Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Letterboxing On TV Question

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Posted by Will Kutler (Member # 770) on 04-07-2007, 06:20 PM:

Maybe someone can answer my question? Why is it on television the opening and closing credits/title sequences to many films are shown letterboxed, and during the actual film it is switched to pann-and-scan?

For example, ABC TV For Family (a cable/satellite channel) regularly airs "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang", which was shot in Super Panavision. They show the opening title sequence and closing scenes letterboxed, but then show the film body in pan-and-scan. Why???

Cheers

K

Posted by Paul Mayer (Member # 355) on 04-07-2007, 06:26 PM:

Mostly so that all of the credits are visible. Otherwise they'd have to pan back and forth a lot or just let anything at the sides be chopped off. Sometimes I've seen where they just run the credits squeezed to 1.33 which looks really bad. Running in 2.39 letterbox at least gets all of the frame visible.

Posted by Ron Curran (Member # 3631) on 04-07-2007, 06:43 PM:

... and the commercial channels get viewer complaints that they are cutting off the top and bottom of the picture if they letterbox the body of the feature.

Public channels here often show films in the correct proportions.

What I don't understand is where they get those Academy Format prints of recent films.

Posted by Monte L Fullmer (Member # 2797) on 04-08-2007, 02:17 AM:

The practice of showing opening trademark and credits of features that were in cinemascope and leaving them in the squeezed format was the standard norm on TV back then - both local station movies and network movies..and also the end credits as well-squeezed.

Even when VHS/BETA pre-recorded tapes were introduced in the late 70's to mid 80's, these productions carried the squeezed trademark and opening credits.

I've got the VHS copy of "Chitty,Chitty,Bang,Bang" (wonderful on the big screen in IB Techicolor and 4trk mag sound) in this same condition as what Will mentions: Opening credits in letterbox with the feature in pan and scan..

ABC TV in the late 60's would begin the movie AFTER the opening credits were over with and then at the end of the movie, play both the trademark and opening credits....which was a bit odd to witness.

-Monte

[ 04-08-2007, 04:33 AM: Message edited by: Monte L Fullmer ]

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 04-08-2007, 04:26 AM:

Lots of HDTV programs are being letterboxed when shown on SDTV these days, while others are not. Do the letterboxed programs get complaints from viewers? Lots of commercials are letterboxed as well, and with the advent of DVD, perhaps people are finally getting used to it.

Posted by Mike Schindler (Member # 1309) on 04-08-2007, 10:21 AM:

And then you've got channels like HBO, which go so far as to letterbox THE SOPRANOS for their SD channel, but then crop scope movies for their HD channel. What's up with that?

Posted by Mark Strube (Member # 4190) on 04-08-2007, 11:00 AM:

HBO loves the 1.78:1 ratio, which The Sopranos is in. For their HD channel, that's what they try to get all content in, even if it means cropping or open-matting movies that are supposed to be wider. There are a few exceptions... for example Star Wars Ep. 3 was kept in its original ratio, I'm sure because Lucas betched.

I'd say they only keep their original programming in widescreen on the SD channel because well... they're HBO. Their programming is of course more important than these mere "movies" they get the rights to play.

Posted by Bill Gabel (Member # 1105) on 04-08-2007, 01:10 PM:

Letterboxing of credits also has to do with contracts between actors / directors and the other principal guild /union members on projects. So the other people in the credits get to ride on the coat tails of the others during the letterboxing. Even if the film is so many years old. It also has the do with credits and size of lettering and placement in posters and other advertising materials.

Posted by Geoff Jones (Member # 3668) on 04-08-2007, 02:45 PM:

Yeah, I got HBO for free for a few days through my cable company. I recorded a couple of movies (Red Eye & The New World) I had always wanted to see, but deleted them when I saw that they were cropped from 2:35 to 16:9.

I sent 'em a letter telling them I wouldn't become a subscriber as long as they were doing that. I doubt it did any good, but who knows.

Posted by James Westbrook (Member # 3690) on 04-08-2007, 03:04 PM:

The Encore channels are unpredictable: A lot of their movies are panned and scanned, but less than a couple of weeks ago, Action ran Diamonds are Forever and Live and Let Die letterboxed.

Posted by Steve Guttag (Member # 268) on 04-08-2007, 03:11 PM:

Showtime is normally pretty good about letterboxing.

Posted by John Lasher (Member # 968) on 04-08-2007, 04:16 PM:

quote: Ron Curran
...Academy Format prints of recent films

I hope that's meant to be sarcasm?

Nothing on TV is shown from a film print anymore. Even programming which originates on film (Many sit-coms and >90% of "Evening Soaps") is transferred to tape or some sort of digital media for broadcast. As far as how they get recent films in 4x3 format ("Academy" as you say), just log on to amazon.com and see how many recent films are available in FOOL Screen.

I get a wicked little thrill every time I have to explain to a customer why "Miami Vice" and "Flags Of Our Fathers" aren't available in P&S (short-short version: contractually forbidden).

Of course, I have the misfortune to live and work in a state with an illiteracy rating of 1 in 5.

Posted by Rick Raskin (Member # 1561) on 04-08-2007, 06:58 PM:

I happened to catch part of "The Ten Commandments" on HD last night. The focus was soft at best and I gave up watching. It looked to me that they were simply piping their SD broadcast into the HD channel. Given that TV doesn't run film in real time any more I think the least they could have done was do an HD transfer for broadcast. It was shown 1.33:1 instead of 1.85:1 and really looked BAD. [Frown]