This may seem like a stupid question, but I really need an answer. Please bear with me for this.
I've been watching episodes of The Office on DVD lately and have been noticing that in most of the shots, the characters' heads have been slightly cut off at the top. I thought this was strange, since typically the characters are centered on the screen so that you can see at least a small amount of space above their heads before the picture cuts off. So I checked to see if there actually was more of the image available.
I have my DVD player set to 16:9 for playing movies since I view them on my widescreen TV. To figure out what might be going on, I switched the DVD player to the standard 4:3 setting and adjusted my TV to show the image in the 4:3 ratio, so that I could view The Office the same way I would if I were playing it on a standard 4:3 television (with the black, unused space at the top and bottom of the screen). I also just played the DVD on my computer, using a standard, non-widescreen monitor. The results were the same. What I discovered was what I feared, as seen in the following image.
The grey lines just represent the aproximate spot where the TV screen ends, since the picture is so dark. I had to take it with my digital camera.
It shows that I am, indeed, missing part of the top and bottom of the picture when the DVD player is playing it in the 16:9 ratio on the widescreen TV.
I then simply used the zoomed picture setting that I'm sure many widescreen televisions have, which of course zooms in on the image to make it fill the entire screen, but also removes what I estimate to be at least an inch from the top and bottom of the picture. The following picture is, again, what I saw.
The top of the frame on the wall has clearly been cut off, the red button on the megaphone is no longer visible, as are two whole square-shaped designs on his tie, and of course part of the top of his head and everything above it.
I would expect this, knowing that the zoom setting cuts off portions of the picture, of course.
It's just that the image produced by the zoom setting when both DVD player and TV are set to 4:3,is exactly the same as the image produced when my DVD player and TV are set to the 16:9 format.
The only difference between this and the picture taken while using the zoom setting on the 4:3 image, is that when I change the televsion picture setting to 4:3 while the DVD is showing the 16:9 image, the picture is obviously squashed from the sides, with no black bars at the top and bottom of the screen.
I was able to catch The Office on NBC tonight, as well. I switched between the standard NBC channel and the HD NBC channel and got the same result. The standard version of the show, while having the black bars at the top and bottom of the screen, had more image at the top and bottom of the picture, than the HD version.
I tried one more test using my X-Box 360. I uploaded an image from the official website of the game, Halo 3, onto my X-Box 360 and got about the same result. Except that not only are the top and bottom cut off, the sides are as well. The first link is a scaled down version of the original picture I uploaded to my X-Box 360, while the second is another photograph of my television.
My question is, why is this happening? Why do I get more picture when viewing The Office (or anything else in this ratio) with the "black bars" at the top and bottom of the screen, than I do when viewing it on my widescreen TV, without the black bars? Which is what I thought shows like The Office were specifically filmed for.
Why do I also not get the full image that I uploaded onto my X-Box 360, instead of having all four sides trimmed off?
The picture quality when using the zoom setting on the 4:3 picture is exactly the same as the quality I get when everything is set to 16:9. I can't help but think that the picture quality (which I've never been too happy with when playing DVDs) would be better if I was viewing the show in what would seem to be the "un-zoomed" view.
I'm really sorry for the long post and all of the links, but I really want to be as clear as I can about my situation. Which I hope I was.
I really, really appreciate any help you can offer me.
