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I recently watched The Maze Runner trilogy of movies on Blu-ray.

I then watched The Maze Runner movies on Comcast.

It was very obvious to me that the Comcast versions that filled the HDTV screen with 16:9 Widescreen were showing me things that were NOT seen in the 2:35:1 Ultra Widescreen version on Blu-ray.

I then did a comparison where I watched the Comcast movies on HDTV and watched the Blu-rays on my laptop.

There is absolutely no doubt that the Comcast movies seen on HDTV "adds" information to the "top and bottom" that is NOT SEEN in the Blu-ray versions of the movies.

This is the EXACT OPPOSITE of what "marketing" for Blu-rays tells us. We are always told that the 2:35:1 Ultra Widescreen movies such as Star Wars contains "extra information" to the sides. We are told that the Blu-ray versions of the movies allow us to see all that "extra information" to the sides. And we are told that is the reason why the "black bars" are seen at the "top and bottom" of the Blu-ray versions of the movies.

I have seen Blu-ray movies where it is in fact "true" that the Ultra Widescreen version "add" information to the sides, which means the "black bars" at the "top and bottom" are in fact necessary.

However, I have now seen quite a few movies where the Blu-ray versions are released as 2:35:1 Ultra Widescreen versions, when in reality it is PAINFULLY CLEAR that they SHOULD HAVE BEEN released as 16:9 versions that contain "extra information" at the "top and bottom" and DO NOT INCLUDE the "black bars" at the "top and bottom."

I have seen similar situations with the 4:3 and 16:9 formats. For example, Transformers: The Movie from 1986 was originally made as a 4:3 movie. However, when it was released in the theater, it was "cropped" at the "top and bottom" in order to be compatible with the 16:9 screens. Transformers: The Movie was released on disc as both a 4:3 movie and a 16:9 movie. This was often the case with the DVD format - where one side would contain a 4:3 "Full Screen" version and the other side of the disc would contain the "Widescreen" version.

The Blu-ray format has MESSED UP BIGTIME, though. Blu-ray movies literally do the EXACT OPPOSITE by making it so movies that are seen as 16:9 on Comcast and at theaters and up being "cropped" so they are 2:35:1 "Ultra Widescreen" movies for the home versions of the Blu-ray Discs. ... This is the WRONG THING to be doing!

When I watch Blu-ray movies that have "black bars" at the "top and bottom," I often use the "zoom" feature in order to eliminate the black bars. But in many movies, there are subtitles and text that appears closer to the left or closer to the right. This causes the text and/or subtitles to be unreadable.

Also, if the movie originally was 16:9, but is "cropped" from the "top and bottom," it is bad enough. Using a "zoom" feature to "crop" the "sides" makes it so you are seeing only a very small portion of the original movie!

I would like to know if anyone knows the answer to this question: Why are the Blu-ray versions of the movies released in a 2:35:1 format where the "top and bottom" have been "cropped" in order to produce "black bars," when in reality those movies should be released in a 16:9 version that displays a larger amount of data?

Just start watching Maze Runner 3 on Blu-ray and Comcast in order to instantly verify this for yourself. In the opening scenes of the movie, you see the power grid and all those towers. You also see all those destroyed cities and building. From "left to right" and "side to side" the Comcast version and Blu-ray version are 100% identical. However, from "top to bottom" the Blu-ray version is missing information not seen in the "top and bottom" of the Comcast version. For example, there are parts of the power grid and parts of the city not seen in the Blu-ray version.

Thank you. ... This problem NEEDS to be corrected. ... The HDTV sets we use are in the 16:9 format. Whenever possible, it is in our best interest to watch movies in 16:9 with as much of the original data as possible. When a Blu-ray is "cropped" into the 2:35:1 format, it truly is a terrible thing. It literally means we would be better off watching the movie on Comcast, because we would be seeing "more" of the movie.

We may even want to get a petition going to fix this.

