Ok this problem really bugs me and I'm not really a A/V buff so I can't figure it out. I have a PS3 hooked up to a 1080p 16:9 flatscreen TV with an HDMI cable. When I watch blue ray movies some are actually full size in 1080p goodness, othertimes I have the damn black bars accross the top and bottom of my screen which is just annoying as all get out. My understanding is that all Blueray movies are 16:9 or widescreen. So what's my problem lol?
Your blu-rays may very well be in 16:9 but that doesn't mean that the original movie was shot in 16:9. To simplify: Your PS3/TV shows the entire picture. Some movies are wider than 16:9 and to not cut away parts of the movie the image is sized so the full width is viewable. Now if the aspect-respecting resizing didn't happen then you would be watching movies with distorted aspect. Meaning that movies filmed at wider than 16:9 would be squeezed horizontally and everything would look rather crappy. If you have black bars on all 4 sides then you have an issue. Otherwise everything is perfectly as it should be.
Widescreen Movie+Widescreen TV should = movie taking up the whole screen. Someone needs to die. Who did it...
LOL Give it up kid. Just be happy that you're getting high-definition sweetness while it respects the content (movies). Learn more about aspect ratios: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aspect_ratio_(image)
How on earth would you show a movie filmed in e.g. Panavision (2.35 : 1) on a 16 : 9 display without having black bars at the top and bottom? You *could* have the image cropped, but who really wants that? And no, I wouldn't want movies shot only in 16 : 9 "because"... Either way, I'm afraid you'll have to live with black bars at the top and bottom, or at both sides, when watching 4 : 3 content.
