What would you prefer for the Blu-Ray? 4:3 or 16:9?

[Gaffer Tape]

Oh, yeah, I think it's a much greyer area than, say, the cropping on DBZ. In fact, it's something I've never quite been comfortable with. When I first became aware of different aspect ratios in the first place, I started making sure I bought all of my theatrical films in widescreen because that's what got more picture and that's what it was originally shot in. Then I got the Back to the Future DVDs in widescreen and realized they were filmed in 1.35:1 and open matted to 1.85:1 for its theatrical exhibition. Their rationale was that more people would ultimately see it on home video than in theatres, so rather than have it cropped on VHS tapes forever, they'd shoot it in that ratio and deal with it later. So what's the "true" ratio for it? What it was originally shown in or what it was filmed in? Like I said, grey area, and I hate that it is. I wish there was a more cut and dried answer, like with DBZ.

[Hujio]

Actually, I read on Wikipedia that a dual-layer can hold between 50-100 GB. Maybe the information is wrong.

Well, in this case, Wikipedia is wrong. Here's the blurb from the Blu-ray.com FAQ:

How much data can you fit on a Blu-ray disc?

A single-layer disc can hold 25GB.
A dual-layer disc can hold 50GB.

To ensure that the Blu-ray Disc format is easily extendable (future-proof) it also includes support for multi-layer discs, which should allow the storage capacity to be increased to 100GB-200GB (25GB per layer) in the future simply by adding more layers to the discs.

I can tell you that the Kai Blu-rays released by Toei are around 21-22 GB. That sort of tells you that the discs have a capacity somewhere in that area, like 25 GB. I really don't think they'd put 21GB worth of material on a 50GB disc. Not even Toei would do that.

Anyway, as far as my preference goes... shocker! 4:3 fullscreen! My justification is that the show (Kai) was animated to be released and broadcast in 4:3, so that's how I want to see it. If Toei had only intended to have the show be 16:9 widescreen, then I'd be find with that since it's technically a new show and Z is already available in its entirety in its original 4:3 aspect ratio. Now, since we do have both a widescreen and fullscreen version, I'd be all for having both on the Blu-rays. But I am totally against a widescreen-only release! By that I mean, I'm against only being able to get widescreen Kai releases from FUNimation, with no fullscreen release. Also, this isn't just an issue with DragonBall. If you look at most Blu-ray tech message boards and whatnot, most people are outraged when something originally in 4:3 is released on Blu-ray cropped to 16:9. Although, I agree that Kai is sort of a grey area.

And Hell, I'll throw it out there. Technically speaking, anything properly encoded on a Blu-ray is in widescreen. You know those black pillar-bars on the sides? Yeah, those are actually part of the video which forces the video to be widescreen. So I guess no matter what, you're getting Kai in widescreen.

[JulieYBM]

While we're on the subject, does 'adding layers' affect the physical weight or size of the disc, or is layer of description of a digital layer?

[Gaffer Tape]

And Hell, I'll throw it out there. Technically speaking, anything properly encoded on a Blu-ray is in widescreen. You know those black pillar-bars on the sides? Yeah, those are actually part of the video which forces the video to be widescreen. So I guess no matter what, you're getting Kai in widescreen.

Oh, yeah, good point! Since I don't have a Blu-ray player, I'd forgotten that its native format is 16:9. Bleh, I feel silly. Not that it changes my argument, but it's certainly good to be reminded of the technical facts that are at play here.

[Kendamu]

And Hell, I'll throw it out there. Technically speaking, anything properly encoded on a Blu-ray is in widescreen. You know those black pillar-bars on the sides? Yeah, those are actually part of the video which forces the video to be widescreen. So I guess no matter what, you're getting Kai in widescreen.

My TV is 16:10 and PS3 only supports 4:3 and 16:9, thus stretching the picture to 16:10. I guess that means that the 4:3 Kai Blu-ray is going to be stretched vertically no matter what I do. With DVDs, I can at least set the PS3 upscale to "Full" (which'll fill the screen) and set the Zoom on my TV to 4:3 (which'll crunch the full picture into a proper 4:3) to fix it.

Now I'm wondering if the Kai Blu-rays will look alright on my TV. When I pop a Dragonbox disc in I normally have to do what I just told you about or it bugs me.

[MajinVejitaXV]

And Hell, I'll throw it out there. Technically speaking, anything properly encoded on a Blu-ray is in widescreen. You know those black pillar-bars on the sides? Yeah, those are actually part of the video which forces the video to be widescreen. So I guess no matter what, you're getting Kai in widescreen.

Really? I'll be damned. I thought it was a flag that told the player to display at a 4:3 ratio. While I doubt it'd be an issue with the newer codecs, that could suck since badly authored DVD's that were letterbox instead of anamorphic widescreen had ugly gray bars because the black levels were effected by the shitty encodes (at least, I think that was the reason).

My TV is 16:10 and PS3 only supports 4:3 and 16:9, thus stretching the picture to 16:10. I guess that means that the 4:3 Kai Blu-ray is going to be stretched vertically no matter what I do. With DVDs, I can at least set the PS3 upscale to "Full" (which'll fill the screen) and set the Zoom on my TV to 4:3 (which'll crunch the full picture into a proper 4:3) to fix it.

Your TV doesn't have a "original size" setting that will place black bars around the edges? That sucks.

[Kendamu]

Nope. It has Full, 4:3, Zoom In, and Movie Scale.

[Puto]

And Hell, I'll throw it out there. Technically speaking, anything properly encoded on a Blu-ray is in widescreen. You know those black pillar-bars on the sides? Yeah, those are actually part of the video which forces the video to be widescreen. So I guess no matter what, you're getting Kai in widescreen. :P

Really? I'll be damned. I thought it was a flag that told the player to display at a 4:3 ratio. While I doubt it'd be an issue with the newer codecs, that could suck since badly authored DVD's that were letterbox instead of anamorphic widescreen had ugly gray bars because the black levels were effected by the shitty encodes (at least, I think that was the reason).

My TV is 16:10 and PS3 only supports 4:3 and 16:9, thus stretching the picture to 16:10. I guess that means that the 4:3 Kai Blu-ray is going to be stretched vertically no matter what I do. With DVDs, I can at least set the PS3 upscale to "Full" (which'll fill the screen) and set the Zoom on my TV to 4:3 (which'll crunch the full picture into a proper 4:3) to fix it.

Your TV doesn't have a "original size" setting that will place black bars around the edges? That sucks.

Problem is, if you play a 4:3 Blu-ray on a 4:3 TV, you get black bars on all four sides. Blu-ray REALLY should have had an aspect ratio flag.

[Kendamu]

I downloaded an mp4 of the Kai trailer off of YouTube and played it on my PS3 last night. The trailer, like a Blu-ray, has pillarbars (because the FUNi logo at the beginning is 16:9 but the actual trailer footage is 4:3). The stretch was quite minimal compared to when a 4:3 DVD is put into my PS3 and the PS3 just attempts to fit it in place on its own. It's nothing that'll actually cause me a bother like when watching the DBox discs and I have to play around to get it right.

The only reason I cared was because I can't just stretch the Blu-ray image and then squish it to 4:3 like I can a DVD.