Enhanced, DVDs
Posted: Wed Jun 30, 2004 7:02 am
LETTERBOX or WIDESCREEN on any display
In a 4:3 world a film mastered for OAR presentation will have black bars on the top and bottom and is normally called "widescreen" and "letterbox". If it is 1.85 then there are small ones. If it is 2.35 there are large ones and the actual picture ends up being a small strip in the middle of the display. Some movies for DVD are still mastered this way and they should not say "enhanced" on the box. If you have setup the DVD player for the correct display these movies will appear correct on 4:3 display but will appear squeezed on a 16:9 display forcing you to use the format control to expand the picture vertically only (stretch and expand are common terms). This kind of mastering represents the worst way to experience a movie because you are using the bit-stream bandwidth to also encode the black bars or put another way you are applying the bandwidth to the full 4:3 picture area. The picture quality of these movies is fairly equal regardless of the display.
ENHANCED
Due to HDTV and the 16:9 ratio, which is 1.79, 4:3 mastering is a waste so most movies are mastered using a process called "enhanced for 16:9 displays" and that means they have applied all that bandwidth to just a 1.79 area which improves picture quality dramatically if you have a HDTV or 16:9 display.
ENHANCED on a 4:3 analog display
While it would make sense that an enhanced DVD looks better no matter what display you use the reality is if you have a 4:3 NTSC display you will not get the full benefits unless you set the player for 16:9 which will geometrically distort the picture due to the stretching effect of this mastering process. So for these folks enhanced just doesn't mean a whole lot. I will speculate that the reason it looks worse is because the signal must be scaled for a 4:3 display.
ENHANCED on 4:3 HDTV display
If you have setup the DVD player for a 16:9 display these movies will appear stretched forcing you to use the format control to compress the picture vertically only (compress and squeeze are common terms). In most cases this will create grey bars in the area that is beyond 16:9 just like an HD 1080I signal does. With a 1.85 movie all you will have is the grey bars. With a 2.35 movie you will also have small black bars next to the grey bars. This is normal for 4:3 displays.
ENHANCED on 16:9 HDTV display
If you have setup the DVD player for a 16:9 display these movies will appear correct at all times provided you are using the correct format. With a 1.85 the screen will be filled out because the difference between 1.85 and 1.79 is too small to show black bars on the top and bottom due to overscan. With a 2.35 movie you will have small black bars on the top and bottom.
In a 4:3 world a film mastered for OAR presentation will have black bars on the top and bottom and is normally called "widescreen" and "letterbox". If it is 1.85 then there are small ones. If it is 2.35 there are large ones and the actual picture ends up being a small strip in the middle of the display. Some movies for DVD are still mastered this way and they should not say "enhanced" on the box. If you have setup the DVD player for the correct display these movies will appear correct on 4:3 display but will appear squeezed on a 16:9 display forcing you to use the format control to expand the picture vertically only (stretch and expand are common terms). This kind of mastering represents the worst way to experience a movie because you are using the bit-stream bandwidth to also encode the black bars or put another way you are applying the bandwidth to the full 4:3 picture area. The picture quality of these movies is fairly equal regardless of the display.
ENHANCED
Due to HDTV and the 16:9 ratio, which is 1.79, 4:3 mastering is a waste so most movies are mastered using a process called "enhanced for 16:9 displays" and that means they have applied all that bandwidth to just a 1.79 area which improves picture quality dramatically if you have a HDTV or 16:9 display.
ENHANCED on a 4:3 analog display
While it would make sense that an enhanced DVD looks better no matter what display you use the reality is if you have a 4:3 NTSC display you will not get the full benefits unless you set the player for 16:9 which will geometrically distort the picture due to the stretching effect of this mastering process. So for these folks enhanced just doesn't mean a whole lot. I will speculate that the reason it looks worse is because the signal must be scaled for a 4:3 display.
ENHANCED on 4:3 HDTV display
If you have setup the DVD player for a 16:9 display these movies will appear stretched forcing you to use the format control to compress the picture vertically only (compress and squeeze are common terms). In most cases this will create grey bars in the area that is beyond 16:9 just like an HD 1080I signal does. With a 1.85 movie all you will have is the grey bars. With a 2.35 movie you will also have small black bars next to the grey bars. This is normal for 4:3 displays.
ENHANCED on 16:9 HDTV display
If you have setup the DVD player for a 16:9 display these movies will appear correct at all times provided you are using the correct format. With a 1.85 the screen will be filled out because the difference between 1.85 and 1.79 is too small to show black bars on the top and bottom due to overscan. With a 2.35 movie you will have small black bars on the top and bottom.