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Topic: Letterbox format
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Joined: Sep 13, 2007
Posts: 4
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Like everyone else here, I have built a custom home theater that my family enjoys very much. My question to everyone, am I the only one who is sick and tired of this letterbox format? Oh we can hit the zoom button that usually cuts off part of the images but who wants that? The excuse I am hearing is "that's the way the director wants you to see it!" Really? Look at the movies with and without the letterbox and it is such a drastic difference (check out the last Batman movie). Nowadays screens are getting bigger and bigger on both televisions and projectors and so are the black bars. Is there anyone who agrees with this? If so, does anyone have any suggestions regarding who can be contacted to voice our complaints? I'm sure we all know someone who would like to see the letterbox format gone . Please voice your opinion and maybe we can get something done so we can enjoy the full usage of the electronics that we are paying more and more for each day.
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Joined: Mar 28, 2005
Posts: 13,326
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It's about a 50/50 split, and I fall into the other category. The human eye has better side-to-side vision than up down, and the widescreen display of 2.35 cinemascope images are just fantastic. I have quickly gotten use to the black bars which appear with my screen, but if they bugged me I would use a anamorphic lens and setup my system as a Constant Image Height (CIH) setup and add masking to frame in 1.78 viewing.

Movies have been shot in the 2.35 format for years and directors continue to shoot in that format and likely will for years to come.

I won't say that 'most' serious film viewers like scope, but it certainly seems to be about a 50/50 split, which means that I would not expect this to go away.

I believe that HDMI 2.0 has a call out to support native 2.35 format aspect ratio, so the use of 2.35 may possibly grow, not shrink.
AV Integrated - Theater, whole house audio, and technology consultation during the build and installation process in the Washington, DC metropolitan area.