optical image must be 4:3 or 16:9 (as these are the only two DAR accepted for DVD) that means the DVD is always anamorphic. For simplicity, only 16:9 is considered to be anamorphic. A non-anamorphic DVD would be the equivalent of the computer format of 768x576 for PAL or 640x480 for NTSC.

The things are further complicated by the presence of overscan, but there are good explanations here and elsewhere.

Yet another complication comes from the third AR, SAR, which is differently defined, depending on whom one would ask, a computer programmer or a video engineer, either a Storage AR or a Sample AR.

Yet a further complication arises from the P&S (if defined).

Nevertheless, fortunately most new formats went to a PAR of 1:1, which means that the physical AR (SAR) is also reflected in the logical AR (DAR).

Therefore a bluray would store any movie (except the backward compatible DVD-like videos) always with a DAR of 16:9. If a movie is logically 2.40:1 (or anything different than 16:9) then the movie is so stretched that one side runs from one edge to another (vertical or horizontal) while the missing parts are filled with black pixels (video level, not pure black, IRE 7.5, RGB 16). This way all formats can be accommodated, 4:3 movies in the format known as pillarbox, 2.40:1 movies as letterboxed.

Surely one can also crop the movie so much until the screen is filled in (similar to ZOOM mode of most HDTV TV sets).

Hope it helped.

[von Suppé]

...a bluray would store any movie (except the backward compatible DVD-like videos) always with a DAR of 16:9
True, I want to add though, that besides SD dvd, there is another "anamorphic" resolution that is within the blu-ray specs.
1440x1080x59.94i or 50i and 1440x1080x24p or 23.976p (of course both with DAR flag set to 16:9) are possible also (not for MPEG2).