Picture Size of Movies on TV

Please expand on 'picture does not fill the screen'.

Do you mean black bars all around or more likely on either side suggesting that the material is 4:3 format.

If it is 4:3 format then the only way to get it to fill the screen would be by distorting it making people look squashed vertically, or cropping the top and bottom and just showing the middle section.

AppleTV has no zoom function, but your TV may have a zoom mode or modes to let the picture fill the screen.

Sometimes it can be tricky to decide if something is actually being shown in the correct aspect ratio, but i generally look out for round objects like clocks or car/wagon/chariot wheels to get a feel for if the broadcast material is distorted or not.

AC

When you say record, do you mean with a camcorder or do you mean convert movie files.

If the camcorder and you have the available options, choose 16:9(Widescreen) say something like 853 x 480 or 1280 x 720.

If converting then it depends on the aspect ration of your source, if it's 4:3 say something like 640 x 480 then really you need to choose a 4:3 output so as not to distort the picture, same with 16:9.

720 x 320 is an odd resolution, I'm not sure what it relates to.

If you play back the film in iTunes does it still have those bars top and bottom? If so a widescreen movie has been made into 4:3 format by adding padding dark space top and bottom - no way around this with purchased content that I can think of unless TV will let you zoom.

AC

720 x 320 is an odd resolution, I'm not sure what it
relates to.

Widescreen film of some kind with 2.25:1 aspect ratio probably.

AC

I lose track of these extra wide AR's and all the different ones there are (they even have names for 'em all), I get annoyed by them, it's like looking through venetian blinds and sometimes it's like looking through them when they're closed. Seriously though, am I just showing my age or do these resolutions actually enhance viewing for some people. I'm thinking 'Matrix" if you've ever seen it. Tell me is it me or is the viewable image just ridiculous.

yeah, they keep getting wider and wider, I think they're trying to force us to theaters to enjoy them or something. Personally, my widescreen TV Episodes are perfect, since they are actually 16x9, but the movies are going nutty.

See Star Wars, Matrix for examples

Hello

I think the Apple TV is amazing but my main problem is with it not being able to do what my Sony TV can do when playing DVD's or watching TV with Zoom, widescreen etc so that the picture fits the full size of the screen even though the original was made in 4:3 or whatever.
I am connecting the Apple TV to my TV by HDMI which doesnt allow me to alter the aspect ratio via the TV to compensate, I'd have to connect via an analogue cable which is kind of pointless as HDMI is the best way and one of the reason I bought a Sony LCD Bravia.

I am really really hoping Apple fix this with future upgrades of Apple TV - I've converted 300 films and 150 TV shows and its just fantastic to have all my media in alphabetical order especially as I'm moving and need the space.

Fingers and Hoofs Crossed!

Best

Goat:)


Mac OS X (10.4.9)

I don't really see the problem.

In fairness it was the same with many widescreen video releases, at least newer TVs have more resolution to show the central data from DVD and HD sources.

Very few movies have conventionally been shot in 16:9.

Being physical devices TVs are a certain dimension and 16:9 was always a bit of a compromise. It may be becoming broadcast standard aspect ratio but is not universal elsewhere.

Many older programmes just get distorted at broadcast to fit 16:9 now rather than being shown in the original 4:3 - they are often vertically squashed rather than cropped and look odd.

For many things it depends on the source material.

Pan and scan cropped movies (to 4:3 or 16:9) can work well, but it is dependent on the subject matter.

For epic/big budget films, particularly those of yesteryear, I'd far rather see the whole film letterboxed than cropped, anyhting else diminishes the scale.

Being able to watch a film in it's native aspect ratio is one reason I still buy DVDs from time to time, as
although I could record the film from satellite/terrestrial the broadcast movies is often in pan and scan format.

I recall when the BBC used to frequently show letterboxed movies around Christmas/Easter, but this rarely happens now - thankfully we don't always automatically get the same movies year in year out now 😉

For newer movies many of them are garbage anyway and whatever the aspect ratio they'd still be unentertaining. That's me showing my age again. I used to love special effects/CGI but it gets harder to suspend your disbelief as you get older I think - mainly beacuse it just gets overdone/overused, even in the LOTR films to some extent.

AC

I lose track of these extra wide AR's and all the
different ones there are (they even have names for
'em all), I get annoyed by them, it's like looking
through venetian blinds and sometimes it's like
looking through them when they're closed. Seriously
though, am I just showing my age or do these
resolutions actually enhance viewing for some people.

Luckily, movies are still shot to be shown in theatres. And there the widescreen is appropriate because our field of vision is widescreen - and the effort is to come as close as possible to an "immersion experience".

Of course that doesn't work on tvs, not even on big ones. So even if the audience in this forum might be the crowd of "home theatre" viewers: You should allow yourself the experience of watching a movie on the big screen. With other people around. It's different, believe me!

Many older programmes just get distorted at broadcast to fit 16:9 now rather than being shown in the original 4:3

You might review the settings of your tv. While a lot of people think "I bought a 16:9 tv, so I want to see everything in 16:9", all tvs have a "smart" mode where they detect the format and show you letterboxes or pillowboxes when appropriate. (And only sometimes I have to force mine into a certain mode.)

The only intolerable thing is "windowboxing" - when a widescreen movie is formatted for 4:3 first and then played back on a widescreen tv. The way to avoid this on ATV: Try to encode your movies in a way that they have no black stripes on either side, just the plain picture, undistorted. For example, in Handbrake you can set the black areas to the left, right, top and bottom that are being ignored. In my experience, all these "pure picture" videos are displayed correctly on ATV, no need for an additional AR correction. If you have a problem with a flick that you bought or acquired otherwise, another encoding pass might solve the problem. (Of course, if a movie has already been downsized to fit the regular 4:3 tv format, blowing it up to fit the wide screen won't improve its quality.)

Of course that doesn't work on tvs, not even on big
ones. So even if the audience in this forum might be
the crowd of "home theatre" viewers: You should allow
yourself the experience of watching a movie on the
big screen.

I bought a relatively cheap projector a few years ago after seeing some glowing reviews online, and to be honest I think it was one of the best value for money purchases I'd made in a long time. Having and 8-10 foot wide image on a plain wall a few minutes after unpacking gives an unbelievable wow factor when you're at home. Of course you have to dim the lights, but it's like that in the cinema.

With other people around. It's different,
believe me!

That's one of the great benefits of home theater to me - you don't have to put up with other inconsiderate people.

Last few times I went to the cinema I got so angry I've walked out - mobile phones going off and people talking on them, kids running around in the dark when they're bored, people kicking your seat from behind or putting their feet up, throwing popcorn, being drunk and larking about.

No thanks.

AC

I am also having the same problem. I have a pioneer PDP-506XDE which is 1080i widescreen. Apple TV is great but my TV doesn't have a 'Zoom' feature that maintains the aspect ratio. It just stretches to fill the screen so everything looks squashed vertically. Please Apple can you update to allow full optional control over 4:3 files!

Does anyone know an easy way that I could work around this until Apple sort their life out?

720x302 (actually 304) is the 2.35:1 theatrical aspect ratio. I use it to encode all my movies. I also use 1.78:1 and 1.85:1 when appropriate.

Just a thought on this. As you have to encode your videos to play on the Apple TV, when you encode use cropping to crop the top and bottom off a 4:3 picture to make it 16:9, the equivalent of zooming in whilst maintaining aspect ratio. Alternatively you can re-encode your videos using cropping if already in Apple TV format.

The same applies if you don't like black top and bottom, just crop left and right to change a 2.25:1 aspect ratio to 16:9.