Sorry, I'm just a little annoyed by it.

np A Respectable Trade (Julian Nott)

To make things even more annoying, you never know if a TV broadcast is Pan & Scan or Open Matte (unless you know the film well). I can adjust the zoom on my 16:9 TV, so I could simply zoom in Open Matte broadcasts to remove the "additional" image. But if it's a Pan & Scan broadcast, that would remove even more of the image.

Recent case: Alien³ on a German TV station. Original aspect ratio: 2.35:1. TV ratio: 4:3. Was that Pan & Scan (removing 50% of the picture??). Or Open Matte (ADDING more than 50% "wrong" stuff)? Or a mix? What a blessing I have the DVD.

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Originally posted by Gae:
In all honesty does much really happen at the edges?

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In a good movie...yes.

I'm actually disappointed that most of Kubrick's movies are in 4:3 - because that leaves black bars at the sides of my 16:9 TV.

On my 32" 16:9 TV (sure, quite large, but smaller than a projector image), 2.35:1 looks perfectly fine and large. Plus I don't believe that a 4:3 VHS tape has a better image than a letterbox 2.35:1 DVD, rather the contrary. VHS tapes have about half of the DVD resolution, plus they have generally worse image quality.

And finally, my argument for having widescreen at all: A scene that looks vast in widescreen never has the same impact in 4:3 format. The image you get from your two eyes is "widescreen", and 4:3 formats just don't have the same effect.

And BTW, although the resolution is horrible, I'm still glad my VHS tapes of Ben Hur and 2001 are letterboxed. Ever watched a Pan & Scan Spartacus? Though little Roman army.

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Originally posted by Gae:
I know that with some DVDs, my player stretches a 2.35:1 into a 16:9 aspect ratio unless I set the display to Letterbox format. Its really confusing, but with some DVD's it doesn't do this and comes up as 2.35:1 in any mode.

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Anamorphic ("16:9 enhanced") DVDs? They store widescreen images with full resolution by stretching them vertically and thus removing the black bars. Every 16:9 TV, and most 4:3 TVs have a "widescreen" options that squashes the image back to it's original aspect ratio, but preserving the resolution. There's a huge quality difference between anamorphic and non-anamorphic discs (non-anamorphic NTSC DVDs look really bad).

Marian said "Widescreen" (16:9/anamorphic), "Letterboxed" (4:3 with black bars) and "Pan & Scan" (4:3 fullscreen). I never tried it, but doesn't that mean that you can watch any DVD in pan & scan format, even if it is a widescreen copy?

No, this doesn't work...I've tried it! Mind you...now that you mention it, I might go and have another go . I've always wondered why this function ever existed...there must be a way of using it surely! Marian, believe it or not, a full screen VHS DOES look better than a 2.35:1 DVD image when projected. A projected image is much less clearer than on a normal TV screen..say 28". The quality always deterioates when it is made larger, that is a fact. Also, the pixels are much more obvious on a 2.35:1 image when projected than on a full-screen or 16:9. Although you cant see them, edges do become slightly squarer and some very fine details even blur and give a kind of psychadelic effect. I suppose even DVDs have their limitations when projected to a large size. Actually, I have a zoom facility on my projector and on full zoom you can see the pixels clearly! Interesting topic though. Gae

Some widescreen DVDs have a Pan & Scan feature that sets the pan & scan region for every single image. Perhaps the "Pan & Scan" setting only works for these discs.

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Originally posted by Gae:
[B]PeteM...Was that a video copy or DVDB]

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Don't have a DVD player as yet. Should get one, maybe it would stop these annoyanceses. Need money, though.

Pete

But for all those who don't think there's a great difference, check this out:

Alien³ Widescreen
Alien³ Pan & Scan

Also, why do you think many directors shoot their films in 2.35:1 aspect ratio? If the borders aren't important, they'd simply use 4:3, wouldn't they?

(Not to sound harsh, but you also wouldn't like the Star Wars score release to leave out half of the orchestra, would you? )

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The Black Hole Film FAQ says:
The transfer is unusual - it is an anamorphic pan and scan. In order to fit more of the original widescreen (2.35:1) image of the film onto the television screen (which has an aspect ratio of 1.33:1) the telecinist apparently transferred this film anamorphically at approximately 1.85:1 (hence the thin, vertically stretched look of the characters in this transfer of the film; circles look somewhat elliptical). Since the telecinist didn't squeeze the entire image on the video there still is some panning and scanning necessary during the film. (A good example is in the opening credits, where the telecinist had to pan & scan on the Director of Photography, and Story By credits.) The anamorphic presentation does however reduce the amount and severity of panning-and-scanning, and the use of jump cuts as compared to the Disney Channel Version.

