Your pet peeve, technical or otherwise.

[SiliconWizard]

Maybe the future for movies is an adaptive aspect ratio.
And not just consisting in cropping, but something more adaptive giving a better experience in various aspect ratios.
Haven't worked out the details though, just a very general idea at the moment.

[PlainName]

I think TV programs used to allow for 4:3 cropping with 16:9 output, to allow for those still with old sets. At least, on BBC news the presenters and any significant visuals were always within that crop area. (Looking now, I think it's still like that - the ident and time display are both inset somewhat from the respective sides. Subtitles, too.)

[james_s]

Maybe the future for movies is an adaptive aspect ratio.
And not just consisting in cropping, but something more adaptive giving a better experience in various aspect ratios.
Haven't worked out the details though, just a very general idea at the moment.

What could you possibly do? The director frames the shots with a specific aspect ratio in mind. Absolutely anything you do to display it in a different aspect ratio without black bars is going to involve cropping or stretching which is going to change the way the shot is framed. Some people won't care about that, some will. Many/most TV sets do have various picture modes and will zoom and crop or stretch the picture for viewers that prefer that. You could also install a frame over the face of the TV to mask off the unused portion if it was really that bothersome.

[rdl]

The problem is almost always because of stretching. Just don't do that and then fit as best as possible without cropping. I really don't see why this is so hard. Surely some kind of auto adjust is possible. If not that, or in addition to that, comprehensive aspect ratio and cropping controls need to be implemented. VLC seems to do it easily.

I stayed at a motel recently and whoever set up their TV system is an idiot. Everything was forced to 21:9 widescreen no matter the source and the TVs were normal 16:9, so varying amounts  of black bar top and bottom. I never saw anything that wasn't badly distorted while I was there.

[james_s]

Isn't that what they already do? The picture should be scaled so that it fills one axis of the display and has black bars on the other axis if the aspect ratio doesn't match. Properly configured there should never be bars on *both* the top/bottom and the sides.

[IDEngineer]

It should be easy to detect the incoming aspect ratio and scale it to fit the shorter screen axis, using black bars to fill the opposite axis. Some TV's even have an "auto" sizing setting but it NEVER works like this.

[james_s]

Mine has always worked like that. There are lots of ways to screw it up though, lots of people have no idea how to set up their TV, I remember when HD and flat panels were first getting popular I used to see them connected with composite video which is SD-only all the time. People had no idea that their HD TV was only HD if they fed it a HD source over a compatible interface.

[Ed.Kloonk]

When wider TVs started showing up, a client of mine complained that he now hated watching old TV shows. I asked why. He said the tops of their heads are chopped off.

I said that you need to adjust the aspect ratio on the TV. He said "Oh, I know that. But the Mrs doesn't want to see the black bars on the screen."

 

[vk6zgo]

Don’t forget the obligatory “What’s up gaazzzzzzz? It’s ya boy <insert_wannabe_gangsta_sounding_silly_username> blah blah blah blah”

This is when I click out. A rule for these drongo influencers; the bigger the microphone the smaller the content.

Sadly the yoof of today doesn't know how to use their kit. Have you watched them trying to use a phone they seem to use it in any other way than it was designed to be used.

Oh and don't get me started on the ones who have to try and outdo Dave and AvE on stupid ways to open a box. Daft idiots trying to use a hammer to open a box.

Yeah, they hold their phone out parallel to the floor in front of them & yell at it!
Meanwhile, the people concerned about RF exposure to the brain think that they hold it up to their head like a "real phone", whereas it's only "OFs" that do that.

[james_s]

When wider TVs started showing up, a client of mine complained that he now hated watching old TV shows. I asked why. He said the tops of their heads are chopped off.

I said that you need to adjust the aspect ratio on the TV. He said "Oh, I know that. But the Mrs doesn't want to see the black bars on the screen."

 

I don't get why the black bars are so offensive. Would it be that different than making the display narrower? Most people watched 4:3 content on a 19" TV, maybe 25" if you were well off, throughout most of the history of TV. Modern sets are huge in comparison so with black bars on the sides you'll still have a bigger picture than a 19" set in almost all cases, often larger than a 25". The wider screen can display a wider picture but there's no reason it has to. Lots of CRT sets had speakers or other cabinet features flanking the display.

[paulca]

Dynamic aspect ratio.  They did this back when widescreen became the norm in Cinema but not on home VHS/TV.  They did it manually back then, although it's possible to do it automatically now.  "Pan and scan".

On how "not simple" aspect ratio actually is, check these out.  https://www.red.com/red-101/anamorphic-lenses and https://www.red.com/red-101/video-aspect-ratios


Also check the various options for same when encoding MPeg video.  16:9 movie aspect may not mean a 16:9 pixel aspect nor necessarily 1:1 aspect.  In fact how "pixels" are treated is quite intrique and the pixels as the movie process from one format to the next are subject to change, including their size and aspect, whether down/up sampled or not.

[PlainName]

I don't get why the black bars are so offensive. Would it be that different than making the display narrower?

The hatred for phones with a notch springs to mind...

[paulca]

I was working for "Pace Plc" when 3G and 4G mobile data networks were only just starting to yield reasonably high "broadband" rates.

Phones back then (2012-2014) were only boosting 5" screens tops.

However, the amount of flak Pace started to receive because their media distribution platforms and DRM libraries did not support 1080p for mobiles yet.

People with a 4.5" screen with a maximum resolution of around 600x400 where demanding 1080p over 480p.... on a 400p screen.