Even if a person were to purchase an OLED Ultra-Widescreen device, it would still be in their best interest to watch the Comcast version of the movie with "black bars" on the "sides" of that OLED Ultra Widescreen device rather than the Blu-ray version. They reason why is because the 16:9 Comcast version would allow you to see "information" on the "top and bottom" that is not seen at all in the "cropped" 2:35:1 Blu-ray version.

Here's something to read to learn about aspect ratios and how they matter in TV and movies.
https://www.studiobinder.com/blog/aspect-ratio/

IMDB says that The Maze Runner was shot in 2.8K ARRIRAW (primarily) in a 2.39:1 aspect ratio, which is common for modern films.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1790864/te ... tt_dt_spec

Most often, when a movie shot in a modern aspect ratio, like 2.39:1, is shown on a modern 16:9 TV (1.78:1 aspect ratio is the same as 16:9) with no black bars at the top and bottom, the sides of the movie are cut off and the image is zoomed in until the black bars are gone. Another way to say that is a movie shot in 2.39:1 is wider than your TV. Thus, in order not to cut off the sides, the vertical dimension has to be squished in order to maintain the proper aspect ratio. Thus the typical black bars on the top & bottom. On a TV, which has a fixed number of pixels, the same information is now displayed using fewer pixels since the black bars don't give us any movie information.

I have not seen The Maze Runner nor do I have Comcast, so I can't comment on your specific experience.

You say it "needs to be corrected", when the aspect ratio is DELIBERATELY incorrect for the same reason it has always been incorrect for TV; Studios want to get you to watch in theaters "for the proper movie experience".

Old movies were usually shot in 4x3 format until anamophic and TV came along. Anamophic lets studios shoot a wider frame without changing film sizes. The more modern versions "overshoot", making a full frame shot that can be cropped afterwards to fit a variety of sizes.

Comcast and other streaming services get access to these "full" frame sources, so they can crop where they want. That isn't available to us as consumers. What is shown in theaters and pressed into DVD/BD disks is also derived from this.

Movies have been in the 2-2.4 range since before DVDs existed.

So, why don't they crop the BDs to 1.7:1? They could... but it would be different from the theater releases. It used to be that broadcasters put a disclaimer on to say that the over-the-air (or over-cable) version was "modified to fit your screen".

Short answer:

Blu-rays of today’s modern movies usually contain the director’s and DP’s preferred vision of the movie, how they framed it, which usually matches the theatrical presentation.

Broadcast versions of today’s modern movies are sometimes opened up top and bottom to fill the screen. It’s not the way that the films were intended to be seen, and can result in poor framing with too much empty space in the frame. Still, some seek out these versions out of interest.

The previous version of this discussion (that you allude re: seeing more on the sides) would go back to when we were in the transition from square to rectangle TVs and it was pan and scan vs letterbox issue.

You've already had this explained to you.

I knew I'd seen the "openmatte" stuff before, but I couldn't remember the name! Thanks!

mike_mgoblue wrote: ↑

Sun Aug 09, 2020 7:48 pm

This is the EXACT OPPOSITE of what "marketing" for Blu-rays tells us. We are always told that the 2:35:1 Ultra Widescreen movies such as Star Wars contains "extra information" to the sides. We are told that the Blu-ray versions of the movies allow us to see all that "extra information" to the sides. And we are told that is the reason why the "black bars" are seen at the "top and bottom" of the Blu-ray versions of the movies.

Star Wars does contain extra information on the sides that would be lost if it were presented in 16:9 (AKA: 1.78:1), but that doesn't mean that all 2.35:1 movies do. For example, Terminator 2 is a 2.35:1 movie that would show extra information on the top and bottom if presented in 16:9, and even more information on top and bottom if presented in 4:3 (AKA: 1.33:1).

