watching movies on mbp 15(16:10 aspect ratio)

[howareyoukk]

hi wats up guys. i just got my cmbp few days ago and i have to say i like the hi res screen with resolution of 1680 X 1050. the text does not appear to be small and it allows me to browse high quality of images of my mac.However, the aspect ratio of the display isnt that great for watching movies as you will see two black bars on the top and bottom due to the 16:10 aspect ratio. Since i still havent got my monitor, i will have to watch movies on it for a while. SO, iam just wondering if there is anyone out there who watches movies on their macbook and what you think of the black bars? Is 16:9 a lot better comparing to 16:10? Is there anyway to reduce the black bars in the movies? Thanks

 

[PDFierro]

You will have black bars with the 16:10 ratio. No way around that. You get used to it. 16:9 is great for videos, but 16:10 is great for everything else and most MBP users wouldn't want to compromise on that.

 

[dusk007]

I don't see what is the problem with black bars. You have a certain width. If you had a 16:9 15.6" display it wouldn't be any wider. You see the same amount of content just that where there are black bars there is just no display.
What is the issue with black bars?
16:9 is no better it is just smaller.

Anyway if it bugs you so much, just crop the image. VLC video player hit the button 'c' and it will crop the image on the sides and zoom the rest to full size. I wouldn't recommend that on 720p material though.

I think 16:9 is terrible aspect ratio for notebooks. It just makes the notebook wider which means only a smaller screen fits into the same size of bags. It adds nothing just reduces display space. A 15.6" 16:9 notebook is as portable as a 16:10 15" but has a display space that is more comparable to a 14" 16:10 notebook.
If black bars bug you just stick some white paper in its place or color it differently.

 

[justaregularjoe]

If you like, most video players will let you crop the video to a particular aspect ratio, to eliminate the black bars. Not sure if iTunes does this, but I think that Quicktime does and I know that VLC and most other third-party media playback software does.

Note that this will also cut off the sides of the video so that the video fits, so you might miss stuff going on there. My recommendation is that you just get used to the black bars, as most films aren't made at 16:9 or 16:10 anyway, but at things like 2.39:1 or 1.85:1; shorter, wider formats that are what most current movies are released in.

 

[howareyoukk]

Thanks for all of the replies above. Assuming if I do have my monitor now with aspect ratio of 16:9, when I connect it with my mac through thunderbolt or hdmi, it will play movies in the form of 16:9 on the big monitor right? Even the macbook pro has a aspect ratio of 16:10.

 

[priitv8]

What movies are you watching, that are in 16:9 aspect ratio?
HD TV shows, yes. But most of the current widescreen stuff is in 21:9 (more precisely 2.40:1) ratio anyway, so you will have to live with black bars. Unless you go with one of those 21:9 UltraWide monitors.

 

[PDFierro]

What movies are you watching, that are in 16:9 aspect ratio?
HD TV shows, yes. But most of the current widescreen stuff is in 21:9 (more precisely 2.40:1) ratio anyway, so you will have to live with black bars. Unless you go with one of those 21:9 UltraWide monitors.

Not with iTunes videos or pretty much all digital downloads. With Blu-ray, you will still have black bars even with a 16:9 ratio. That's not the case here.

 

[priitv8]

Not with iTunes videos or pretty much all digital downloads. With Blu-ray, you will still have black bars even with a 16:9 ratio. That's not the case here.

So, what you are saying is, that a new 21:9 movie, like eg. Star Trek Into Darkness, which has a 1920x800 picture (exactly 2.4:1) is cropped from left and right to fill 1920x1080 screen on iTunes and other digital downloads?
If that were the case, you'd have lost almost half of the scene the director intended to have on screen, no? That'd be almost a different movie from what you'd see in theatre or on BluRay.
The BluRay seems to output all frames in exactly 1920x1080, of which 2x140 pixels (above and below the picture) would be black on Star Trek BD disk. When transcoding with HandBrake, you don't want to re-encode those black bars, thus you let it crop to 800px height.

