iTunes Movies on TV...

[Sean7512]

Tonight, my girlfriend and I bought the new Pirates of the Caribbean from iTunes. The movie is in widescreen format, obviously. I took my dock downstairs and hooked it up to our HDTV so we could watch the movie on a widescreen TV. Well we start to play it, and there are huge black bars on the top and bottom of the screen. After messing around with some settings, I found that the movie may be widescreen, but the iPod sends the movie as a 4:3 image to the TV, but it includes the bars on the top and bottom to make it widescreen. I know that because if I changed my TV settings to 4:3, it showed the movie with the black bars. What we ended up doing, was changing the iPods Widescreen setting to Off, and that way the picture filled the entire TV screen but the sides were cut off. So, how can I watch a widescreen iTunes movie on a widescreen TV that will fill the TV without cutting the edges off or stretching the picture? I would hope that it is possible, otherwise what is the use of iTunes selling Widescreen content

 

[roland.g]

there's actually a misconception about widescreen movies and tvs being the same size. movies come in 1.85:1, 2.35:1, 2.40:1 and a couple other ratios. The tv doesn't really match up to any of them.

For example, I have a 42" widescreen Samsung DLP that has p.size settings for wide, panoramic, zoom 1, zoom 2, and 4:3. If I want to watch tv, I set it to wide and it stretches my picture to fill the screen. If I want to watch a DVD, I set it to zoom 1 and it stretches the width and height proportionally so that while the image is the full width of the screen the sides are not cut off, and the image keeps its proportions. It's not stretched wider. Even at this setting, many movies, especially anamorphic widescreen movies set to 2:35:1 or greater still have some black bars. That's just because the movie is that wide in relation to it's height. I think a 1.85:1 movie is the only one that has no black bars at all on my zoom 1 setting, meaning it fills the screen, nothing is cut off, and it retains it's orginal proportions. Not many movies are still made at that ratio, especially blockbusters, because wider screen movies have become more popular.

 

[Sean7512]

So, for watching a movie that I bought in iTunes on a widescreen TV, I have to set my iPod to Widescreen ON and then set my TV to one of the Zooms? Or am I still missing something?

 

[Rojo]

Just out of curiousity -- how big is your widescreen TV, and how did Pirates look on it?

 

[Sean7512]

Just out of curiousity -- how big is your widescreen TV, and how did Pirates look on it?

It is 47". Pirates look terrific, just a tad below DVD. Definitely higher than standard TV, it was not as bad as I was thinking that it would be. The only time the image degraded was when there were very, very dark scenes. Like when they would show a zoomed out shot of the ship moving during foggy nights. In those scenes, it was pixel-ated, and you could definitely notice. I think that I read somewhere that darker scenes are not as clear when using h.264 compression. But, overall, it was not bad at all. I could definitely live with it, as even at 12.99 it is cheaper than the DVD version. Special Features? I never watched a special feature yet, so paying for just the movie is what I really like.

 

[balamw]

So, for watching a movie that I bought in iTunes on a widescreen TV, I have to set my iPod to Widescreen ON and then set my TV to one of the Zooms? Or am I still missing something?

Most likely our TV isn't expecting to see widescreen in from the composite or S-video port you are connecting the iPod to, e.g. my Samsung remembers the zoom mode on an input by input basis....

B

 

[Rojo]

It is 47". Pirates look terrific, just a tad below DVD.

Thanks.
With rumors that movie resolution will be upped again when iTV comes out, it's looking pretty good for the iTV device. Bring it on, Apple!

 

[Sean7512]

Most likely our TV isn't expecting to see widescreen in from the composite or S-video port you are connecting the iPod to, e.g. my Samsung remembers the zoom mode on an input by input basis....

B

But, the Wii outputs a widescreen image in composite, and it works! (Not trying to be mean, just don't understand why Apple set it up this way...) So does one of the zooms enable us to watch the movie fullscreen with nothing being cut out? The iPod really should have a TV type option, so when you select 16:9 it will turn off the letter-boxing, and problem solved. It isn't THAT hard, is it?

 

[balamw]

But, the Wii outputs a widescreen image in composite, and it works! (Not trying to be mean, just don't understand why Apple set it up this way...) So does one of the zooms enable us to watch the movie fullscreen with nothing being cut out? The iPod really should have a TV type option, so when you select 16:9 it will turn off the letter-boxing, and problem solved. It isn't THAT hard, is it?

Yeah, but the thing is that there's no signaling that happens on the composite port so it's a bit of a crap shoot to what device and zoom mode will work together. Obviously the mode the Wii uses isn't the right one for the iPod.

B