Help==>Download Movies-How to use more(all) of TV screen

[Jim_Kirk]

Premiere is set up with only 1080i Video Output Format checked. SD interface in use.

I like the HD display of broadcast programs [eg: NBC Nightly News] because it fills the screen on my 16:9 Sony TV :). When the broadcast has a segment that is not HD the screen shrinks with black bars on the side [TiVo format is "Full"].

So, I downloaded a movie from Amazon.com and play it on the TiVo. It is a letterbox movie and fills the entire width of the TV screen but the height has large black bands on the top and the bottom. It was not the pleasant experience I expected for a movie I paid for :(.

My questions:

Is there a better source that provides rental download movies that will fill the entire 16:9 TV screen?
What can I do to use more, if not all, of my 16:9 TV screen for movies I rent?
Any other suggestions to improve a rental movie experience?

[MichaelJHuman]

Premiere is set up with only 1080i Video Output Format checked. SD interface in use.

I like the HD display of broadcast programs [eg: NBC Nightly News] because it fills the screen on my 16:9 Sony TV :). When the broadcast has a segment that is not HD the screen shrinks with black bars on the side [TiVo format is "Full"].

So, I downloaded a movie from Amazon.com and play it on the TiVo. It is a letterbox movie and fills the entire width of the TV screen but the height has large black bands on the top and the bottom. It was not the pleasant experience I expected for a movie I paid for :(.

My questions:

Is there a better source that provides rental download movies that will fill the entire 16:9 TV screen?
What can I do to use more, if not all, of my 16:9 TV screen for movies I rent?
Any other suggestions to improve a rental movie experience?


There are a few reasons black bars show up. If they take up a lot of the screen, it's possible you are getting a letterboxed movie. That is, the movie is squeezed into a 4:3 aspect ratio with black bars. Movies in 2.35:1 aspect ratio will have black bars even on a widescreen TV!

You can try putting the Tivo into panel mode, which works to fix some issues on Tivo/Netflix.

If a movie was letterboxed, you would want zoom mode, but few movies should be letter boxed especially recent releases ( unless Amazon is doing something odd.) An example of letterboxing would be Turner Classic Movies which often shows letter boxed movies, because it's in standard def which has an aspect ratio of 4:3, and TCM believes in showing movies in the proper aspect ratio. I use zoom mode for this, which should display the movie with no black bars or minimized black bars AND people should not look stretched.

[jcthorne]

Your monitor panel is a fixed 16x9 aspect ratio. Most HDTV is recorded and transmitted in this aspect so it fills your screen.

Most movies are formated for movie theaters which use a variety of aspect ratios, some as wide as 2.35:1 If you rent a movie with an aspect ratio wider than 16x9, there will be black bars above and below the video as the width is maximized. Tivo is using the maximum amount of your screen and maintaining the correct aspect ratio for the film. Bluray is no different. There are ways of zooming or streaching the video to fill the screen but they either distort the image or cut parts of it off.

[aaronwt]

This is the same thing that occurs in movie theaters with wide aspect ratio films. It doesn't fill the whole screen. Although it is nothing new. Especially with TV viewing. The same questions were being raised when I got my first HD set in 2001. For some reason people never notice the different aspect ratios in the theaters. I've noticed them since I first started going out to the movies in the early 70's. The best theaters have a movable black matte or curain to cover up the unused part of the screen for the different aspect ratios.

[Jim_Kirk]

Scroll down to the Video Format details of a typical Amazon movie. Most seem to be delivered to the TiVo as Letterbox.

http://www.amazon.com/2012/dp/B0035FQ1UU/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&s=digital-video&qid=1270984720&sr=1-5

I tried cycling through the various TiVo formats [by pushing Zoom] and there was no change in the movie appearance on the TV [TV set to Full].

I suppose I could cycle through the TV settings [Wide Zoom>Normal>Full>Zoom] but I did not try that.

Anybody trying Amazon with similar or improved viewing results?

