8mm Forum: How do you tell if a DVD proper widescreen?

This is topic How do you tell if a DVD proper widescreen? in forum General Yak at 8mm Forum.

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Posted by David Park (Member # 123) on October 24, 2006, 04:34 AM:

Bought a DVD of Seven Brides for Seven Brothers it says Aspect Ratio 2.55:1 Widescreen. Great I thought as the orginal film was in Cinemascope. On playing it I get a cinemascope format in a 4x3 frame!
Now want to replace it but how do I get what I wanted, ie. an anamorphic version to fill my widescreen, what terminology do the DVD makers use for that? I feel taken in by the description on this one.

Posted by Mark Todd (Member # 96) on October 24, 2006, 04:54 AM:

I hate those, I bought Swiss family robinson for the nippers and its like that 266 in a 4/3 frame so on their 4/3 TV its hopeless, the bars seem deeper than the picture top and bottom, its better on the 16/9 family tele as you can pull it up a bit but still hopeless.
Another film fixed like that is Judge dread, I must try to track down an amamrhpic copy from another region as like that rubbishey tosh.
best Mark.

Posted by Joerg Polzfusz (Member # 602) on October 24, 2006, 05:56 AM:

Hi,

those DVDs are normally labelled "anamorphic wide-screen" or "optimized for 16:9 TVs".
(The label normally can be found near the region-code-symbol on the lower back of the box.)

Jörg

Posted by David Kilderry (Member # 549) on October 24, 2006, 11:30 PM:

Aspect ratios on DVD's are a real trap; it helps to know what process the film was originally shot in.

Seven Brides was shot in Cinemascope by MGM. Early scope releases were in the 2.55:1 aspect ratio if they were straight 4 channel magnetic. Optical tracks began to be included around this time for theatres that could not afford the upgrade to full magnetic stereo sound. These combination magoptical 2.35:1 prints essentially dictated the scope 2.39:1 aspect ratio we have in cinemas today.

The two main aspect ratios used today are 1.85:1, called widescreen, and 2.39:1, called scope. About 65% of all theatrical releases today are in scope.

A 16 x 9 television screen equates 1.78:1, so you can see that even the narrowest theatrical format 1.85:1 is cropped on widescreen TV's. Why they settled on this format is beyond me.

Why is Super 8 scope and 16mm scope at 2.66:1 aspect ratio? It simply magnifys the standard Super 8 or 16mm 1.33:1 frame by a factor of two on the horizontal. 35mm scope film uses a taller 1.2:1 frame to capture the squeezed image.

Just to complicate things further, most scope releases are actually shot on Super 35 these days and optically squeezed during release printing!

Anyway, the aspect ratio on a DVD will tell you what master or pre-print material the DVD copy has come from. It cannot be relied upon to tell you whether it is maximised for 16 x 9 screens.

Personally letterboxing drives me crazy. As a purest I like to see the entire image filling the screen, hence I buy 8, 16 and 35mm films and go to the movies often. On TV I am generally happy to put up with a good pan and scan.

Posted by David Park (Member # 123) on October 25, 2006, 12:52 AM:

"Seven Brides was shot in Cinemascope by MGM. Early scope releases were in the 2.55:1 aspect ratio if they were straight 4 channel magnetic. Optical tracks began to be included around this time for theatres that could not afford the upgrade to full magnetic stereo sound"

Yes but to complecate it more the Cinema Trailer on this DVD is the trailer for a 70mm version of the Seven Brides for Seven Brothers.

How the 70mm version came into being I do not know, never heard of this being used in the UK.

Posted by Tim Murphy (Member # 705) on October 29, 2006, 01:10 PM:

Hello (I'm new here!). I've found that a good place to check the technical specs of a DVD including whether it is anamorphic widescreen or letterboxed (ie non anamorphic) is http://www.dvdcompare.net - in the case of 'Seven Brides' it looks like the versions to go for are the region 1 or region 2 special editions (2 disc versions), all other versions seem to be non anamorphic. Hope this is useful.

Posted by Mike Peckham (Member # 16) on October 30, 2006, 02:00 PM:

Hey Tim

Welcome to the forum!

Mike [Cool]

Posted by Trevor Adams (Member # 42) on October 30, 2006, 03:00 PM:

Hello David,I got around the letterboxing on TV by buying a Philips gogglebox that automatically fills the screen-it simply can't stand bars! It is also handy for dvds with subtitles that can't be removed-it simply switches to "European Vista" and crops them out.Of course this lowers the ceiling somewhat(!) but at least lettering doesn't drive me batty(er)! [Smile]

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