My 1080p videos are actually 800 or 816...

[MoodyM]

I have a lot of 1080p movies on my Mac Mini media centre. I was gonna convert them using Handbrake or iVi Pro for my new iPad, but I noticed they are all 800 or 816 pixels high, not 1080. I guess this is something to do with the black bars top and bottom, but my question is will it still be ok to convert them and get the full quality/size?

I ask because on another thread someone suggested setting Handbrake to the ATV2 preset, them manually change the vertical res to 1080, but because my videos are saying they're only 8xx high, Handbrake won't let me input "1080"...

 

[DS3]

I believe its based on the black bars on a 16:9 tv, where most 1080p videos are meant to be played.

Just how it is, if they included the full 1080 height for videos with wider than 16:9 aspect ratios then the horizontal resolution would go way up too and the video files would be far larger without helping most users.

 

[Peace]

You are dealing with movies that are shown in the original format. Widescreen for the big screen. A lot of directors insist they be released as they were made.

 

[fs454]

You are dealing with movies that are shown in the original format. Widescreen for the big screen. A lot of directors insist they be released as they were made.

The industry-standard wide aspect ratio is around 2.35:1 which is what you're seeing. I'm a freelance cinematographer and that aspect really means something to the people whose job it is to create these films. It's an aesthetic choice to use such a crop which changes the way the eye looks at the frame completely as well as how we frame the shot to account for the width of the frame.

As for conversion, leave it at whatever it claims the vertical resolution is and it should work.