[TimFox]

I find it amusing that there are now two simultaneous trends in viewing movies:
Ginormous screens in home theaters.
Minuscule screens on mobile phones.
Somehow, the producers need to produce content for both applications.

[paulca]

And both at the same time.  VR.  VR movie players make it appear you are watching on a massive cinema screen.

[themadhippy]

Its amusing all the moaning about black bars these days,in the days of proper cinemas it was common practise to  mask  the screen designed for ciniscope when showing a 1-85 film,no bugger complained back then.

[james_s]

I don't get why the black bars are so offensive. Would it be that different than making the display narrower?

The hatred for phones with a notch springs to mind...

I hate the notch because it takes out a chunk of usable display. I much prefer a bezel that creates black bars at the top and bottom of the screen, the complete image is available and the edges are straight. It would bother me if TV screens had a weird shape, and the notch wouldn't bother me if the weird "ears" could be blacked out and shift all the content down below it.

[IDEngineer]

Agreed. Anything that interrupts the usual rectangle is a problem because there's no "safe space" that anyone can know for certain will never contain important content. Classic example: Those scrolling text lines at the bottom of many TV news programs. They're often RIGHT OVER THE TOP of some similar text content in the existing video they're using as part of their report! Likewise the network's own logos or "promo pieces", often in the lower right corner... where they typically stack up over the logos/thumbnails of the content itself. Add in partial transparency (itself an admission of the stupidity of this concept!) and you get some weird Pollock-like renderings that are utterly unintelligible and completely frustrating.

A far better approach, if someone insists on stealing some screen real estate, is to downscale the image (to maintain the aspect ratio) and put your content in the created black space. Sure, it's still a visual interruption and maddening, but at least they've respected the original content (which is the reason you're a consumer of their product!) while satisfying whatever corporate overlords have demanded their own content be displayed. I see this a fair bit... the main image shrinks for a few seconds, some sort of nonsense content appears, and then the main image zooms out to the original size. That's an intelligent way to handle this.

[james_s]

I can't watch anything that has those logos hovering in the corner, or worse, the animated ads with sound that come up during a show you're watching. That trend pushed me away from pay TV and now broadcast TV in general. The obsession with branding the content reduces its value to me to zero, thankfully most streaming and content you buy on discs doesn't have this.

[PlainName]

I don't get why the black bars are so offensive. Would it be that different than making the display narrower?

The hatred for phones with a notch springs to mind...

I hate the notch because it takes out a chunk of usable display.

Just consider the display an aspect ratio that would have the notch be a black bar otherwise. Problem solved

[TimFox]

Agreed. Anything that interrupts the usual rectangle is a problem because there's no "safe space" that anyone can know for certain will never contain important content. Classic example: Those scrolling text lines at the bottom of many TV news programs. They're often RIGHT OVER THE TOP of some similar text content in the existing video they're using as part of their report! Likewise the network's own logos or "promo pieces", often in the lower right corner... where they typically stack up over the logos/thumbnails of the content itself. Add in partial transparency (itself an admission of the stupidity of this concept!) and you get some weird Pollock-like renderings that are utterly unintelligible and completely frustrating.

A far better approach, if someone insists on stealing some screen real estate, is to downscale the image (to maintain the aspect ratio) and put your content in the created black space. Sure, it's still a visual interruption and maddening, but at least they've respected the original content (which is the reason you're a consumer of their product!) while satisfying whatever corporate overlords have demanded their own content be displayed. I see this a fair bit... the main image shrinks for a few seconds, some sort of nonsense content appears, and then the main image zooms out to the original size. That's an intelligent way to handle this.

The worst example I face of the superimposed text and logos in broadcast TV is how they often obscure the network's display of the game's score in sports reporting.

[james_s]

I don't get why the black bars are so offensive. Would it be that different than making the display narrower?

The hatred for phones with a notch springs to mind...

I hate the notch because it takes out a chunk of usable display.

Just consider the display an aspect ratio that would have the notch be a black bar otherwise. Problem solved

Yes, like I said, if there was a way to shift the content down so that there was a black bar in place of the notch it wouldn't bother me. As far as I know though there is no way to do this, if you watch a video in landscape mode, the notch juts into the side of the video and obscures part of it.

[PlainName]

if you watch a video in landscape mode, the notch juts into the side of the video

Oh! That's a different matter, yes. Willfully aggravated design.

[Ed.Kloonk]

 
Sci-fi where the author bounces back and forth in time every other chapter.

Trying to get through Andy Weir's follow-up to The Martian, Project Hail Mary. Audiobook.

All over the place like Pulp Fiction. No gimp yet.

[paulca]

Yea I have endured a few of those kinds of books. 

I don't mind parallel stories and I enjoy the suspense on how they will all tie up in the end, but when those stories go on for half the book and seem not only distant to the story, but completely unrelated.

Ah.  An example.  Rama By Arthur. C. Clarke and Gentry Lee.  The issues with several of that series being from the later, gentry lee.  His sub stories in that book are horrendously boring and completely distant from actual science fiction, it's like the plot of a soap opra trying to run in parallel with 2001 A Space Odessy.   I literally started skipping all the Gentry Lee sections and the book was still digestable without them.

More tolerable but only just is KSR's Red, Green, Blue mars trilogy.  Wow.  That series has tangents that go on for hundreds of pages.  Like the whole swing into quadratic analysis of carbon / energy / effort economics that goes on for half of Green Mars.