Comment Re:Paying pirates (Score 1) 189
[...] I've got about $3,000 invested in a TV and a blu-ray player, and I feel ripped off. I can't find 1080p content. Most movies I get from netflix use about 1/2 of the height of my 16x9 screen. I had to abandon cable because the quality was so poor. Actually, DVDs or free downloads of rips from DVDs are about the sweet spot for price/quality.
I've been through a couple hundred Blu-Ray movies from Netflix, and they're all 1080p format. The reason the films use "about 1/2 of the height" of your TV is because many films (especially big special-effect films which account for a lot of the Blu-Ray releases) use an aspect ratio of 2.35:1, which is wider than your 16:9 (1.78:1) TV. If they didn't letterbox the image, they'd be cutting the sides off of it, which is worse.
I've seen better and worse Blu-Ray movie releases, but they're all 1080p (except Short Circuit, which is 1080i for some reason). Many of them can be criticized, but not because they don't fill your TV screen. If you're curious about a film, look it up on IMDB, and check the aspect ratio listed on the "Technical Details" page of the film.
I'll agree that cable look like shit, even most of the HD cable I've seen. Ugh.
