Hi Alan,
I have a Sony 55-inch 1080i television set, hooked up to a Samsung up-converting HDMI DVD. When I play some DVDs, I still get the "black lines" at the top and bottom of the screen. Whatever set-up I try on the DVD or television, nothing can get rid of them. I'm told this is because some of the DVDs are enhanced?
As my television "is only" 720p/1080i compatible, will I see a better picture with a bluray DVD?
Thanks,
Mark------------------------------------
Hello Mark,
Thanks for your e-mail.
A couple of things first. I presume your 720p Sony 55-inch TV is a wide-screen model rather than one of the old squarish 4:3 screens.
Normally, all High-Defnition sets conform to the standard widescreen format chosen for HD broadcasts. This is called the screen's "aspect ratio" and is expressed as a ratio of the screen's width to its height. The new HD broadcast standard is 16:9. Another way of stating that is 1.85:1. So the screen is almost twice as wide as it is high. If it were twice as wide, the aspect ratio would be 2:1.
This is a compromise, chosen because it accommodates many Hollywood and European movies that are photographed in the 1.85:1 aspect ratio. Those movies would be displayed without the black bars at the top and bottom of your screen.
However, hundreds of movies, thousands in fact, are photographed in different aspect ratios--it's up to the director and cinematographer, as there is no specific standard. These may vary from the old, squarish 4:3 standard, common with most movies up to the invention of Cinemascope in the 1950s. After the latter was invented, widescreen movies went up to extreme wide angles of 2:35:1, such as "Laurence of Arabia." If you play a DVD of that movie on a new HD set, there will be large black bars at the top and bottom of the screen, because 2.35:1 is much wider than 1.85:1, so if you want to see what the director and audiences saw in the movie theater, then you're going to get the black bars.
Some TVs will let you zoom in on the image to magnify it and eliminate the black bars, but in doing so, you would also be cutting off part of the image.
You should make sure your up-converting Samsung is set to output 720p, which is the "native resolution" of your HD set. Another matter is the quality of the Samsung DVD player. There are other better upconverting players around, including a brand sold online called Oppo Digital. You can explore those players at
Oppodigital I used to own an upconverting Samsung DVD player, one of the earliest models, and its performance compared to my Oppo Digital is mediocre.
If you get a Blu-ray player that has really good upconversion of standard DVDs, yes, you'll see a better picture than what you're getting from the Samsung DVD player. Check the test reports of Blu-ray players done by Al Griffin at
Sound & Vision Magazine .
Of course, Blu-ray movies are true High Definition, so your 720p Samsung will display those at 720p, and they'll be noticeably sharper and clearer than Standard DVDs, which even up-converted are NOT high definition.
But unless you have an HD display that lets you "zoom" or magnify the image, there is no way to eliminate the black bars of movies that are shot in a more extreme wide-angle format than 1:85:1.
Feel free to contact me on my direct line, 1-888-243-3236, 9-5 Eastern Time, Monday to Friday, or call the Axiom toll-free number any time at 1-866-244-8796 - any of our Audio Experts would be pleased to help.
Kind regards,
Alan
