You Asked: Black bar mystery solved and virtual mode explained

2 days ago 7

On today’s You Asked: Why dumb TVs are practically extinct and what it means for you. Plus, we dive into what Samsung’s virtual mode really does in its soundbars and tackle the age-old question: Why do some movies have black bars on certain streaming services but not others — even when it’s the same movie?

Black bars: sometimes there, sometimes not

Saud writes: I have a question that’s been frustrating me for a while. I have an LG G4 77-inch OLED. Some movies and shows fill my entire TV screen (no black bars), while others don’t. For example, while watching the John Wick series on Lionsgate Play, the first three movies were full screen, but John Wick: Chapter 4 had black bars. Why is that? It feels frustrating and even disappointing when the full screen isn’t used — like I’m not getting the most out of my TV. I’ve read this has to do with aspect ratios, but is it really the director’s choice, or are streaming platforms altering content to fit? If they do adjust it, does that affect the viewing experience?

Additionally, while watching Top Gun: Maverick, I noticed the aspect ratio changed during the aerial combat scenes. Was that done for a specific reason, and why not keep it full-screen the whole time? I’d really appreciate your insights on this — it’s something I think about every time I see black bars.

OK, so it starts with aspect ratios, yes. Most movies are not shot in a 16:9 aspect ratio, which is the aspect ratio of your TV. For the purposes of this mini-lesson, we can convert 16:9 to 1.77:1.

Most movies are shot in 1.85:1, which is pretty close to 16:9. Really big epic films are done in 2.40:1 or 2.39:1 — both of which are pretty far away from 16:9 and and are often called “anamorphic.” There are also a handful of movies that use 2.35:1.

Talking about the aspect ratios of the movies you mentioned, John Wick 1, 2, 3, and 4 was filmed in 2.39:1. Top Gun: Maverick was filmed in two aspect ratios: 2.39:1 and IMAX, which has a 1.90:1 aspect ratio.

Now, to explain your experience: Most Blu-ray discs will present films in their original aspect ratio, which means that there will be black bars. Some streaming services will zoom and crop the image so that it will fill the screen. Unfortunately, though, your screen is filled up, and you’re missing parts of the image because they have been chopped off. Not only that, but zooming and cropping can sometimes distort the image.

I’m not sure why the first three John Wick films you saw were altered to fit the screen but the fourth wasn’t. Maybe you watched it on a different streaming service? Often, the presenter of a film will disclose when the film has been altered. We see this message a lot on airplanes: “This film has been altered.” This can mean that it’s been formatted to fit the screen, and sometimes it’s been altered for language and content, too — meaning they take out the spicy scenes to be more kid-friendly or to help prevent embarrassment when someone is looking over your shoulder at your screen on a flight.

As for Top Gun: Maverick, most of the aerial and cockpit scenes (basically all the cool action shots) were done in IMAX. The rest of the movie — like the fighter jocks being cocky and cheesy or Tom Cruise messing around with his love interest — was shot with less expensive, more commonplace cameras and in a different aspect ratio.

They switched between the two shooting methods to achieve both the artistic and awesome factors of the film. The shift between the aspect ratios was less noticeable in the theater than at a smaller scale at home. Also, there was no way any movie featuring Tom Cruise was ever going to be compromised (we’re talking about the Purist-in-Chief, here). Now you know.

So, you can choose to fill your screen, or you can choose to see the whole picture, but you rarely get to have both.

Virtual mode: What is it, really?

Alastair wants to know what the “virtual” mode on Samsung Q-Series soundbars does and finds it odd there is little documentation on what this surround mode actually does.

The answer is relatively simple. Virtual mode is there to enhance the surround sound for anything that’s not Dolby Atmos or DTS:X encoded content. Do not turn it on if you are getting a Dolby Atmos or DTS:X signal — everything that is supposed to be there is already in the signal and all the drivers will be plenty busy.

If you are getting a basic Dolby Digital or DTS 5.1 signal, turning on the virtual setting will engage processing that attempts to add height channels where they do not otherwise exist. Does that mean that if you listen to a 5.1 mix without the virtual feature turned on that the up-firing drivers in your system will do nothing? I don’t know, but you can test that for yourself far faster than I can.

If you’re watching a stereo presentation, the virtual setting is going to do a lot more. It has to create a signal for all of the other speakers in the system — that means it will fill in the center channel by trying to extrapolate dialog and it will fill in the surround speakers and all the up-firing speakers.

Don’t forget that the soundbar is always doing some kind of processing. It has side-firing channels to expand the soundstage, and it uses those in all of its surround modes, even though there may be no signal specifically created for those speakers.

If you are looking for a more detailed breakdown, you’ll have to create it yourself. Most folks will be happy just knowing that virtual mode on a Samsung soundbar — and “virtually” every other device — is always going to fake a sound experience in the absence of precise audio signal instructions.

If you really want to know, you could play a 5.1 surround track, put your ear next to each driver in the system, and note which ones are active and which aren’t. Try this during a busy action scene where you would expect as many drivers to be firing as possible. Note which ones are not making sound, then watch the same sequence with the virtual mode turned on and you’ll find that it is using all the drivers at some point.

What is it trying to create? Height channels, for sure, but also some side-fill to ease the transition between the front and the back. Plus, the system is always trying to use psychoacoustics to fill out a center-back speaker. The soundbar system is designed to make it seem like sound is coming from every location possible.

No dumb TVs, please

This question has popped up many times just in the past week, probably due to the holiday shopping season: Do I really need to worry about buying a smart TV if I’m going to be connecting a streaming stick or streaming box to the TV anyway? Put another way: Do I need a smart TV to get the best picture quality, or, since I’m just watching my own sources, is it OK to get a non-smart TV?

Here’s the thing: Virtually every TV on sale is a smart TV. I would argue that every TV worth buying is a smart TV. I’m not going to say there are no so-called “dumb TVs,” but off the top of my head, I can’t think of one. If it’s over 42 inches, it is a smart TV, or it is borderline garbage.

Over the past few years, manufacturers have shifted away from making their own user interfaces in favor of ones that are baked into the smart TV OS offered by Roku, Google TV, and Amazon Fire TV. Samsung and LG, however, have created their own.

It doesn’t make a lot of sense for brands to have two different user interfaces and the chips that run them. I’m sure there are other reasons, but whatever they are, the fact remains that almost all TVs are smart TVs. And while I do think that the brand of smart TV interface can influence your buying decision, it should not be a priority consideration. I’ve always said this: Buy the TV you want for the picture quality, the sound quality, and the stability. If it has a smart interface you like, that’s a bonus. If it doesn’t, then you can work around it.

In my recent review of the Panasonic Z95A, I lamented that the TV’s only real negative was the Amazon Fire TV interface (because I don’t personally care for it). I took a little detour and demonstrated how to work around it. This can be done on almost any smart TV: You can set the TV up to open to your HDMI input of choice and pretty successfully ignore the smart TV part.

Make peace with the fact that you are buying a smart TV now. That’s where the market has gone since you bought your last TV. There may be much debate about whether that is smart or right, but it is a fact you’ll need to learn to live with.

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