I completely understand the difference between Widescreen and Enhanced. However, I don't understand why a movie would ever be released in Widescreen as opposed to Enhanced? It has nothing to do with how it's filmed but rather how it's encoded, right? And if we're talking about something possibly as easy as checking the 16x9 enhanced box in a software encoding program, then why not do it for all movies? It's not like it would cost any more money. Am I missing something here or is this just sound crazy?

It's not as simple as clicking a box. A new film-to-video transfer is needed. These days, almost all widescreen releases are anamorphically enhanced, however in the early days of the format many studios simply re-used old laserdisc masters that were not anamorphic.

As far as a new disc like the Ransom SE goes, that's just laziness from Buena Vista re-using the master from the old DVD, which was in turn recycled from the laserdisc.

The words "widescreen" and "enhanced" are not mutually exclusive. Enhanced DVDs by definition are widescreen. But yeah, I get what you mean.

Most widescreen DVDs released today are enhanced. In the early days of DVD, though, studios were using a lot of existing laserdisc transfers, which at the time were good quality and may have been only a year or two old, so they didn't want to pay for yet another transfer.

Another aspect to this is that DVD took off faster than anyone had anticipated, so there was a push to release titles as fast as possible. Using existing non-anamorphic transfers was a way to accomplish this, and very few people at the time owned televisions that could take advantage of anamorphic enhancement.

A third thing to consider is that many early DVD players weren't that great at downconverting anamorphic DVDs for display on a standard TV, so some filmmakers and studios didn't see enhancement as being all that great.

Enhance........Enhance........Enhance.....

Thank you for your thoughtful contribution to the discussion. Stop in again sometime.

You left off the d. Shouldn't it be

Enhanced........Enhanced........Enhanced.....

I've never heard anyone call it Enhance Widescreen

Buena Vista has a history of re-releasing non-anamorphic dvds. Nixon comes immediately to mind. In fact, on the SE, the extra footage actually stands out and doesn't even match the aspect ratio of the original footage I'm told. That's just ridiculous and very lazy.

I watched the Nixon SE last month. Hands down the WORST non-anamorphic transfer I've watched yet on my 57" display.

Hopefully Ransom SE won't compete for that honor.

The difference is that a 16:9 anamorphic transfer is a higher-resolution image than a non-enhanced transfer.

Pretty much all widescreen transfers which are newly done for DVD are enhanced for widescreen televisions, but there are a lot of discs that ported over the lower-res laserdisc transfer, and therefore they can't be enhanced for 16:9 without a LOSS in resolution.

There are numerous explanations online of what "anamorphically enhanced" means - but basically with a 16:9 transfer the black bars are generated by the player, and the image data takes up all of the available bit space - whereas with a non-anamorphic transfer the black bars are *part* of the image data - which means that if you were to blow it up you'd notice the lack of resolution.

The best thing about HD-DVD is that it will REQUIRE new transfers. With standard DVD, a new transfer is not an absolute requirement because the resolution isn't high enough to matter on a standard (i.e. very small) television set.

But even on a 13" screen you can sometimes see the difference in quality, for many reasons, but mostly because modern telecine techniques generally produce better images than were available just a few years ago.

Most titles that have been released (relatively) recently won't require new transfers for HD-DVD. Studios have learned from the LD days and are transfering most titles in High Definition right away. The dvd's we're now seeing are nothing more than downconverts.....

Yes, Mark, but the video on the HD-DVD will NEVER be the same video and resolution as the current DVD - and it'll mean that it came from a recent HD telecine, and not a laserdisc transfer.

My point was that every HD-DVD (or Blu-Ray) title will be a fairly recent telecine transfer, and not a non-anamorphic laserdisc port.

Oh, we'll see lots of crap transfers in HD-DVD, if it ever comes out.

Jough is correct. The studios are mastering in HD for the future. If they want to release an HD version of something 2 yrs from now they will already have a transfer ready to go.

You're always going to be limited by your elements. If the source material, whether it be a print, negative, interpositive, etc., isn't up to snuff, there's only so much that can be done with the transfer.

Sure, just because something is in high-def doesn't automatically mean it's going to be spectacular - however, most recent telecine transfers of both new films and restorations of older films look FANTASTIC on DVD, and will look even better in HD.

You can look at the difference in quality on the current T2 Extreme disc. Same transfer source, but the down-converted DVD is nowhere near as crisp as the HD version.

That is correct !

Enhance....

We may still indeed see a problem with HD-DVD...a couple actually. First, just like newer HBO HD movies, they may crop or open the frame of 2.35 movies to fit the 1.78 screen so owners of the new "widescreen" TVs won't see any more black bars. Additionally, with HD-DVD being worked on as we speak, those in a position to make decisions may decide to make it anamophically enhanceable (my new word) so that 2.35 movies can be uncompressed to a full 2.35 with either an anamophic lens for those with projectors, or stretched across a wider viewing panel...I am making the assumption that wider DLP,LCD and LCOS panels will eventually make it to market, and if not, I do feel they will have more resolution than HD in few years to come, not to mention GLV and it's inherent ability to do multiple AR easily. Having these movies anamorphic will allow full use of the HD resolution, but I am not sure if current HD transfers have enough resolution...if not then it will require even newer transfers. Just my 2 cents.

SpaceGhoster

As has been mentioned in other threads, the HD-TV resolution isn't really all that high of definition - but luckily when high-def masters are being made of film elements they are often stored at higher resolution than 1080p (if the studio shows any foresight whatsoever) so perhaps the future may already be looking good for protecting a film's integrity in the home video market.

Eventually HD will be as good, if not better, than film's inherent resolution - and then the point will be moot for older movies shot on film. By that point new films will all be shot on this new super high definition media.

Of course, all of this discussion will be moot once they get the sensory implant technology working - then you can just jack-in and experience the film like you would any other sensory input.

It's good to know they are transfering at a higher than the current 1080P. I for one am not holding my breath that they will get the first run of HD-DVD right, but will hope for the best. Now that ATSC has the standard for broadcast HD, is it even a remote possibility that they could release a prerecorded format that has a higher resolution that current HD without calling for a change in the ATSC standard? I know I'm getting ahead of myself, but with current progress in the video realm, it is not absurd to think that long before another painful redefining of the television standards, they could release a higer resolution pre-recorded format. Then again, if there is not a substantial financial reason to do so, why would they? If only a few have the technology to display it, it is not likely...I just don't see 1080P being the defacto standard for the best HT presentations for as long as NTSC was. OK, now that I have gotten completely off topic and into utter speculation, I now return you to your regularly scheduled thread.

SpaceGhoster

There's already display tech being worked on that is something like 4 times the resolution of HD (over 4000 lines or something). It will be many years before something like that comes to the consumer market. The current HD standard will remain the standard for a very long time. Probably not as long as NTSC but a very long time just the same.

I see no reason for another higher definition standard ever beyond current HD as far as two dimensional displays are concerned. My feeling is that the next standard will be a radically different type of technology.

It depends on what you mean by that. The transfer itself will probably be top notch. It's the edge enhancement and other unnecessary processing I worry about. The studios have this weird idea that a significant number of DVD purchasers have 13" TVs, and they'll probably act as if a measurable number of 13" TV owners will buy HD titles.