noddingdog Posted August 4, 2006 Share Posted August 4, 2006 I have very rarely downloaded a movie file and then been able to play this via my DVD player to my TV in a way that the whole area of the TV screen is used . Normally I have a rectangular movie playback screen much smaller in size than my TV screen. I have made sure that the TV screen is configured correctly but this has no effect on the movie playback size. I have a movie conversion programme and convert the majority to .avi format :( . Can someone advise me if there is a way of dealing with this problem,? :( Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kluelos Posted August 5, 2006 Share Posted August 5, 2006 Generally, there is not. A standard television screen has a certain proportion of height to width. This is called an "aspect ratio". A standard movie screen has a different aspect ratio, and is much wider than a television screen. If you try to make the movie fit the TV's height, the sides get chopped off. This really hurts some movies, especially outdoor shots. So you fit the width, and that makes the picture shorter than the TV screen. This is dealt with by those black areas top and bottom. The process is called "letterboxing". It's the best of a bad set of alternatives. If you buy a wide-screen TV that's capable of the same aspect ratio as a movie screen, it will look a lot better, but then television will look wierd. Some movies are just forced into fitting the TV screen, and whatever was off to the sides is just lost. Like I said, this can really hurt some movies. A good example of this is "Ben Hur", with all those chariot racing scenes. When it's not letterboxed, it barely looks like the same movie anymore. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
noddingdog Posted August 5, 2006 Author Share Posted August 5, 2006 Generally, there is not. A standard television screen has a certain proportion of height to width. This is called an "aspect ratio". A standard movie screen has a different aspect ratio, and is much wider than a television screen. If you try to make the movie fit the TV's height, the sides get chopped off. This really hurts some movies, especially outdoor shots. So you fit the width, and that makes the picture shorter than the TV screen. This is dealt with by those black areas top and bottom. The process is called "letterboxing". It's the best of a bad set of alternatives. If you buy a wide-screen TV that's capable of the same aspect ratio as a movie screen, it will look a lot better, but then television will look wierd. Some movies are just forced into fitting the TV screen, and whatever was off to the sides is just lost. Like I said, this can really hurt some movies. A good example of this is "Ben Hur", with all those chariot racing scenes. When it's not letterboxed, it barely looks like the same movie anymore. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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