i have a 52" samsung lcd.a lot of shows on and almost all hd movies i watch through my media player have a black strip at the top and bottom of screen.that is with both media player and tv set to 16:9.it always seems like you are missing part of the picture.is that the way the shows are formatted or can something be adjusted to change this
Yes, that's the aspect ratio of the movies, it's just the way it is. There's always the option of using zoom1/zoom2 function depending on the movie (zoom1 for most movies), but who wants to do that and ruin the quality. I don't know of any programs that let you get rid of the black-bars, maybe someone else can comment on that. And I highly doubt there are functions, other than zoom, on the TV and media player that let you get rid of them without reducing quality. Movies like Avatar and District 9 are in 1.78:1 aspect ratio, those will give you a full-screen picture. Ones that are 2+:1 ratio, will give you black bars. It's a shame really, I have a lot of blu-rays, and almost all of them have black bars, and I hate it, especially when you have a plasma and want to avoid IR/IB, plus your basically losing 1/3 of your screen. A lot of Directors/Consumers think it's "cool" to have black bars on top/bottom, and frankly I think it's just a stupid gimmick that has caught on in the past years just to try to "make" a movie "look better". Since Avatar has become a huge success, and since James Cameron gave many reasons why the 1.78:1 aspect ratio gives the best viewing experience, maybe more Directors and Consumers will follow. For now we're stuck with the black bars.
