Posted by John Walker at acbf4dd2.ipt.aol.com on August 21, 2001 at 18:43:43:
: First off, people still DO say 16:9, because that IS the aspect ratio, and windowboxing a 1.66:1 image within the 16:9 frame won't "degrade" the image. There are several 16:9 enhanced 1.66:1 DVDs out there (several Anchor Bay titles for example, and CRASH from New Line Home Video among others), and the fact is on most 4:3 televisions the "black bars" at the sides fall into the overscan area and aren't even visible. The amount of picture information lost at the sides is not as much as would be lost doing a 4:3 transfer matted to 1.66:1, and as I said, on most 4:3 TVs the black bars would be overscanned off screen anyway.
: Vincent
Sorry Vincent! You're wrong and you have some stuff to learn it seems (a few gaps in an otherwise faultless technical knowledge no doubt! :) As the great philosopher PB said: "You have to be prepared to be wrong if you want to be right"!
Firstly, you said "in 16:9 format" (in your original post) when you should have said "enhanced for 16:9 TVs" (which is what you seem to be confused with) or more simply, "anamorphic"!
16:9 is a RATIO. Another way of saying it is 1.85:1 (divide 9 into 16) it has NOTHING to do with being "16:9 Enhanced" which refers to the fact the image has been anamorphically enhanced for widescreen TVs (which are of course 16:9 or 1.85:1 in Ratio -- or, yes, 1.78:1 if you're feeling anal :)
To say an image is "16:9" is simply declaring its RATIO and nothing more.
To say something is "16:9 Enhanced" is simplistic studio speak for "anamorphically enhanced" or "enhanced for 16:9/Widescreen TVs".
A 2.35:1 ratio film can be "16:9 enhanced" (although the preferred term is "anamorphically enhanced") but it cannot be presented in the "16:9 format" without cutting the edges off the picture! Do you see? It's simple terminology.
Anyhoo... it is *impossible* to represent a 1.66:1 image anamorphically enhanced without degrading the image quality.
Let me explain:
A 1.85:1 ratio film when stored anamorphically on DVD's take up the full frame yes? (You can see this if you set your DVD player wrong and the image comes on "stretched"). They are then squeezed to the correct ratio on 4:3 TVs and pulled into the correct ratio by 16:9 (widescreen) TV's.
A 1.66:1 image requires an image past the end of the frame, which is obviously impossible.
The only way this could be done would be to create black bars down the side of the image, which would obviously degrade the image (reducing the amount of "vertical lines" (for want of a better term!)) and thus reducing the resolution of the image.
Put a pen to paper and see for yourself, it really is *technically* impossible!
Cheers,
~ John