Nooobie...just saying hullo....

[Rickkins]

Hi everybody...:D
Just got my first dvd burner last week...so naturally I found this
excellent site :p

Been reading till my eyes bled (no, not really, but, you know :rolleyes: )

I'm proud to say, that I've successfully backed up my first dvd....tho with much tribulation.

Couldn't figure out why it wouldn't play normal...just in letterbox...(which I so very hate)

Anyhoo...figured it out after about 48hrs, and several new gray hairs...
Perhaps I shouldda read the case a little closer...cuz there it was, plain as day.

On the back of the cover.

Down below the credits.


WIDESCREEN - VERSION....:rolleyes:


I guess ya know I'll be havin' a few questions along the way...:D

[Mac Sidewinder]

Welcome to the forum. Hope you enjoy yourself around here. It may seem mind boggling at first but once you get the hang of it, its pretty easy. You have quite a few different options for backing up your dvds and it all just depends on how much you wish to learn and get involved. But the more you get involved the better this place can become.

Once again, welcome

Mac

[jggimi]

Let me second that welcome!

A great place to ask your first questions is the Newbie forum; expertise isn't required.

And regarding your choice of fullscreen vs. widescreen, you might not have seen this little bit of light reading:

http://www.doom9.org/aspectratios.htm

[Rickkins]

Thanks...you're right, I hadn't seen that one.
Frankly, I prefer standard tv type screen...I can't stand letterbox.
Not a big fan of the 'new' tv screens either. I'm very happy with my
(relatively) square 32" Toshiba. I guess it's hard teaching old dogs new tricks...:p

[Doobie]

Originally posted by Rickkins
Couldn't figure out why it wouldn't play normal...just in letterbox...(which I so very hate)

I agree. As long as I'm using a low-res TV set, I don't want to waste any pixels on black bars.

As for your problem... you just forget to clip the picture to 4:3 aspect ratio. :D

[Rickkins]

Originally posted by Doobie
As for your problem... you just forget to clip the picture to 4:3 aspect ratio. :D

Ya mean I can convert it...

Hmmm...perhaps I'll run that one through the newbie forum....

Thanks, it hadn't occured to me...

[Mug Funky]

one compromise with screen ratios is the "squish" feature some TVs have. i love it to bits :)

put in an anamorphic disc, and do the squish-to-16:9 on the TV - no wasted pixels, and an extra sharp picture.

plus it makes NTSC look much less pixellated (PAL users get annoyed at the huge lines on an NTSC screen, but NTSC users get flabbergasted by the obvious slow-flicker of PAL screens... which i admit is a bit eye-hurty when you're not used to it, especially on bright areas).

if you're backing up a letterboxed DVD, you can resize it to anamorphic if you like... won't get you anything extra, but it may look better.

[shevegen]

Hey i just checked, you arent alone there... seem to be a lot of guests on doom, we love it :)

There are currently 32 members and 219 guests on the boards. | Most users ever online was 480 on 29th December 2004 at 18:51.

And woot, new record only few days ago!

[ObiKenobi]

Originally posted by Doobie
I agree. As long as I'm using a low-res TV set, I don't want to waste any pixels on black bars.

So you'd rather lose ~28% or ~45% of horizontal picture, depending on if its a 1.85:1 or 2.40:1 move, to crop a movie to fit a 4:3 frame rather then have the letterbox bars on your TV? Okay...

Originally posted by Doobie
Frankly, I prefer standard tv type screen...I can't stand letterbox.
Not a big fan of the 'new' tv screens either.


So then I'm assuming you don't like to watch movies in the theater? Because if you do I can't see how you would like to watch a movie that is cropped, causing a significant loss of picture information, so that you can watch it in a 4:3 frame rather then watching it letterboxed and preserving the full picture.

You both should definitely take a look at this (http://www.widescreen.org/examples/lord_rings_rotk/index.shtml) to see what you are missing.

[Rickkins]

Well Obi...don't get yerself too bent outta shape over what I like.
I like things the way I like them, and that's just how it is.
All the links in the world to widescreen comparison sites won't change
that one whit.

Perhaps when I can afford a huge new screen where I don't have to sacrifice
verticallity to have increased horizonticallity(is that a word:rolleyes: )...perhaps then I'll
change my mind.

