HiDef movies that don’t take up the full screen?

Hey guys, sorry if this is a novice question – but why are so many of the HiDef movies I’m downloading not taking up the full screen? A lot of them seem to have horizontal blocks above and below the actual picture.. It’s strange because for example if I download say a TV show in 720p, most of the time it’ll take up my full screen so I can make the most of my TV.. but with a lot of the 1080p movies I DL I can’t appreciate the quality enough because it only ends up taking up about 2/3rds of it.
And it’s not like it’s a screen ratio problem.. because it’s already 1920/1080?
Anyone able to shed some light on this? How can I avoid it in future?
Many thanks!
Answer #1
I can’t really give you an answer, but i watch the original blu rays (not downloaded ones ) and none of them take up the full screen.
So they may well be meant to be like that.
Though i haven’t checked if my player could stretch it out.
Not an option for you though.
Answer #2
If you have been to the movies, you will notice that screens are a fair bit wider than your TV screen..!
In other words, Cinema movies are usually shot in a wider aspect ratio than widescreen TV format.
Hence to show them completely on a TV, the picture must be “letter boxed” with black bars.
If you don’t like it, you can do a zoom with your player or TV, but you miss some of the picture on each side..
This is quite often done when movies are shown on TV.
TV shows, being made for TV, are shot with a 16:9 aspect ratio, and therefore fill the screen naturally.
More about aspect ratios here..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aspect_ratio_%28image%29
http://www.thedigitalbits.com/articles/anamorphic/aspectratios/widescreenorama.html
Answer #3
I was going to post about ratios when i realised.
Tv is 16:9 or 1.7777:1.
And some movies ie star wars comes to mind are in wider format of 2.35:1 or approx 21:9