trying to do widescreen slideshow

slambubba wrote on 3/22/2006, 3:53 PM
i'm going to start on a slideshow and i want it to be widescreen. i just did a test project using a couple of pictures. here is what i did:

1. new vegas project using "NTSC DV Widescreen".
2. i used "Match Output Aspect" on each picture.
3. render using "DVD Architect NTSC Widescreen video stream".
4. single movie "NTSC Widescreen" project in DVDA.
5. prepare and burn using DVDA.

when i played in my widescreen without stretching, there was a black margin on the top, bottom, and both sides. when i played on a standard TV, the top and bottom had the margin. does this sound right or should my widescreen not have any margins?

Comments

Sol M. wrote on 3/23/2006, 3:38 AM
A regular 4:3 aspect television will show widescreen as letterboxed (with bars above and below the image as you've described).

For a widescreen television to properly display widescreen content, you may have to change a setting on the TV itself for the content to fill the screen.
Bob Greaves wrote on 3/23/2006, 6:00 AM
This is one of the reasons I am yet to even think about purchasing a widescreen TV. So many of them cannot have the aspect ratio match the movie they are playing.

I was watching Harry Potter in a TV store and we could not change the aspect ratio of the $2500 TV to match to save our lives!
Sol M. wrote on 3/23/2006, 3:34 PM
It's very unlikely you'll ever find a TV that will "match" all widescreen content. The reason being that there is more than one widescreen aspect ratio used in film production (16:9/1.78:1 and 2.35:1 to name a couple). So if you had a TV that could fill the screen with 16:9 content, you'd still get letterboxing when viewing 2.35:1 content.

Here's a couple selected links google turned up on the topic:

OAR: The Guide to Film Aspect Ratios
Wikipedia: Aspect ratio (image)
Bob Greaves wrote on 3/23/2006, 5:22 PM
Letterboxing was not the problem. This TV could not display that movie at a correct aspect ratio no matter how it was set with or without letterboxing. Every setting, even those that had a letterbox were distorted some even filled the screen from top to bottom but was a pan scan result out of ratio.

I've not looked at too many but when I run into a problem like this it makes me feel that the technology is not quite right for prime time.