So, old fashioned TV is a 4:3 aspect ratio. New "widescreen" displays are a 16:9 aspect ratio. Full screen movies are in a 4:3 aspect ratio - makes sense. Here's where it gets funky. The widescreen formats I've seen for movies are 1.85:1 and 2.35:1 - widescreen and anamorphic widescreen respectively. I guess I have two questions out of this - why is a 16:9 display an aspect ratio of 1.78:1 while the standard widescreen movie is 1.85:1. I'm assuming they just rounded to 16:9 because a 37:20 (1.85:1 in whole numbers) aspect ratio for a TV is just dumb. The second question - why 2.35:1? Why would I spend a few thousand bucks on a new TV so I can have black bars on the top and bottom? I don't get it. Are there some DVD players that do post-processing to get rid of these? Can anyone shed some light on this stuff? Thanks a ton. I appologize if this has been asked before. I haven't seen it in the past few months I've been hanging out here.
Pete
PS - I've been lurking for way too long without posting. This message board is awesome.
