Widescreen TV's and Widescreen Anime

[the white drew carey]

OK- So if you have your anime in widescreen format and you watch it on a widescreen TV, what happens to the subs which either go into, or are actaully shown in the bottom black part of the screen on a 4:3 TV?

I'm looking into a widescreen TV, but since I watch a lot of subbed movies, anime and foreign films, I'm kind of worried about what might happen here and if the subs will be cut off.

[JsARCLIGHT]

Most of the R1 anime DVDs I still have in my collection route the subtitles through the DVD player's hardware subs and they appear in roughly the same place/aspect ratio as they would in a 4 by set. If the anime is running a 16x9 ratio then the subs will appear on the images rather than in the black bars... if it is running an animorphic widescreen 2.something to 1 ratio then they will be half in the black, half on the image.

Don't worry about them getting "cut off" or anything... when in doubt they just take up more of the image.

[Nied]

OK- So if you have your anime in widescreen format and you watch it on a widescreen TV, what happens to the subs which either go into, or are actaully shown in the bottom black part of the screen on a 4:3 TV?

I'm looking into a widescreen TV, but since I watch a lot of subbed movies, anime and foreign films, I'm kind of worried about what might happen here and if the subs will be cut off.

336396[/snapback]

Depends on wether you're watching on DVD or not. DVD players have widescreen settings so that they cut out the letterboxing and display all subtitles on screen, there are some really old DVDs that don't work but for the most part you shouldn't have a problem. Watching on TV or VHS is another matter, in those cases you occasionally get some subtitle cutoff if you're watching in zoom mode (I had that problem while watching Paranoia Agent and GiTS:SAC on Adult Swim) Generally it's not that bad though and only the bottom of the subtitles gets cutoff.

[JsARCLIGHT]

If your subs are hard cut into the footage (like in bootleg VHS to DVD transfers and the like) then your subs WILL get partially cut off when you adjust your 16x9 set's aspect ratio to make the anime fill the screen.

On my plasma at home when watching anime on TV that is broadcast in 16X9 ratio but on a 4by signal (such as Ghost in the Shell on Adult Swim) I hit my aspect button until the image fills my screen... anything that would be in those black bars (like the AS tags) get cut off).

Edit: Nied hit it before I could add this.

Edited October 13, 2005 by JsARCLIGHT

[the white drew carey]

Thanks guys!

Forgive my ignorance on technology- I wasn't aware the subs are, for lack of a better phrase, processed seperately from the video.

Thanks a bunch!!!

[JsARCLIGHT]

Yeah the subtitle tracks on anime DVDs are handled just like multilingual sub tracks on regular R1 discs in that they run through your DVD player's hardware. Hence why subs sometimes behave differently and look differently on different DVD players.

[mikeszekely]

I've run into this problem aplenty already. It happens a lot with regionless foriegn films, most recently for me was Uzumaki. But I should point out that many widescreen TVs have multiple settings. For example, my TV has one setting that displays in 4:3 with gray vertical bars running down the sides. One setting displays the image in 16:9 by cutting the top and bottom (where the letter boxes should be if you're watching a widescreen DVD). One setting stretches the entire picture evenly. This is mostly good for videogames that support 16:9. And one setting that leaves the middle area of the screen unstretched, but then stretches the picture subtly as you move toward the edge. I've found that this setting is great for giving the illusion of widescreen to regular 4:3 TV and videogames. I can't remember how it works, but my TV has one other setting as well. The TV automatically adjusts based on the DVD, but if I find that it's cropping subtitles off, I just scroll through the other settings until I find one that looks close to the correct aspect but leaves enough of the letterboxes that I can read the subs.

[JsARCLIGHT]

You can eliminate that problem on most HD widescreen sets by running a digital line from your DVD player. I have one of those Toshiba upconvert players running optical to my surround system and HDMI to my plasma. The plasma automatically pics it's display setting based on the DVD playing back and is unchangeable. Which means if I hammer the aspect button on the remote it will not change at all and is locked out.

I've noticed on a lot of new widescreen DVDs released in the states (such as the Tommy Boy Holy Shnikies Edition) the menu is in 4:3 but the movie is in widescreen. With a digitial line most widescreen TV's will autoset themselves to the right resolution. When I put in that DVD it comes up as 4:3 with the bars on the sides but when you play the movie it automatically snaps to widescreen 16x9.

