oldmetalguy

I apologize in advance if this not the right place for this, or if this is 'too basic' a topic, but I don't know where else to go.

I recently joined the 'big screen' craze, and I need some help in learning about older dvd's and what I should expect (picture wise).

I do have a blu ray player, and several blu dvd's, as well as a lot of older dvd's.

I have made myself completely confused when looking to buy movies that aren't on blu yet (and probably never will be).

Let me try and explain what I mean. Now that I have a nice big widescreen tv, and I see how great movies look on it, I have been paying more attention to screen format listings for ones I want to buy.

for example, looking at amazon for a copy of john carpenter's vampires, and an old movie called 'Them', both are listed as the following:

Format: Full Screen, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby
Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1

comparing those to the listing for The Black Hole, it has this:

Format: Anamorphic, Color, DVD, NTSC
Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1

and finally, looking at Excalibur, it has:

Format: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, Widescreen, NTSC
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1


I know what the term 'pan and scan' is, so my question is, which of those will look like it did in the movie theater, without being chopped?

should I only pay attention to the fullscreen / widescreen tag, or does the aspect ratio enter into it? for the older movies (even something as far back as the original Frankenstein), most of them all say fullscreen.

any guidance I can get would help

tonyc3742

Generally you want "original aspect ratio". For movies that were released in theaters in the past 40 years or so, that will be some ratio other than 4:3, like the 2.35:1 or 1.85:1 you mention.
Older movies and many TV shows older than 8-10 or so years are only in fullscreen (4:3), and that's they way they are supposed to be.

But most movies are "widescreen", or some aspect ratio other than 4:3 (roughly that of an "old" TV).
Aspect ratios vary by movie, 1.66:1, 1.78:1, 2.35:1, etc, depending on what the director wanted. Generally any of those are "widescreen" and should be the one you want - I'm sure there are a few exceptions where the film was filmed in one aspect ratio, and altered to another for DVD release, but I cant' think of any off hand.

Old movies (pre-1955 or so) are "fullscreen", or 4:3, because that's how movie screens were sized at the time, so that's OK.
Here's a site with some explanation about the various aspect ratios.
http://www.widescreen.org/
http://www.widescreen.org/aspect_ratios.shtml

Mr. Salty

One tip I would give you is that Blu-rays are not DVDs. In other words, they aren't "blu DVDs." There are Blu-ray Discs (or BDs) and there are DVDs. Never the twain shall meet.

To answer your other question, the links that dtcarson posted are must-reads. When it comes to making a purchasing decision, you need to find out what aspect ratio a film was made in. That can frequently be found at IMDb, under "technical specs." Or you can look here. Browse through the reviews or just search for a thread about the movie in the DVD Forum or the HD area if you're interested in the Blu-ray.

To clarify, since the OP mentioned 1.33:1, 4:3 is the same as 1.33:1.

orangerunner

Another thing to watch out for is films that are "Widescreen" but not "16:9Anamorphic Widescreen" or "Enhanced for Widescreen TVs".

Some films, mostly older releases, are viewed in their correct aspect ratio but are transferred in 4:3 using black bars on the top and bottom.

This is OK if you're watching on a 4:3 TV (although anamorphic looks better).

If you try to watch it on a 16:9 TV, you get black bars on the top & bottom as well as on the sides of the screen or you may zoom in but it degrades the quality.

The best is widescreen films that are transferred in 16:9 anamorphic which gives you extra quality on both 4:3 and 16:9 TVs and provides films, in most cases, with the correct viewing ratio.

Travis McClain

dtcarson has already provided a link to the most useful online resource for understanding things like aspect ratio. Mr. Salty has distinguished between DVD and BD. I suppose all that's left for me to contribute is:

Welcome to the forum. And even though there was some confusion over whether BD's are DVD's, at least you spelled "Blu" correctly!

oldmetalguy

so, trying to infer the info from the responses, JC Vampires and Them are crap right away, the black hole has the right aspect but not widescreen, so it's a skip, and the only one good to go is excaliber?

I am taking all this to mean if a movie is less than 40 years old, if it lists as fullscreen, its not worth getting... which is really sad since a lot of the movies I want to get will NEVER be made into blu (a lot are out of print already).

so much for my budding media collection.

toddly6666

oldmetalguy, your best version for VAMPIRES is the Superbit version - anamorphic widescreen and DTS audio...



And for Black Hole, get the anamorphic widescreen, DD 5.1 Buena Vista version:

Travis McClain

I wouldn't worry about currently out-of-print titles never being brought out of mothballs for a proper widescreen treatment. There's much debate as to how long Blu Ray will remain a viable format and how soon it will yield to something else (digital download/streaming is the current odds-on successor), but regardless, the major studios seem aware of the interest in catalog titles.

jjcool

Some stuff just wasnt shot in a "widescreen" format, or wasnt intended to be shown that way. What comes to mind is Full Metal Jacket. When I shop for dvd/blue rays I look for widescreen. If the front or back of the case says "widescreen" that is good. Then I look for anamorphic or "enhanced for widescreen tvs". If i see "modified" i put the disc back.