 

[howareyoukk]

What movies are you watching, that are in 16:9 aspect ratio?
HD TV shows, yes. But most of the current widescreen stuff is in 21:9 (more precisely 2.40:1) ratio anyway, so you will have to live with black bars. Unless you go with one of those 21:9 UltraWide monitors.

I do notice the black bars on 16:9...but it seems like the 16:10 aspect ratio will has wider black bar comparing to the 16:9

 

[priitv8]

but it seems like the 16:10 aspect ratio will has wider black bar comparing to the 16:9

True, because 16:10 is more square (or higher), compared to 16:9.

 

[PDFierro]

So, what you are saying is, that a new 21:9 movie, like eg. Star Trek Into Darkness, which has a 1920x800 picture (exactly 2.4:1) is cropped from left and right to fill 1920x1080 screen on iTunes and other digital downloads?
If that were the case, you'd have lost almost half of the scene the director intended to have on screen, no? That'd be almost a different movie from what you'd see in theatre or on BluRay.
The BluRay seems to output all frames in exactly 1920x1080, of which 2x140 pixels (above and below the picture) would be black on Star Trek BD disk. When transcoding with HandBrake, you don't want to re-encode those black bars, thus you let it crop to 800px height.

I don't know about all that technical talk. But everytime someone comes on here asking about a 16:9 aspect ratios for movies, it's because they know there won't be any black bars.

Watching a iTunes movie on a 16:9 monitor, you're not losing any of the picture. And there are no black bars.

 

[takeshi74]

SO, iam just wondering if there is anyone out there who watches movies on their macbook and what you think of the black bars?

Never bothered me.

Is there anyway to reduce the black bars in the movies?

The only way is to crop or stretch. There's no other way to get content of a given aspect ratio to display on a screen with a different aspect ratio without letterboxing or pillarboxing.

I don't see what is the problem with black bars.

Preference. Some are fixated on eliminating them.

 

[dejo]

Watching a iTunes movie on a 16:9 monitor, you're not losing any of the picture. And there are no black bars.

Can you provide some proof of this claim? Give us a few examples of movies that were 2.35:1 or 2.40:1 in the theater but, when downloaded through the iTunes Store, display without any letterboxing on a 16:9 monitor.

 

[priitv8]

Can you provide some proof of this claim? Give us a few examples of movies that were 2.35:1 or 2.40:1 in the theater but, when downloaded through the iTunes Store, display without any letterboxing on a 16:9 monitor.

I'd also like to add to this: why then are the Trailers in iTunes having black bars?

 

[dusk007]

Preference. Some are fixated on eliminating them.

Unfortunately the rest of us has to suffer dumb less productive and space inefficient aspect ratios in the overall notebook space, because some people don't have their heads screwed on straight.
I think 16:9 is okay on really small <10" or very big screens >20" in between I think even 16:10 is only better but 3:2 would be better still.

 

[Interstella5555]

I don't see what is the problem with black bars. You have a certain width. If you had a 16:9 15.6" display it wouldn't be any wider. You see the same amount of content just that where there are black bars there is just no display.
What is the issue with black bars?
16:9 is no better it is just smaller.

Anyway if it bugs you so much, just crop the image. VLC video player hit the button 'c' and it will crop the image on the sides and zoom the rest to full size. I wouldn't recommend that on 720p material though.

I think 16:9 is terrible aspect ratio for notebooks. It just makes the notebook wider which means only a smaller screen fits into the same size of bags. It adds nothing just reduces display space. A 15.6" 16:9 notebook is as portable as a 16:10 15" but has a display space that is more comparable to a 14" 16:10 notebook.
If black bars bug you just stick some white paper in its place or color it differently.

Exactly, black bars were noticeably a problem when I watched movies in the 80s/90s on CRT displays, with everything being widescreen these days it looks fine and "stretching" to fit displays looks off.

 

[Krazy Bill]

If you got a pricey laptop to watch movies, you've got money to burn. Most people that "create" content prefer a taller display. It's really that simple.