Aquaman For Dummies

[olddocking]

I've been through every post with "Aquaman" and some others so don't. I don't understand the really technical stuff; maybe cause I'm old. Dolby Mp4 is more mysterious than women.
But, I ripped Aquaman to my hd and when I look at the blue ray rip it seems okay. Black "bars" all around. But, when I load it into Handbrake, using any preset, it sometimes has black bars top and bottom, and sometimes doesn't.
Have not been able to figure that one out and these forums only confuse me. So, any SIMPLE explanation and fix?
You know, in language the average person (that's almost 70) can understand.
BTW, made a rip some time ago and it appears normal: Wide screen and 1280x... but looking at it today to see why that one worked (it didn't) I noticed that the black bars are gone, BUT some scenes have been cropped top and bottom.
So, back to the drawing board as they say..
Thanks, Y'all. Have a great day!
I got pictures but don't know how to upload them (if possible). Yet.
(I edited this to replace "load it into into makemkv" to "load it into Handbrake."

[Woodstock]

MakeMKV is going to copy the video as it is on the disk.

Is this the Aquaman movie in HD format, or is it an "SD on Bluray" of the old TV series?

Many players will strip off the letterbox bars, then stretch the result to fit.

[olddocking]

Ok, my bad. Got cornfused. Forgot I was working in Handbrake and makemkv only rips the thing. Sorry about that.
AND, went back and watched the blueray rip of the movie and it does indeed have black bars for some of the movie and appears anamorphic full screen (wide sorta) for other parts.

Using my glasses AND a magnifying glass I can read: 1080p high definition variable 2:4.1 & 1:78.1 Dolby Atmos TrueHD
Which, to me, sounds like it's purposely made that way.

And that's just fookin' stupid.
But I still don't know how to "fix" this unless I go out and buy a different copy. Wonder how Walmart feels about an old guy and his magnifying glass browsing the movie shelves?

I do appreciate your taking the time to answer this!

[Woodstock]

You would NOT be the only person in Walmart with a magnifier...

There is a problem with movies that switch aspect ratios as things move along - handbrake can't deal with switching back and forth. Unfortunately, they're becoming somewhat common, as things are shot in different resolutions from their special effects.

[dcoke22]

Lately lots of the big budget action movies have been shooting some of their action sequences with cameras and in formats most suitable for IMAX screens. The director then makes an artistic choice about how to handle the different aspect ratios of the material from the different cameras during the final edit. Christopher Nolan seems to do this in every movie he makes lately. Certainly his Batman trilogy switches aspect ratios. At least some of the Hunger Games movies do this as well. Heck, Zack Synder's Justice League from 2021 is 4 hours long and in 1.33:1 ratio (aka, old 4:3 television format) despite all of the footage being shot in widescreen with modern cameras.

About the only thing to do if/when you take these rips through Handbrake is to not crop out the black bars. For instance, in Hunger Games Catching Fire, it is an hour and 22 minutes into the movie when the aspect ratio changes. As Katniss rides up the elevator just before the games begin, the aspect ratio changes. viewtopic.php?p=108845#p108845

As Woodstock said, Handbrake isn't smart enough to change its crop settings when the movie's aspect ratio changes.

[olddocking]

About the only thing to do if/when you take these rips through Handbrake is to not crop out the black bars. For instance, in Hunger Games Catching Fire, it is an hour and 22 minutes into the movie when the aspect ratio changes. As Katniss rides up the elevator just before the games begin, the aspect ratio changes. viewtopic.php?p=108845#p108845

As Woodstock said, Handbrake isn't smart enough to change its crop settings when the movie's aspect ratio changes.

So, liking wide-screen as much as I do, I think I'll just go ahead and manually crop the whole movie(s). Not much is missing from the tops and bottoms of the anamorphic shots anyway.
I did this to the old "War Of The Worlds" (1953?) just playing around once and I still have it on my movie NAS. Didn't cut off much we'd look at anyway.
Thanks for the reply!

[olddocking]

You would NOT be the only person in Walmart with a magnifier...

Maybe I shoulda been wearing my glasses the whole time in Walmart? I hadn't noticed the others doing that BUT NOW I won't be able to NOT see them. Thanks to you!

[Woodstock]

I'm near-sighted, so I have to take OFF my glasses to see tiny print.

Visually-speaking, our ability to focus on content drops off beyond the middle 3 degrees of our center of vision. This has been known for centuries to some extent, so anyone wanting you to watch "action" will center it on the screen. We move our eyes around rapidly to compensate for this, which is why it SEEMS we see more detail, but get beyond 30 degrees or so, and it becomes tiring to track things.

Wide screen is supposed to make things "more immersive", but that really only works if the screen is curved to simulate the wrap-around nature of the real world, in my opinion. So tossing out the edges doesn't raise any flags for me... Unless the director stupidly mis-centered their shots!