Medieval Guy

I was really shocked when I got home with my Revelations miniseries DVD set, and found that the widescreen image is NOT anamorphic. I didn't realize that major studios still released non-anamorphic widescreen DVDs! Am I naive, or is this really strange?

Geofferson

This was broadcast in widescreen, right?

Medieval Guy

I'm not sure--the HD was. I watched the first couple of episodes, and found it interesting but too demanding on my attention to be spread out over six weeks. So I waited for the DVD--and was stunned when I got it. I just wasn't expecting a major-studio new-release to be non-anamorphic widescreen in this day and age. I think it's been two or three years since I've seen one...

BBEANLPHIE

The first 2 episodes got my attn but went DOWN HILLLLL from there.

MrE

Sorry to hear they skimped on the DVD. I enjoyed the series a lot. Of course now I'll always think of Fred Durst as pudgy, pasty and evil....

Mike Lowrey

Same thing happened with the recent Highlander: Raven set. Non-anamorphic widescreen transfers. WTF???

Squirrel God

Just discovered this myself. What a bunch of lazy cheapskates! It was recorded in HD so what's the problem with a 16x9 transfer?! Unbelievable!

I measured the aspect ratio and it's 1.96:1 as well, not 1.78:1 as stated. They even stuffed up the back cover of the Amaray case for Disc 2. Where the runtime should be it says "Run time for Disc" instead.

Another great screw up from Universal.

Josh Z

Are you sure it's not 1.78:1 with pillarboxing on the sides to counter TV overscan? Do you have a DVD drive in your computer? Play it on your computer and then measure the actual picture area.

I don't know one way or the other. I just think it's odd that the disc for this TV production would be wider than 16:9.

Squirrel God

I know what I'm doing Josh

I took a couple of screengrabs via PowerDVD. Viewed it in Adobe PhotoShop and did a width and height pixel count of the matted image.

It's 1.96:1. 1.96185...... actually. 720W x 367H.

It's not windowboxed.


Hopefully the UK Region 2 will be anamorphic when it comes out. Then I can sell this botch job and pick up a proper release

pro-bassoonist

Looks like a fairly certain 2006 release (MK2 release).

Pro-B

maingon

hope you like it cause the show went down hill after the first 2 episodes

Jah-Wren Ryel

That is so weak. Glad I recorded the HD broadcasts, except for one glitchy ~10 minutes in SD. Haven't watched more than the first episode yet, though.

Josh Z

Oh, I wasn't doubting you. I'm just perplexed.

I'm actually glad that I hated the parts of this movie that I saw on TV, because if this were something that I actually cared about owning I'd be really pissed.

Squirrel God

You should doubt me. Turns out I didn't know what I was doing after all. I just re-checked it and I was wrong. For some bizarre reason, damn PowerDVD was saving the screen cap to a pre-set size that was out of ratio.

It's actually 1.76:1, which is not far off from the 1.78:1 shown on the back cover after all.

I will now go and stand in the corner for several hours, hanging my head in shame.

bdhart

Were they rubbing the non-anamorphic transfer in our faces by making the menus anamorphic????

Squirrel God

Yeah, it's just not funny is it

Squirrel God

What's wrong with these pictures?











Thankfully, the logo only appears during Episode 2, and only from 00:03:46 until 00:04:02. But even so, on top of the non-anamorphic transfer and the misprinted covers, this is just another sign that this release has been pushed out without any care at all. But then what should we expect given Universal's track record eh?

GoldenJCJ

OH, screw that, I only saw the first episode but I found it to be highly entertaining. I was mildly interested in the DVD release but not any more. I guess it's good to know the series went downhill after ep. 2, I guess I won't be missing much.

The flaws are piling up on this one...

Josh Z

Holy crap, it's almost like they went out of their way to make this the worst DVD ever.

Eric F

Bahaha! I could have done better than that with my home PC and a HDTV card.

djtoell

I can only wish that a non-anamorphic (but apparently still of rather good quality) transfer and 16 seconds worth of a network bug were the ingredients of the worst DVD ever. Sadly, it's not even close.

DJ