Blu-ray worth it for this set up ?

[ClassicMovieMan]

I have a Samsung L200 XGA projector (1024 by 768 native resolution). I know its 4:3 but a lot of the material I watch is in that aspect ratio and probably a lot of it won't be released in HD, some hasn't even been put out on official DVD. I was wondering if its worth buying a blu-ray player to use with this projector. I'm pretty happy with the quality I get now on old movies would I notice much difference in a roughly 80 inch image ? Yes I'll lose pixels for widescreen material but what about 4:3 movies ? Blu-ray resolution is based on widescreen so what happens with non widescreen material, how would that be displayed on my system ? Would a classic movie blu-ray still fill the screen as a DVD does ?

 

[Grangey.]

No it wont fit the full screen, it will only fill about 80% of it and then you will have the black bars above the image.

Whether you will notice the difference will come down to your own eyesight, in theory more pixels being downscaled to less= a better picture than less pixels being upscaled to more.

As for how "classic" bluray movies ive got no idea really what your reffering to.

All you need to remember is that if the disc is formatted in 16:9, your pj will make it fit into its 4:3 range. if the bluray (unlikely) is in a 4:3 picture, your pj will fill its screen.

 

[ClassicMovieMan]

Sorry should have made my last question clearer. What I meant by a classic blu-ray is movies made before 1953 most of which were not made in widescreen but in what was called Academy ratio or roughly 4:3. I assume these will be formatted correctly when released in blu-ray, a fair number (not huge I'll grant you but significant) have been released because if the 35mm film is good enough age isn't really an issue. I was slightly concerned by this for when I picked up Gone with the Wind in a shop it was labelled as 16:9 which is nonsense the proper ratio is around 4:3 I assume it will be in a box in the centre for widescreen TVs in other cases you can view it full screen. Then blu-rays all have a widescreen resolution so what does that mean for movies not filmed in widescreen ?

 

[Chox1988]

Your screen will downscale the 1080p image you feed to it to 1024x768, so yes if the input image is 4:3 (like the older blu-rays) it will fill the whole screen, if not you will get bars above and below. If you cant get the stuff you want on dvd release then its a no brainer anyway