Until then...thanks for the input...:p

[mudda_t]

...Frankly, I prefer standard tv type screen...I can't stand letterbox...
I was that way awhile back, discovered what I was missing in some of my favorite westerns and war flicks, can't stomach 4:3 now.
.
With the release of Star Wars trilogy in widescreen I got to experience the movies in a whole new way.
.
.
But,.....To Each His Own!

[ObiKenobi]

Originally posted by Rickkins
Perhaps when I can afford a huge new screen where I don't have to sacrifice
verticallity to have increased horizonticallity(is that a word:rolleyes: )...perhaps then I'll
change my mind.

I'm not sure what you mean? You don't lose any vertical picture when the movie is in widescreen (in fact you don't lose anything at all). Yet when you watch it pan & scanned you lose quite a significant amount of horizonatal picture. I will forever be baffled by people who think they are actually losing picture when watching something in widescreen but think that pan & scanned movies somehow give them more picture.

[jggimi]

Letterboxing on 4:3 TVs is their dislike, Obi.

[ObiKenobi]

Originally posted by jggimi
Letterboxing on 4:3 TVs is their dislike, Obi.

Not always, I've talked to tons of people who actually think a pan & scanned movie have more picture then when its widescreen.

[manono]

Yes, Obi, but that's the reason. They don't like to see any black. They feel they're being cheated out of their TV "real estate". Sure, we know what's going on, but to them, they see that black, and that's missing picture to them.

My wife was the same way at first. Even today, I think in the US that only TCM consistently shows movies in OAR. So, full screen is about all most people have ever seen here. I'd show a movie, and she'd complain about the black bars. So, I'd change the AR so it filled the screen, but everyone was tall and skinny. That didn't satisfy her either (thank God). She wanted the whole movie, no black bars, and good AR. What I did to convince her was to output a movie from the computer to the TV set using Zoom Player. Using a 4:3 TV and a widescreen 2.35:1 movie, as I slowly zoomed the picture to fill in the black above and below, she could, at the same time, see picture disappearing from the sides. I don't think she quite realized before then what was going on. It made a believer out of her. Now I just have to convince the rest of my family. :)

What amuses me is that soon they'll all have widescreen TV sets, and then they'll bitch about all those full screen DVDs they bought, or full screen AVIs they made, that will then all have black bars on the sides. So what will they do? Most likely stretch them out horizontally and destroy the AR.

[int 21h]

Originally posted by Rickkins
Ya mean I can convert it...

Hmmm...perhaps I'll run that one through the newbie forum....

Thanks, it hadn't occured to me...

No, you really can't convert it. The conversion of widescreen to fullscreen is done during the mastering process. The viewing frame itself generally moves several times during the movie to accomodate whatever is in the picture. So if you try to do the conversion yourself, since you cannot really move your viewing frame around on the film, its quite likely you will miss important parts of the picture (normally during mastering they just move the film a bit to get that in the picture).

An example of this would be Pulp Fiction when Samuel Jackson is shooting the guy in the apartment. In the WS version, you see the entire shot at once, bullet leaving gone, bullet hitting man. In the FS version, the film is moved as the gunshot occurs so that you can see the bullet impact. Or in Ghostbusters when Ray and Winston are talking about the strange stuff they've seen in the car. In the WS version you see them both at the same time talking. In the FS version it frames back and forth between them as they talk.

Those are examples of the viewing frame on the film moving that you cannot reproduce.

[Wilbert]

What amuses me is that soon they'll all have widescreen TV sets, and then they'll bitch about all those full screen DVDs they bought, or full screen AVIs they made, that will then all have black bars on the sides. So what will they do? Most likely stretch them out horizontally and destroy the AR.
Yeah, I recognize this. Everyone I know who has a widescreen TV has their image stretched (when watching regular broadcast). When I tell them about it, that people look skinny, etc ..., they just don't care. Even if you see commericals with widescreen TVs or enter an average shop which sells them (and has some of them turned on for the customer), they show stretched broadcasts. Once I asked about this in a shop. He said he knew that AR was wrong, but he told that the customer wants to see the whole screen filled up.

[jggimi]

At my house, 4:3 images are watched with pillarbars. Even my 8 year old daughter gets it. I've used this line before, but its worth repeating. All I had to do to explain AR was to tell her, "Without the pillarbars, you'd be watching Spongebob Rectanglepants."