Bleach Blu Ray Side Black Bars even at 16:9

[vinylphobia]

Ripped Box Set 6 of Bleach using Make MKV and it shows when playing back the file that it is 16:9 but there is huge black bars on the sides and the 720p dvds copies i have look much better. Searched the forum and tried the MKVNix method selecting the video file and using the 16:9 vs 1920x1080p and it still persists. Checked the file both before and after and it shows in the properties that it is 16:9, but playing back in VLC and Plex it is clearly not working. Attached screenshot and Media Info in the attachments

Please help. What am I doing wrong?

[Woodstock]

Bleach is a 4:3 aspect ratio show; the BD conversion did not change that. The black bars, called Letterboxing, are used to fill the empty space that comes with upscaling 640x480 video to 1440x1080, then placing it on the 1920x1080 canvas of BD.

Handbrake will remove the letterbox, and reduce the size of the file by about 80-90% (anime compresses VERY well).

[vinylphobia]

Thank you for the reply. I am assuming that some of my other episodes were filtered through handbrake then because the black bars were removed and it fills up the entire screen.

I have tried to use handbrake before and failed. I could never really figure out how to get the copy uncompressed (RF Quality 0) without it taking days to complete. I am a firm believer in no compression to both audio and video. Would you mind screenshotting a recommended setting(s) for uncompressed remux of the files to remove the black bars but preserve all of the original?

[Woodstock]

Why would you possibly want RF=0? RF=0 is called "placebo" for a reason. If you're not dealing with an original, uncompressed source, you're just telling the encoder to "faithfully render the artifacts of the previous encode".

What's on the BD is not uncompressed. It has been compressed at about the equivalent of RF=16 or RF=18, then stamped on a disk. For anime in general, I use RF=20 in handbrake, starting with their "surround 1080p hq" preset.

If you really want to preserve every last pixel exactly, then living with the letterbox is what you want. Just remember that Bleach wasn't originally recorded as HD content.

[vinylphobia]

If you really want to preserve every last pixel exactly, then living with the letterbox is what you want. Just remember that Bleach wasn't originally recorded as HD content

I am a noob with handbrake and I just really don't understand the multitude of settings, but everything you have said makes perfect sense minus this statement. Looking at two episodes played back through Plex the 720P file is higher in resolution (being 30 times smaller in size) that the 1080P file. This is where I can't seem to understand why that is. And there is significantly less black bar space on the 720p file

If the original content is not HD and it was SD upconverted to HD by shrinking it then why does a smaller file/resolution visually look better than the 1080p file on my tv? I am comparing episode 99 to 140 and it is night and day better on the smaller lower resolution. You can see it in the attachment that the preview for episodes in the 90's are full screen and you can see the black bar in the preview for episode 140?

[Woodstock]

Lots of factors involved. One is that up-converting on a TV is done by hardware built in to the TV. Some have good hardware, some not so good. We do not get DVDs with "progressive" resolution; we get "interlaced frames", and correcting for that to display on a non-CRT display leaves artifacts behind.

When they do up-converting at the studio, they have the original recording (hopefully done in at least progressive frames), and more expensive equipment plus people who will do tweaks to fix things.

When you up-convert content, the apparent detail gets worse, because you're making the pixels bigger. Then, the algorithms try to re-do the blockiness by blurring the edges. You can see this in the "soft" edges of the clouds in episode 91. The original cel animation had sharp edges.

REALLY good BD releases will start with an HD master, or the original 35mm or larger film. Bleach didn't do that... a small part of the reason I stuck with the DVD version. And I've re-encoded the DVD version several times, as I've found different tweaks to make it look better. 366 episodes and 4 movies take a bit to rip.

[vinylphobia]

Thank you for all of your help on this woodstock. It is most appreciated and the information on the technical details has been informative