Ask S&V

Since your Blu-ray player's zoom is causing noticeable degradation of the picture,you might want to consider going with a Blu-ray player which utilizes the Marvell QDEO video processing chip (and has multiple precise zoom and aspect control options) .

A couple of options for such Blu-ray players are the Cambridge Audio units and the Oppo decks .

Any degradation should be very minimal and difficult to notice if you go this route unless you sit very close to your screen.

The only way to avoid both the black bars and any degradation at all with movies formatted wider than 16:9 .... at the same time is to use a 21:9 screen .

I made 2 more detailed posts under the similar question here : * http://www.soundandvision.com/content/how-do-i-adjust-movie-images-fit-m... * .

I think that offering multiple aspect ratios of a given movie on the same disc might be the best solution. Maybe they can do it that way in a couple of years as the data capacity of Blu-ray Discs expands .

I had hoped that HDTV would have put an end to the whole idea of changing the aspect ratios from what they were made in.

Really? Why can't a director make his movie fit your display? I'll bet, the director would ask you the very same question and in a lot more colorful language -- why don't you get a display that will fit the aspect ratio of his movie if you want to watch it?

My guess is the questioner is someone who, if he had a picture frame and went out and bought a Monet painting of a different size than his frame, he'd just gingerly take a box cutter to the Monet and trim it so it would fit nicely in his frame.

A film should be seen the way the director shot it and intended it to be seen, not bastardized and distorted for the expediency of the end user; it's not a hard concept to grasp. A viewer wants to distort the original image with his ZOOM control? Then suffer the degredation that it causes.

IMHO, the integrity of the director's work is so central to the whole process which allows the public to view it in their home rather than needing to go to a theatre, that the infamous HDCP system should, instead of only blocking DVDs and Blu-Rays from being copied by causing the display to refuse to play content that doesn't properly "handshake" with it, I say it should also refuse to allow the end users to switch the display to any configuration other than that which matches the original aspect ratio. Hit that ZOOM button and an error message should be displayed: "Content was not intended to be viewed in the format selected. The image is being returned to its native format...you freakin Philistine"

Kudos on answering questions like these without descending into insults.

That said, doesn't the questioner consider removing some of the image that was filmed "degrading" it? Because that's what you're doing when you crop an image down from its original aspect ratio.

My main point that there are different levels of degradation which come into play when using different Blu-ray Disc players and different zoom / aspect modes. Many people are unaware of this fact. I was unaware of it myself at one point. Many people do not consider this when shopping for a Blu-ray player and just assume that they all have the same feature set as far as that goes just like they all have pause and fast forward functions .... but this is not the case.

As far as not altering the aspect ratio goes,in some cases that is a good option but,there are different factors that can come into play.

For one,all movies are not some sacred piece of art not to be tampered with.

What if you have a plasma display in some secondary room such as a bedroom .... perhaps your child's bedroom and you want to put on a children's movie wider than 16:9 but yet you still want to follow the advice in the plasma's owners manual and not display the black bars for an extended period of time ??

There is no such thing as a 21:9 plasma display as far as I know. If there is,they are extremely rare.

Should you be forced to go against the advice of the people who engineered the plasma set ??

That is why I say that it is good to at least have the option of a precision zoom / aspect control function.

What about OLED ?? Does displaying black bars have a negative impact on OLED sets ??

A director's cut, and 16:9 viewing options can easily coexist on bluray... I consider this combo far more value than most features added to bluray releases, and both the videophiles, along with the mass market can be equally happy with no consumer having to make sacrafices... Filling up those screens only enhances the viewing experience...

I've recently purchased DVDs that a 2.35:1 movie was squeezed into 1.85:1 frame. My tv's black level is efficient and you cannot see the bars in a darkened room. Given these two facts, I'd suggest to the original question:
A) special formatted discs can be produced...and *you* wouldn't notice the difference. They could include these on the digital copy disc that's a throw away anyway! So, that's a good use of that extra disc.

B) you could get a higher end tv and have it calibrated, and then, when you watch a movie properly scoped in a darkened room, you wouldn't see the black bars. (Your picture would just seem smaller).

Barring either of those, I'd say your only option is zooming, or wait till the movie is shown on network TV; they still "formatted to fit the screen" their presentations on most occasions... And with a DVR, you could even skip the commercials you're not interested in, and watch the ones you are interested in... Or use commercial space as an " intermission" to refresh.

I like option A myself... Though, I'd watch that squeezed disc about as often as I watch the digital copy....but hey, at least the option would be there.