How come 640x480 videos have vertical black bars on a SDTV?

[rc86mike]

I would love a defintive answer to this one.

I have my ATV hooked upto my TV that puts out 1080i.

I've ripped all my movies at 640x480. Some show up full screen while others show up with bars on the sides. Is this because some movies are formatted for widescreen while some are formatted for 4:3 standard aspect ratio? If so is there anyway to fix this?

Thanks!

 

[madmaxmedia]

You know the TV was never intended to be used on a 4x3 set yet you insist it should. Get over it Loft3, get rid of your obsolete 4x3 piece of analog crap and buy an ATSC HDTV For $499 at Costco like a real red blooded American consumer should.

That's not remotely constructive to the OP, ya know? He only asked, and wasn't insisting or complaining.

He might not be able to afford an HDT either. Although I guess a real red-blooded American would march to Costco and put that TV on his credit card. If he's a real American though, he should buy a 60" LCD, not a wimpy $500 TV...

 

[madmaxmedia]

I would love a defintive answer to this one.

I have my ATV hooked upto my TV that puts out 1080i.

I've ripped all my movies at 640x480. Some show up full screen while others show up with bars on the sides. Is this because some movies are formatted for widescreen while some are formatted for 4:3 standard aspect ratio? If so is there anyway to fix this?

Thanks!

You need to be a lot more specific about whether the bars are top/bottom, left/right, or both. And what aspect ratio your movies are that this happens with. And what the ratio of your TV display is.

 

[sandman42]

I don't think the image is being squished on the OP's experience (since he only mentions the bars.) This is what it sounds like is happening (same thing happens to me with my XBox hooked up through HDMI/DVI)-

Could be. We all understand now (I hope) why there are black bars on the sides. Whether the OP's TV is 'smart' enough to recognize the 16:9 content (as presented by the TV) and preserve the aspect ratio by letterboxing, or if it displays it full screen vertically (which could be considered as stretching the image vertically rather than compressing horizontally) -- we don't know. But we can definitely explain the bars on the sides.

 

[rc86mike]

You need to be a lot more specific about whether the bars are top/bottom, left/right, or both. And what aspect ratio your movies are that this happens with. And what the ratio of your TV display is.

The bars are left/right NOT top/bottom. My TV ratio is currently set to widescreen (it is a widscreen display) so 16:9 viewing I assume. The movie/tv show dvd casings only state it was "made to fit your TV". None of them are the widescreen versions. Thank you Hope that helps a bit.

 

[Antares]

The bars are left/right NOT top/bottom. My TV ratio is currently set to widescreen (it is a widscreen display) so 16:9 viewing I assume. The movie/tv show dvd casings only state it was "made to fit your TV". None of them are the widescreen versions. Thank you Hope that helps a bit.

"made to fit" sounds like a full-screen dvd. "Full-Screen" dvd's are in the 4:3 format. If you rip a full-screen dvd, it will have black bars on the sides when watching it on any widescreen display. That's actually the correct way to watch "full-screen" content....with black bars on the side. Full-screen content will not magically become widescreen content on a widescreen tv (unless you stretch the image. But that image will be wrong...people will look fatter than they actually are, circles will look like ovals, squares will look like rectangles, etc.)

 

[StealthRider]

The TV has the option for 480i output, so that is not the problem. The problem is that there's a difference between a TV's 720x480 resolution and the 640x480 of the content, as someone said earlier.

 

[madmaxmedia]

Right, that's another possible complication. So it's also possible that there are only bars on left and right, and the image is stretched vertically.

I am guessing that as long as your TV is 16:9 'aware', then you'll get a good picture from ATV. It just may have unnecessary bars on all sides if its 4:3 content, but that's pretty much unavoidable.

Could be. We all understand now (I hope) why there are black bars on the sides. Whether the OP's TV is 'smart' enough to recognize the 16:9 content (as presented by the TV) and preserve the aspect ratio by letterboxing, or if it displays it full screen vertically (which could be considered as stretching the image vertically rather than compressing horizontally) -- we don't know. But we can definitely explain the bars on the sides.

 

[rc86mike]

Just a quick update. I've been doing some tests this afternoon (I had today off work woohoo!) and I found that some DVD's I put into Handbrake allow me to output at 720x480 which results in a full widescreen picture while some dvd's will only let you output upto 640x480 which result with black bars on the right and left sides. It's not too big of deal really, just thought I'd share.

One other interesting note I found while ripping 40 Year Old Virgin was that it let me output to 720x480 but I opted for the test to go 640x480 but it still filled my whole widescreen display.

So by putting two and two together it seems that if the dvd will ALLOW you to output to 720x480 but you choose to go lower at 640x480 it will still fit it to the widescreen display. Interesting. Anyone else more about this?

 

[MacinJosh]

Just a quick update. I've been doing some tests this afternoon (I had today off work woohoo!) and I found that some DVD's I put into Handbrake allow me to output at 720x480 which results in a full widescreen picture while some dvd's will only let you output upto 640x480 which result with black bars on the right and left sides. It's not too big of deal really, just thought I'd share.

One other interesting note I found while ripping 40 Year Old Virgin was that it let me output to 720x480 but I opted for the test to go 640x480 but it still filled my whole widescreen display.

So by putting two and two together it seems that if the dvd will ALLOW you to output to 720x480 but you choose to go lower at 640x480 it will still fit it to the widescreen display. Interesting. Anyone else more about this?

Neither 640x480 or 720x480 is a widescreen resolution when viewed on TVs or monitors. 720/480 = 1.5 and 640/480 = 1.33 (4:3). If you want to use 720 wide DVD rips I suggest the following:

720x400 for 16:9 material (Should fill the whole 16:9 TV screen with no bars)
720x304 for 2.35:1 material (Should have black bars on top and bottom on 16:9 TVs)

As to why a 640x480 video fills your TV, must be due to your TVs settings that handle aspect ratios and zooming/stretching. Some TVs can sense black bars on images and zoom or stretch the image to get rid of them. You'd have to RTFM (read the effing manual) to find out.

Joshua.