my profile | my password | search | faq & rules | forum home

» Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE   » Community   » The Afterlife   » TV/DVD aspect ratios (Page 2)

This topic comprises 3 pages: 1  2  3

Author Topic: TV/DVD aspect ratios Bobby Henderson "Ask me about Trajan." Posts: 10973 From: Lawton, OK, USA Registered: Apr 2001 posted 12-08-2007 12:12 AM                     4:3 "full frame" DVDs do not guarantee you'll see the entire original negative 35mm picture in a spherically shot 1.85:1 movie or a 2.39:1 Super35 movie. A few years ago when The Matrix first appeared on HBO, I compared the 4:3 broadcast version to the framing on the DVD. The differences were interesting. Sure, the 4:3 version added more to the top and bottom area of the image compared to the 2.39:1 version. However, most of those 4:3 images were missing image detail on the left and right ends of the frame that you could clearly see on the DVD. A number of close up shots of actors were severely cropped just like regular pan and scan transfer (if image tops and bottoms were restored you would no longer have much of a close-up). Finally, most of the visual effects shots in The Matrix were composed for the 2.39:1 aspect ratio. Those shots are as badly panned/scanned as any anamorphic photographed movie. You can also see many of these same differences in other Super35 movies such as Terminator 2: Judgment Day.  |  IP: Logged Larry Myers Master Film Handler Posts: 371 From: Herndon, VA, USA Registered: Jan 2001 posted 12-08-2007 09:31 AM                 I will say this. I believe the 4:3 version of the DVD looks much better. One clear difference is the a shot of John Nash sitting at his desk. In the 4:3 version you see all his papers with his calculations. The 9:16 version you see John Nash sitting but you don't see the desk or his papers at all. In other words, the 4:3 version you see him sitting at his desk with all his work. The 16:9 version you really don't see the desk. You only see him leaning over working on something with the top of his pen revealed in frame. He could be drawing stick figures for all we know. You can't tell me that form of cropping was the Directors intention.  |  IP: Logged Bobby Henderson "Ask me about Trajan." Posts: 10973 From: Lawton, OK, USA Registered: Apr 2001 posted 12-08-2007 11:13 AM                     Maybe the director didn't intend for you to see all that stuff on the desk. If it was important he would have included it in the shot. Revealing previously cropped imagery can also have some nasty side effects. A number of movies and movie trailers have had things like boom mics become visible in the frame when recomposed to taller, closer to square aspect ratios.  |  IP: Logged Thomas Pitt Master Film Handler Posts: 266 From: Leeds, West Yorkshire, UK Registered: May 2007 posted 12-08-2007 11:52 AM                     I mentioned the CBBC channel in the UK crops all 4:3 programmes to 16:9. But I saw a couple of Cinemascope Tom & Jerry cartoons on that channel recently, and what they've done is awful! The Cinemascope version was telecined by a company, and pan and scanned to 4:3 before being put onto a videotape to be shown on TV. CBBC now took that pan and scan tape, and cropped it again to 16:9! So you're effectively seeing the middle of the frame zoomed in, like Joe said!  |  IP: Logged Larry Myers Master Film Handler Posts: 371 From: Herndon, VA, USA Registered: Jan 2001 posted 12-08-2007 01:01 PM                 Well Bob, all that STUFF is included in the shot or at least with the DVD 4:3 version. It could very well have been a series of stick figures and half eaten donuts in the disk. Then I would say the Director didn't intent for the desk and paperwork to be included in the shot. The whole 4:3 DVD version looks very clean to me which makes me think the widescreen 16:9 version is really a tunnel vision version of the original 1.85 screen play. Then again the Director might have known that a 1.33 version would be needed for a future DVD and television release so better keep those coffee cups and sound mikes out of the scene all together.  |  IP: Logged Joe Redifer You need a beating today Posts: 12859 From: Denver, Colorado Registered: May 99 posted 12-08-2007 03:15 PM                        I found the Terminator 2 pictures I was talking about which I posted years and year and years ago. Here they are: Here is a direct capture from the VHS version. You can see by looking at the bottom of the payphone how it is rigged to smash when Arnold hits it. Here is a direct capture from same exact frame of the DVD. You can't see the bottom of the rigged phone here because you're not supposed to know it was a simple prop.  |  IP: Logged Brad Miller Administrator Posts: 17775 From: Plano, TX (36.2 miles NW of Rockwall) Registered: May 99 posted 12-08-2007 03:38 PM                     Thanks for posting that Joe. I have never understood people who think just because picture info is there that it should be seen. Flat movies quite simply were MEANT to be masked at the 1.85 mark. The director did NOT intend for information outside of that area to be seen. Similarly, people who do not keep their flat movies carefully center-framed, either due to that foolish "they are cutting off their heads" argument or whether it is from sheer laziness (aka "I don't see a frameline so it must be right"), are also presenting them incorrectly. The director screened a 1.85 crop...end of story.  |  IP: Logged Randy Stankey Film God Posts: 6539 From: Erie, Pennsylvania Registered: Jun 99 posted 12-08-2007 10:31 PM                     I was sitting in a bar across the street from the theater where I used to work, having a beer with a friend who still worked in that theater. We were watching a billiards match on ESPN being displayed on a wide screen TV with "stretch mode" turned on. It looked like they were batting Easter eggs around the table! The two of us were laughing our asses off. (Get a few beers in us and ANYTHING is funny! ) The beertender couldn't figure out what was so funny. Neither could he see the problem even after being told, nor would he let us put the TV into the correct display mode. The picture is always SUPPOSED to fill the entire screen. So, I go to the video store to rent a DVD. I pick out my movie and take it up to the counter. The clerk asks me if I want the Widescreen version of the DVD instead. He can't figure out why I want the Full Screen version... Maybe it's because I don't have a Widescreen TV? It took me ten minutes to explain to him. If you have a "regular" TV you should get the "regular" DVD. Widescreen is useless unless you have a large screen or a wide screen TV.  |  IP: Logged Steve Guttag We forgot the crackers Gromit!!! Posts: 12814 From: Annapolis, MD Registered: Dec 1999 posted 12-08-2007 10:35 PM                     Got a problem with Letterbox Randy? Steve  |  IP: Logged Randy Stankey Film God Posts: 6539 From: Erie, Pennsylvania Registered: Jun 99 posted 12-08-2007 11:45 PM                     On a 20 inch TV? Yes!  |  IP: Logged Frank Angel Film God Posts: 5305 From: Brooklyn NY USA Registered: Dec 1999 posted 12-09-2007 01:57 AM                        quote: Brad Miller Similarly, people who do not keep their flat movies carefully center-framed, either due to that foolish "they are cutting off their heads" argument or whether it is from sheer laziness (aka "I don't see a frameline so it must be right"), are also presenting them incorrectly. The director screened a 1.85 crop...end of story. OK....point well made, but I would also add, that if the director was so concerned about his film being projected the way it was intended in the theatre, then there is a simple solution -- hard matte the damn thing like the SMPTE suggests. Yah, it suggests 1.66:1 hard matte instead of 1.85 just to protect slight errors in some theatres' lensing and plates, but with a 1.66:1 hard matte, there is a lot less wiggle room for framing errors. I searched but can't find that post some time ago where one of our FT members said he was running a sneak and the director kept coming up to the booth telling him to rack it up, then rack it down then rack it just a little more....all during the show. Well, I would have told him, hey, if you're was so concerned about the exact position of that frame center-line, next time just hard matte the release print; now get out of my booth.  |  IP: Logged Bobby Henderson "Ask me about Trajan." Posts: 10973 From: Lawton, OK, USA Registered: Apr 2001 posted 12-09-2007 03:13 AM                     On the subject of "center framed" Super35 or Super1.85, in terms of Terminator 2 much of that movie was set with the 2.39:1 safe action placed in a sort of upper third of the frame rather than something horizontally across dead center. quote: Larry Myers I will say this. I believe the 4:3 version of the DVD looks much better. Sounds entirely like an opinion to me. quote: Larry Myers The whole 4:3 DVD version looks very clean to me which makes me think the widescreen 16:9 version is really a tunnel vision version of the original 1.85 screen play. Again, an opinion over aesthetics and not something that really has anything to do with what the director truly intended with the movie. [ 12-09-2007, 09:17 AM: Message edited by: Bobby Henderson ]  |  IP: Logged Larry Myers Master Film Handler Posts: 371 From: Herndon, VA, USA Registered: Jan 2001 posted 12-09-2007 09:16 AM                 Actually the only thing for sure we might know what the Director intended to do with any film is to get paid at the end of the week. Otherwise, how will he pay his mortgage on the 6.7 million dollar house at Malibu Beach that his ex wife and her boyfriend are now living in? [ 12-09-2007, 12:09 PM: Message edited by: Larry Myers ]  |  IP: Logged Robert W. Jones Film Handler Posts: 74 From: San Antonio, TX Registered: Mar 2007 posted 12-09-2007 09:59 AM                     There is one redeeming value to television zoom ratios. It get's rid of the annoying scroll if I'm watching a 24/7 news channel. Too much info, I hate that crap. Some of the older "non-16x9 enhanced" DVD's I own still work like they are supposed to on my HD TV. A have letterboxing and a (full?) scope aspect ratio. Nothing's perfect. Compromise is for the mass consumers with no clue at all. In fact, my late Father refused to buy any DVD unless it was in "Full Screen" Format. That's because he was accustomed to his TV screen being full and found the letterboxing annoying.  |  IP: Logged Steven J Hart Master Film Handler Posts: 282 From: WALES, ND, USA Registered: Mar 2004 posted 12-16-2007 08:22 PM                        I watched The Lord of the Rings "The Two Towers" on TNT HD last night. The image seemed pretty good, but it filled the whole 16:9 screen, so they had to be tinkering with the original format somehow. I'm no expert, but I wonder if they simply cropped off the sides and zoomed in to fill the 16:9 screen. I also remember the film being darker at my theater than what I saw on TNT. Are films sometimes altered in other ways, such as overall brightness, for TV broadcast? Steve  |  IP: Logged

All times are Central (GMT -6:00)

This topic comprises 3 pages: 1  2  3

Printer-friendly view of this topic

Hop To: Select a Forum: Category: Operations -------------------- Digital Cinema Forum Film Handlers' Forum Large Format Forum Ground Level Feature Info, Trailer Attachments & REAL Credit Offsets Category: Community -------------------- Film-Yak Film Handlers' Movie Reviews The Afterlife Bob Maar's Joke-A-Thon Category: Classified -------------------- Equipment and Supplies Wanted/For Sale Help Wanted/Seeking Employment Category: System -------------------- Software Beta Testing Forum

The Film-Tech Forums are designed for various members related to the cinema industry to express their opinions, viewpoints and testimonials on various products, services and events based upon speculation, personal knowledge and factual information through use, therefore all views represented here allow no liability upon the publishers of this web site and the owners of said views assume no liability for any ill will resulting from these postings. The posts made here are for educational as well as entertainment purposes and as such anyone viewing this portion of the website must accept these views as statements of the author of that opinion and agrees to release the authors from any and all liability.