It never fails, one of the first thing just about every new HDTV owners asks is; why are there black bars on my new widescreen TV? And this is the reason why just about every HD discussion forum has a sticked thread at the top of the forums explaining why this still happens. So in this edition of HD 101, we figured we'd have our go at trying to give a simple answer to an age old question. The most basic explanation is because the image you want to watch isn't the same shape as the your TV. Of course that seems too obvious and now you're thinking; but why not, they're both widescreen? But rather than getting into the why are there so many shapes -- called aspect ratios from here on out -- we'll show you the various formats and the different ways they might be displayed on your HDTV.Just about all HDTVs have an aspect ratio of 16x9, or 1.78:1. This basically means that if the screen was 16 inches wide, then it would be 9 inches tall. This is much wider than older TVs which were 4x3 or 1.33:1. Things would be complicated enough if there were only two aspect ratios, but life is just not that simple. The most obvious examples that break out of these two are the ones used for most films; 1.85:1 and its wider brother 2.35: -- the only other one worth mentioning here is usually used for computer monitors, which is 1.6:1. Now It is pretty obvious that when we watch 4x3 content on a 16x9 HDTV -- or vica versa -- that we'd see black bars to make up the difference. But obviously this isn't the only scenario, because not only does it matter what the original aspect ratio of the material is, but it also matters what it was optimized to be displayed on.
4x3 on a 16x9 HDTV
Pillar box
Stretching
Non-linear stretch
Cropping
A combination of two
We don't have a good example of this one, so we'll just explain it. Basically this is what some channels like TNT HD do. The image gets cropped and at the same time a non-liner stretch is performed. On top of this, sometimes little black bars might be left on the sides which will either be not noticeable or won't be seen at all since most TVs have a little overscan. This is without a doubt the most tolerable of all the modified ways to show 4x3, but for us, when we do watch 4x3 content, we'd just as soon see the black bars.
Widescreen optimized for 4x3 and then displayed on a 16x9 HDTV
2.35:1 framed in 16x9
1.85:1 framed in 16x9
The last example is one you'll almost never even notice. The reason is that because 1.85:1 is so close to 1.78:1 (16x9) that the very small black bars on the top and bottom usually get cropped off in overscan. On top of this, most movie channels will crop 'em out anyways. The easiest way to see an example of this is to pop in a 1.85:1 Blu-ray Disc and disable your display's overscan -- every manufacturer seems to have its own name for this, Samsung calls it 'Just Scan' while Pioneer calls it 'Dot by Dot,' for example.
So these are the examples of why you'd see black bars on your HDTV. Ultimately the black bars aren't the end of the world and in fact they allow you to enjoy the image the way it was intended to be consumed. So rather than fight them, just kick back and enjoy the part of the image that is there -- we prefer to think of the image as twice as wide, rather than half as tall. The only other thing we'd like to point out is that HD comes in many different aspect ratios and although content specifically created for HDTVs is 16x9, an old movie shot at 4x3 can have just as much detail as a newer movie can.
Got a basic HD topic that you'd love for us to explain? Tired of Google's complicated answers when you asked for a simple explaination? Hit us up at ask at engadgethd dawt com and keep an eye on this space -- your topic could be next.
So these are the examples of why you'd see black bars on your HDTV. Ultimately the black bars aren't the end of the world and in fact they allow you to enjoy the image the way it was intended to be consumed. So rather than fight them, just kick back and enjoy the part of the image that is there -- we prefer to think of the image as twice as wide, rather than half as tall. The only other thing we'd like to point out is that HD comes in many different aspect ratios and although content specifically created for HDTVs is 16x9, an old movie shot at 4x3 can have just as much detail as a newer movie can.
Got a basic HD topic that you'd love for us to explain? Tired of Google's complicated answers when you asked for a simple explaination? Hit us up at ask at engadgethd dawt com and keep an eye on this space -- your topic could be next.