Thanks for the answers thus far. It really does take the viewing pleasure out of renting a movie when they look like the one I viewed.

[aaronwt]

Scroll down to the Video Format details of a typical Amazon movie. Most seem to be delivered to the TiVo as Letterbox.

http://www.amazon.com/2012/dp/B0035FQ1UU/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&s=digital-video&qid=1270984720&sr=1-5

I tried cycling through the various TiVo formats [by pushing Zoom] and there was no change in the movie appearance on the TV [TV set to Full].

I suppose I could cycle through the TV settings [Wide Zoom>Normal>Full>Zoom] but I did not try that.

Anybody trying Amazon with similar or improved viewing results?

The movie is showing up properly. There should be black bars above and below. For you to get rid of them you will have to use your zoom function on your TV. If it will work with HD. With my external scaler I can zoom or negative zoom any thing I want. But I would never zoom in a a movie that is intended to look that way. It was filmed in that wide aspect ratio and is intended to be viewed that way.

2012 is in a 2.40:1 aspect ratio. HDTVs use a 1.78:1(16:9) as aspect ratio
. You will see black bars above and below on any widescreen movie not in the HDTV aspect ratio, which is more than half the movies made. This is perfectly normal.

But if you want to get rid of them you have to zoom in on the picture to fill the entire screen. Zoom on the TiVo works on SD if in 16:9 mode and works on HD if in 4:3 mode only. You can't zoom HD in the 16:9 mode and you can't zoom SD in the 4:3 mode. this has always been the case.

[gamo62]

This is the same thing that occurs in movie theaters with wide aspect ratio films. It doesn't fill the whole screen. Although it is nothing new. Especially with TV viewing. The same questions were being raised when I got my first HD set in 2001. For some reason people never notice the different aspect ratios in the theaters. I've noticed them since I first started going out to the movies in the early 70's. The best theaters have a movable black matte or curain to cover up the unused part of the screen for the different aspect ratios.

When a movie is in Scope format (2:35 to 1), the curtains will move back utilizing all of the screen. When the movie is Flat format(1:85: to 1) the curtains will stay in. From a projector point of view, the apeature is different from Scope to flat. More of the 35mm frame is used in Scope than it is in Flat. All of the newer theaters have moveable masking.

[Jim_Kirk]

With us who are, ahmmmm, older our eyes want to see a TV picture a big as possible :eek:.

To accomplish this with a rental movie I see I'm stuck with only two solutions if I want it larger:

Use the TV Zoom command and accept distortion that goes with it.
Buy a bigger TV so I can make the smaller letterbox movie picture be larger :up:


I'm on my way to BestBuy now :D :up:.

Seriously, I understand now, and it's just the way it is when movies are viewed on a TV.

[FairfaxCA]

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=446644&highlight=netflixPremiere is set up with only 1080i Video Output Format checked. SD interface in use.

I like the HD display of broadcast programs [eg: NBC Nightly News] because it fills the screen on my 16:9 Sony TV :). When the broadcast has a segment that is not HD the screen shrinks with black bars on the side [TiVo format is "Full"].

So, I downloaded a movie from Amazon.com and play it on the TiVo. It is a letterbox movie and fills the entire width of the TV screen but the height has large black bands on the top and the bottom. It was not the pleasant experience I expected for a movie I paid for :(.

My questions:

Is there a better source that provides rental download movies that will fill the entire 16:9 TV screen?
What can I do to use more, if not all, of my 16:9 TV screen for movies I rent?
Any other suggestions to improve a rental movie experience?


Saturday morning while checking Amazon VOD for the weekend's specials I had similar questions? On Amazon's site the movie downloads to TiVo are described as letterbox in stereo. I think your questions will be answered in the thread I started. Read here (http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=446644&highlight=netflix). If you order your movies through TiVo Central and specify HD you should get what you are looking for. There was some very good information added by very knowledgeable people that you may find of interest.