Might just be my unit and the one at work but it seems that most mid to high end HDTV units will do that with a digital line connected (HDMI or DVI).

Edited October 16, 2005 by JsARCLIGHT

[mikeszekely]

Might just be my unit and the one at work but it seems that most mid to high end HDTV units will do that with a digital line connected (HDMI or DVI).

The TV automatically adjusts based on the DVD, but if I find that it's cropping subtitles off, I just scroll through the other settings until I find one that looks close to the correct aspect but leaves enough of the letterboxes that I can read the subs.

My DVD player, a Samsung, is hooked up to my DLP TV via component video. (Frankly, DVI and HDMI are wasted on a 480p signal from a DVD player. Most video experts say that the difference between DVI and HDMI over component is imperceptible even at 1080i, and doesn't start to make a difference until you hit 1080p.) My TV is also locked into a certain aspect ratio for the HDMI input, but it still chooses what it believes to be the correct aspect ratio even for S-Video and component video inputs. The problem isn't that it chooses wrong... the problem is that some movies, especially lower budget regionless foreign DVDs like the copy of Uzumaki that I rented, have a fixed position for the subtitles, and they wind up getting cut off. In those situations, it might be necessary to chance the TV settings to leave enough of the letterboxes on screen without stretching the picture too badly so that you can read the subs.

[fernarias]

I use my computer to broadcast fansubbed anime onto my 1080i tv and it works like this:

If the anime is old 4:3 format then my player (currently using Core Media Player) puts black bars on the side of the screen just like it would for regular broadcast quality signal.

If the anime is new and at 16:9 format, my player will fill the entire screen.

Quite frankly, I think using a high definition TV to play downloaded anime works great. The video quality is fantastic and I love the large screen size. Even downloaded J-Dramas look better than broadcasted dramas. Example, Densha Otoko was shown in LA in SDTV and my downloaded episodes looked cleaner and brighter.

Only problem that I haven't figured out is why my video card and player will not let me watch DVDs that I own in high def on my TV, it says that screen resolution needs to be set at 480P, even though I can watch the same DVD on my LCD when resolution is set to 1280 x 1024, a higher resolution than my 1080i, which is just 1920 x 540. Of course this is just for CSS DVDs as my non CSS DVDs play just fine (example Farscape) and look great. The only solution that I have come up with is to just make copies of my DVDs and just watch these. FYI, the Animego Macross DVDs play just fine.

F.

[JsARCLIGHT]

I originally had my plasma hooked up with component cables from a normal progressive scan DVD player. With the component signal my TV would not auto orient it's aspect setting... it would just stay on whatever setting it was at and you had to do it for it and you could override any setting it was in by pushing the aspect button. I got sick of this and bought a Toshiba upconvert player. Now running HDMI meant somehow the TV "talked" with the DVD player and the aspect setting was locked out from the remote with the TV auto setting itself, you cannot change the aspect at all.

And for what it's worth I noticed a massive image quality jump from component to HDMI on my plasma. I used to get nasty color grain on my component signal... and that was with good component cables and a power conditioner. Switching to HDMI did away with that entirely. I also notice a very healthy cleanup in the image of a DVD when switching from 480p on my player to the upconverted 720p through the player. The 480 image just looks "jagged" compared to the 720. It's still not true HD resolution (like the HD channels) but it's so close now I almost can't tell.

Except for the jaggies. Subtitle jaggies still annoy me.

[Gaijin]

I have a Panasonic up converting player through HDMI to a Panasonic LCD...the HDMI will lock whatever the correct aspect ratio is being sent and is unchangeable through the TV...however, my player will allow you change the aspect ratio as well, so you can have 4:3 stretched or zoomed even through the HDMI. And I too, notice with a good mastered DVD, upconverting does make an improvement on many titles...not a night and day difference but noticably cleaner. Chalk it up to faroudja's chip in the Panasonic player. The subs with my Panasonic aren't jaggy except for certain films and a couple of anime titles.

[JsARCLIGHT]

Hey Gaijin, which Pano do you have? Mine is a TH-50PHD7 Plasma. I love the hell out of the thing.

[Gaijin]

LCD PT50-LC14...I love it.