Thank you very much for these comparisons Mr dirtbiker!
A different technical aside here, absolutely no need for a new topic. Don't fall asleep...
Contains some boring engineerish stuff...
BBM's aspect ratio is 1.85:1 but ordinary TV sets are 1.78:1 (16:9), thus a slight difference. In theory there should be thin black bars at the top and the bottom of the TV screen while watching 1:1.85 films. In practise the black bars are usually nonexistent because TVs are adjusted to 'hide' part of the picture on
all edges unless
intentionally adjusted otherwise in some
maintenance menu which isn't normally accessible. But by the advent of
HDMI things have changed: the 'end user' can choose how the picture is shown, e.g. (just some rough snap shots of mine):
Horizontally notice Ennis's sleeve; vertically the difference is slighter. Ignore the right edge of the images.
The thin black bars are shown, i.e. the very
full picture stored on disc, at the top and the bottom using the 'Full Pixel' setting (in Sony).
Computer screens/displays usually show the full picture (depending on your adjustments, of course).
***
Another, even slighter detail:
The situation is a bit more complicated but in a very positive way. Our dear friends Down Under have their DVDs/Blu-rays in (full) 1:1.78 (see
here), i.e. some additional picture at the top and the bottom.
A frame from an Australian DVD:
The same frame from a European DVD:
The Australian releases are sort of a 'crossover' between the normal widescreen releases and the American full screen release. Technically speaking the Australian Blu-ray is the best presentation of BBM. It seems that they have a film-to-video transfer of their own.
There is some ambiguity between the terms "Full Frame" and "Full Screen".
Thanks for reading!