Star Wars (1977), like most 2.35:1 movies, was filmed with an anamorphic lens which "squeezes" a 2.35:1 picture onto a full 35mm film frame, which is ~4:3. If you were to look at a frame of the film everything would be distorted to look tall and skinny. In a theater it's projected through an anamorphic lens that "unsqueezes" it to it's intended 2.35:1 aspect ratio. Since the whole frame of film was used for the intended picture information, the only way to present it in a less wide aspect ratio like 16:9 or 4:3 is to crop the sides off, and you'll also have to do the "pan & scan" process to it (especially if going all the way to 4:3) in order to keep important information on the screen.

Terminator 2 (1991) on the other hand, unlike most 2.35:1 movies, was filmed with a flat lens, so on each ~4:3 frame of film there's an undistorted picture. The cameraman makes sure that the action he's shooting stays within a 2.35:1 rectangle in the ~middle of each frame of film. When it's projected in a theater, an aperture mask is used to block out the parts of the film frames that weren't intended to be seen, leaving a 2.35:1 picture on the screen. When transferring to home video, they can do an "open matte" transfer if they want to (assuming the cameraman "protected" for less wide aspect ratios when shooting the movie, otherwise you might see boom mics, etc., if you do an open matte transfer). This has the advantage of not needing to do the pan & scan process. However, most home video releases these days are in the movie's original theatrical aspect ratio, regardless of whether or not there's extra available picture information on top and bottom.

There's also the 1.85:1 aspect ratio, which is slightly wider than 16:9. 1.85:1 movies (like The Terminator [1984]) are nearly always shot with a flat lens and then masked/cropped to 1.85:1.

And from your other thread on the same topic that Reiver linked to:

I recently watched a Blu-ray movie called Dirty Rotten Scoundrels.
This Blu-ray movie claims to have a resolution of 1920x1080 - as all Blu-ray movies do. In reality, the movie only uses a resolution of 1920x1036. There are very small black bars at the top and bottom of the screen.

That's because Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (1988) is a 1.85:1 movie, which is slightly wider than 16:9. A modern trend with home video releases is to open up the matte on 1.85:1 movies to 16:9, which is just as annoying as when the trend used to be to convert widescreen movies to 4:3 back in the days of VHS and early DVD. Fortunately, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels was left at its original theatrical aspect ratio of 1.85:1.

What really surprised me about Dirty Rotten Scoundrels on Blu-ray was the incredibly poor visual quality with all the digital noise in the background.

That's not digital noise, that's film grain. It's supposed to be there because Dirty Rotten Scoundrels was shot on film.

I then saw Dirty Rotten Scoundrels on Starz today on Comcast. Two things surprised me. First, there was not nearly as much digital noise in the Starz version of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. Second, the Starz version of the movie used all 1920x1080 pixels.

Based on your description, the Starz version is inferior to the Blu-ray. First, it's missing the film grain, which means they used too much compression and/or applied too much DNR, and second, they got the aspect ratio wrong. A non-letterboxed 1920x1080 picture is 16:9, which is the wrong aspect ratio for Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, or most any other Hollywood movie for that matter. The vast majority of Hollywood movies made since the start of the "widescreen era" are either 1.85:1 or 2.35:1. The weird 16:9 aspect ratio originated for HDTV; it didn't originate in Hollywood movies.

It seems very terrible that Cable TV channels have access to superior versions of movies when these Blu-ray movies are so expensive and show "cropped" versions that are inferior.

You have that exactly backwards.

The movie clearly was recorded and meant to be played at a resolution of 1920x1080.

No, the movie was shot on film in 1988 and was meant to be displayed in theaters at 1.85:1. The correct way to transfer that to Blu-ray is to crop the film scan down to 1920x1036 and then letterbox it out to 1920x1080 to be compatible with the Blu-ray standard.

By the way, no one in 1988 had digital pixel resolutions in mind when they were filming movies. They were shot on film negatives, which are analog, and projected from film prints, which are also analog. Film doesn't contain any pixels. Instead it contains film grain (which is produced when silver halide crystals are exposed to light), which is where all the detail lies, which is why it's a bad idea to get rid of it with heavy compression and/or DNR. You end up with the waxy look typical of a YouTube video.