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This isn't going to be as technical as what came before, just an appreciation of the format.

Actually, I'm not a big fan of the actual aspect ratio for most widescreen films: CinemaScope, Panavision, Panavision 70mm, etc. Really it's like looking at something through slats.

The real key to the widescreen experience isn't the horizontal AR it's the size of the screen you watch it on. This was made clear to me by watching IMAX and Cinerama films and seeing Scope films on a very large screen. Stadium size seating has returned to newly-built theaters and it comes from an understanding of this. Some people prefer to see an image that fills their entire TV set rather than see one which fills just a band in the center.

If you think of 4:3 as one TV set, then widescreen is really meant to be 3 sets side by side, not letterboxing on one TV set.

However, trying to watch a pan and scan image on TV is a nightmare, in most cases. Some directors deliberately keep the action in the middle just for this reason, others really use the sides. When you get a director that really uses the full screen, then it matters seeing it letterboxed.

Rocco mentions Japanese cinemascope: some of the best use of the aspect ratio ever comes from Japanese films. I couldn't imagine seeing Seijun Suzuki films pan and scan for instance, nor Preminger, Minnelli, Rebel Without A Cause and other Ray, Lola Montez, or 2001, to name just a few.

Just as some of the best Rock came from the early days when the first few performers were experimenting, some of the best Scope US films come from the early days as well: A Star Is Born, East of Eden, River of No Return, It's Always Fair Weather, Forbidden Planet, etc.

Those interested in the history of widescreen processes should visit the on-line Widescreen Museum at
www.widescreenmuseum.com

Some more thoughts on widescreen. First, the reason why there are 16:9 TV sets is that this aspect ratio corresponds the images we get from our two eyes. Plus (as I think I mentioned above), one of the big differences that make me personally to like widescreen far better is that it gives images more "scale". Imagine you want to show a person standing alone in a huge hall. This simply doesn't look good in 4:3 format. In 2.35:1, you SEE how lonely the person stands there. (And hence, if this scene is shown in a pan&scan version, while you don't loose any "important" picture information, it lacks the impact of the original).

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James Cameron shoots in 1.85:1 aspect ratio, but with 4:3 home releases in mind. I rather think this means that he can't take advantages of his framing, though.

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???? Cameron shoots Super 35 with a 2.40:1 ratio theatrically (with the exception of Aliens which used spherical lenses and was 1.85:1). When Super 35 comes to the pan & scanning stage it isn't really pan and scanned, it is cropped left and right and presented full frame. I don't like Super 35 much at all as it is used with making these full frame versions in mind. David Fincher is the only director I know to shoot Super 35 and have me convinced he was shooting Panavision.

I can;t not watch films in widescreen. On my 32" wide tv Ben Hur DVD (which is SLIGHTLY missframed and coppred at the sides) looks glorious in anamorphic mode, you still get a sense of scope on films like this, Bridge on the River Kwai.....etc....etc. You can't fault it.

Gae, you thoughts in saying a P&S VHS looks superior to a widescreen DVD on you projection system worries me in regard to the quality of your projector, screen size and DVD player. With such a set up there should be no question over which is superior.

Dan (UK)

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Originally posted by Dan Brecher:
???? Cameron shoots Super 35 with a 2.40:1 ratio theatrically (with the exception of Aliens which used spherical lenses and was 1.85:1). When Super 35 comes to the pan & scanning stage it isn't really pan and scanned, it is cropped left and right and presented full frame.

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Hm. I got my information from a website (forgot which one), and with Aliens being the only of his films I have on DVD and know that I've seen it in the original theatrical aspect ratio recently, it seemed correct to me.

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What I meant to say was that he shoots in a way that he can use 1.85:1 for theatrical releases (but apparently he doesn't) and 4:3 (by cropping a bit at the sides and opening up a bit at the top and bottom) for home video releases.

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Ok, you're still abit confused I think, my friend. With 1.85:1, when it comes to a 4:3 release there will be no cropping of the sides...(Well, occasionaly it happens, but it's rare since most movies like this are essential 4:3 and just matted to 1.85:1 when they're being shot or by the projectionist in theatres).

Anyhoo, when it comes to full screen presntations of this ratio in the home, it goes through the process of simply unmasking the mattes at the top and bottom of the frame giving more image info.

Cameron has shot with Super 35 since T2, and yes, this lets him retain the 2.40:1 theatrical ratio in cinemas and transfer to 4:3 in the home markets by opening up the top and bottom of the frame (like unmasking 1.85:1), while at the same time cropping the image info left and right slightly.

Dan (UK)

Again, I don't say this information is correct, and yours is wrong. But I'm absolutely sure the site stated it like I wrote it here.