I have seen that some are in favor of 1920x1080 movies that are 2.35:1 vs the same movie, I only cropping the letterbox. Why is this? XBMC seems to play them at the correct aspect ratio. (I use handbrake and set anamorphic to none and check "keep aspect ratio" box)
I wonder the same thing. I can only assume that those cases are where people want to preserve the original bluray version of a movie, where the format includes the black bars, as to avoid re-encoding it. When ever I rip stuff I prefer to crop the black bars.
Some people just don't understand what they're doing/saying...
To remove the black bars requires re-encoding. Re-encoding lowers quality. I want the best quality I can get so I don't re-encode.
I used to but found that it was a lot work and no benefit other than slightly smaller files plus slightly worse picture quality.
In order to preserve quality,and I am no videophile, I generally just remux my content.
When it come to re-encoding, as the topic, I will agree with the OP. However I did not realize this was a problem, and that people did it. Handbrake for example, automatically crops the video for me. It's an option that even some of their presets have.
Maybe they are needing the video to be 1080p, HD, etc. So probably not knowing what they are doing.
Just a guess but I can't imagine cropping black bars would make that much difference to file size. It's hardly bitrate heavy action is it.
Guess I must be one of those who don't know what they're doing. When I play one of the files I ripped myself, keeping at 1920x1080, the file plays fullscreen on my tv. When I play a file that is 1920x800, it doesn't fill my screen unless I stretch or zoom it, which loses part of image from sides.
To be honest, I find it hard to believe that a retail bluray that claims to be 1080, is actually only 800 with black bars filling in the rest. Could you please explain?
The 1080 claim is actually normal and just an oddity with the way "1080" is defined. What people really should say is that a film is "1920", because most aspect ratios will max out the horizontal before the vertical. The "1080" resolution means that the film maxes out either 1920 on the horizontal or 1080 on the vertical, or sometimes both. One or the other will be lower in order to preserve aspect ratios that are wider than 16:9. Most movies will be wider than 16:9 (unless cropped), but most TV content will be 16:9.
So why do my 1920x1080 rips fill tv screen, while 800's don't? I use MakeMKV to rip my blurays. Is it cropping and then stretching the video or something without me knowing it? Is there a way to play the 1920x800's fullscreen without black bars without losing some of video on sides?
Seems odd to me that if I play a bluray that supposedly has black bars making up part of its 1080 vertical resolution that I wouldn't see them on my tv during playback since it is 1080p.
I'm sure, like me, all these people you refer to that want 1920x1080 instead of 1920x800 are like me. They think they are getting the black bars when viewing the 1920x800 files because the 800 vertical resolution doesn't fill their 1080 tv screen.
The black bars on a BR rip will still show on the TV because it's a part of the video file. The same file, even if cropped, will still show black bars in order to preserve the proper aspect ratio, unless you got a TV screen that is wider than 16:9. So in the end, both will be nearly identical when played back. It's just a matter of if XBMC adds the bars to preserve the aspect ratio, or if the bars are included in the video file.
The main issue being is that XBMC will give the literal resolution and think it is 1080, rather than just counting the non-black bar area.
Jeez you'd think most people would understand movie aspects by now.
Some movies are 16:9 aspect ratio, which will fit exactly on a widescreen - 1920/1080=16/9=1.777:1. There will be no black bars. TV is broadcast this way
However some movies are about 2.35:1 - to fit these on a 16:9 1920x1080 screen there need to be black bars at the top and bottom. If the movie filled the screen you'd either be stretching the picture vertically (ie people tall and skinny) or cut the edges off (edge detail is missed, losing the director/cinematographer's widescreen vision). The actual video portion will be 800 pixels high (give or take - 1920/2.35=817). There will then be 140 black pixels above and below to make a total or 1080 (140+800+140=1080).
The black bars can be handled 2 ways: You can encode 140 black pixels into the video file above and below the actual movie. This seems to be the way a lot of Blurays are mastered. Or you can encode just the movie at 1920x800 and let the playback software create the black above and below. This seems to be what most rippers who re-encode do.
Encoding black is not too hard, but the sharp transition between the black border and the movie is very data intensive and wasteful.
In short if you are simply remuxing and not re-encoding, you should leave the picture alone as much as possible. If you are re-encoding you should remove the black bars because of the waste of bandwidth involved in encoding the transitions.
For me it's never been to "make it smaller", but there's zero reason to keep black bars if you are going to re-encode the file. The fact that bluray discs are encoded with black bars is massively retarded and is just one of many examples of how bluray is a a garbage media format/container/whatever.
Another question: Why don't studios encode a 2.35:1 (or any other aspect ratio with black bars) anamorphically? And then set a flag to have it play in the correct aspect ratio. Widescreen DVDs did this right? Wouldn't it be beneficial in the long run so when 4k goes mainstream, you'd have a greater picture (more resolution to be upscaled=better clarity?)
Personally, I reencode because it cuts the file size of my digitally filmed films in half or slightly more (32GB to 9-14ish GB)
Anamorphic means non square pixels. Why not just encode it at the aspect ratio it is supposed to be and allow the player to get it right. ie encode 16:9 at 1920x1080 and 2.35:1 at 1920x800 or x816. Would save masses of bitrate.
It might only be additional data vertically, but it still increased picture quality within the confines of the format.