Why do I still have black bars on movies?

[fizz47]

I thought everything was pretty much filmed in widescreen but why are there still black bars across some new movies.

Mission Impossible 3 was on tonight and they had black bars across the top and bottom.

I thought we had reached a point where stuff was all one standard.

[Mr E]

Your widescreen tv is 16:9

Cinema is somewhat wider than that.

[Morningside]

21:9 I think ?

[craigjm]

Domestic TV's are 16:9 ratio and Cinema is 21:9. You can buy cinema aspect TV's from Phillips

[cw2k]

Cinema is normally around 1.85:1 or 2.35:1 (they adjust the screen mattes depending on the ratio being shown)

A majority are 1.85:1. Action films tend to be 2.35:1.

Widescreen TVs are 1.78:1 (a 1.85:1 films has black bars but you don't normally notice them as they are very small)

One of the widest film is Ben Hur which has a ratio of 2.76:1 and so has very large black bars on a widescreen tv.

Edited by cw2k on Saturday 19th November 23:56

[ajprice]

From a very quick google the minimum is 50" and starting price is just under £2k.

But wouldn't you get black bars at the sides watching normal telly? And wouldn't a film with the black bars cropped out (600-700 pixels on a 1080p HD movie?) be upscaled to 1080p height to fit the whole screen?