Movies have black bars, even on widescreen monitor

I finally sprung for a 24" lcd. One of my favourite movies is Scarface, and I have the edition that includes the original, so I have a backup copy. However, every backup copy looks like this:



Even though I have a widescreen monitor, it still has letterboxing. Is this some new format or something? Because I'm cheesed off about buying a monitor to get rid of letterboxing, only to have it happen again, and this has happened before - but compare with a tv show that I tivo'd, which appears to be proper 16:9:



That's fine - so I don't get it - every monitor and tv I've seen have either been 16:9 or 16:10, but some movies insist on still having black bars. I know I can run media player classic and zoom in, but that's not the point, as I'm losing video information from the sides. What's this all about?

Isn't this just the result from watching a 2.40:1 film on a 16:9 screen?

jmdixon85 said:

Isn't this just the result from watching a 2.40:1 film on a 16:9 screen?

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Come to think of it, it could be - but who on earth has a consumer 2.40:1 lcd? And the only way to make it full screen is by stretching it (no pan and scan on anything except media player classic )

yup... hardly any cinematic films are in a 16:10 or 16:9 format which is the standard of todays widescreens. they often are in an even wider aspect ratio which results in black bars top and bottom... u just dont have as big of bars as you do on a 4:3 screen.

TV is shot in 16:9, but as others have pointed out, movies are just random. Some of the older movies are 16:9, but many of the newer are much wider and will still result in black bars at the top and bottom.

You need one of these: http://fwd.five.tv/gadgets/audio-video/televisions/lcd-and-plasma/philips-cinema-219

Mpegger said:

TV is shot in 16:9, but as others have pointed out, movies are just random. Some of the older movies are 16:9, but many of the newer are much wider and will still result in black bars at the top and bottom.

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Those hollywood buttholes.... Spend $1000+ on widescreen HDTV and all your movies consume only 2/3 of the screen.

ull get used to it man i dont even notice the bars anymore...

madhatter256 said:

Those hollywood buttholes.... Spend $1000+ on widescreen HDTV and all your movies consume only 2/3 of the screen.

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Of course. They'd like you to spend more money on a new DRM'd and HCPD'd screen every year.

What's up with 2.33:1? What are they trying to accomplish?
I like it when it's 16:9. It make sense when they went from 4:3 to 16:9, as this is what they said your vision covers.

I agree, it's really lame that movies are shot in a wider res when screens are now 16:9. At least T.V. is shot in the proper High Definition aspect ratio.

However, I noticed Avatar Blu-ray is in 16x9 ratio which is nice.

Movies are shot according to various different aspect ratios (1.33:1, 1.85:1, 2.15:1, etc). Directors aren't looking to follow HDTV standards