Cheato

Sorry, but your statement about The Black Hole makes no sense. If it has the right aspect ratio, then that's all that matters(*)--not whether it is full screen or widescreen. In fact, the ratio you listed in your original post is 2.35:1. That's widescreen. 2.35 times wide as it is tall. Someone else already mentioned 1.33:1 is full screen.

(*) Besides, that is, whether it is anamorphic (when not full screen). If it is widescreen but not anamorphic, you will have some major quality loss, and you'll have to use your player's zoom function to have the movie fill your screen properly.



So once again, if it was intended to be full screen, and the DVD is full screen (4:3 / 1.33:1), then no problem. If it was intended to be widescreen, and the DVD is widescreen anamorphic (a.k.a. "enhanced") (16:9, 1.85:1, 2.35:1, etc.), then again, no problem.

Of course, there is a chance that the original widescreen was cropped into a new widescreen, but that's rare (The Last Emperor is an example). And there's a chance that a full screen presentation was cropped into artificial widescreen (the Kung Fu TV series, Season 1, for example).

You can read up on many DVD releases and their aspect ratios at DVDCompare.net.

I'd say that 99% of DVDs out there are released in their proper aspect ratio these days.

"Them" is open-matte full screen, meaning you're getting more image than what was seen in the theaters (top and bottom), which might be OK. Some people don't mind open-matte, but others do. Air Force One is another DVD that, I think, had an open-matte full screen release, but there is a widescreen version that is the theatrical version.

The aforementioned Full Metal Jacket (and some other Kubrick films) are debateably intended to be seen full screen, even though they were widescreen in the theater.

Lastly, from what I have heard, there is some kind of cropping problem with Excalibur. I haven't watched my DVD since I got it in the early days of DVD releases, but I have read that it is an artificial widescreen created from a pan&scan transfer. So, you're actually getting the worst of both situations. Cropped, and cropped again. At least it's not non-anamorphic, which would be like adding salt to the insult and injury.


Bottom line: your questions are not easy to answer. Basically, just do a little research, as was mentioned before, and don't jump to conclusions, and if you're finding that 25% of the things you want are in the wrong ratios, then you're probably not doing it right. Like I said, probably 99% of stuff out there is just fine. Quick searches and reads of reviews (for example, here on DVDTalk, or at Amazon--particularly the negative reviews there) will tell you if something's wrong with a release.

oldmetalguy

toddly666 - thank you! if you search on amazon for just 'vampires', that version doesn't even show.. i had to put in 'vampires superbit' for it to come up.. I had no idea it even existed.. and I can't describe how irritated that makes me, when I search for something, I expect to be shown all the choices, not just what they think I want to see.

cheato - thank you as well.. you may have said the same thing, but in a different way.. now it makes complete sense... although I would have had no idea about Them.. I really want to own that.

thanks to everyone else who helped.. it's sunk in. another of the movies I want is Colossus - The Forbin Project. searching on Amazon, its fullscreen 1.33:1, looking at IMDB, the film was 2.35 : 1, so that tells me the dvd released is pan and scan crap.

searching for 'Colossus - The Forbin Project widescreen' brings up one from amazon UK, in widescreen.

now I have to make the decision of whether I want to commit to also getting a region free player to get the version that I want (and there are other movies as well)

I must just be stubborn, I have no interest in netflix or streaming.. I see the movie in the theater, and I will buy the dvd / blu or not. I really hope things don't go that way.

thanks again everyone.

Cheato

If you're looking at other Regions, you're also going to have to learn about PAL and NTSC differences. I won't buy anything PAL because of the PAL speed-up issue (unless it was filmed with PAL in mind, like "28 Days Later"). Japan (Region 2) shares the North American NTSC standard, and some European region releases are actually in NTSC, as well, which is strange, but true. In addition to my hating PAL speed-up, my PS3, which is my only player at the moment, can't play PAL content, and is DVD Region 1. My "region-free" player suffered a glitch and reset to its default configuration (Region 3) and won't let me hack it again.

orangerunner

Yeah, aspect ratios can be difficult to detect what is "correct".

When you buy a "Full Screen" DVD it could either be "1.33:1 open matte" or it could be the dreaded "1.33:1 Pan & Scan". Usually the case doesn't say which one unless it's a film like Casablanca which probably mentions 1.33:1 as being the correct ratio.

Generally 1.85:1 films in "Full Screen" are "open matte" and 2.35:1 films have to be "Panned and Scanned".

On the contrary, I do recall an article about Steven Spielberg discussing the first VHS release of E.T. as he painstakingly took the time to properly reframe the film to fit a 4:3 screen.

E.T. was 1.85:1 and yet he apparently used the pan & scan method rather than using open matte.