hey guys, long time reader (daily since 1998) but forgot my posting information...Just wanted to let you guys know that I saw this boxset at walmart in a shopping cart and on the back it says that the first one (ghostbusters) is full screen!! while the sequel (ghostbusters II) is widescreen. They mention their ratios and i believe the first movie was something like 1:33. I hope they have a different release than the one i saw (hopefully with both of them being widescreen)

Hey Redcrow, Yeah the box says fullframe and from what I've seen posted here on the forum it is a mistake in packaging and the movie is actually widescreen. I know it caused a stir when the art was first released on the net. In the special features for GB 1 it lists widescreen but at the bottom of the box there is a pic for 1:33

Since members are only allowed one account you should email me so we can figure out what your previous ones were.

Both films are presented in widescreen. The box is labeled incorrectly. This was discussed at length a couple months ago in this thread. So no worries.

--THX

OK, I just watched this last night. I agree that most of the time a slight edge cropping wouldn't be noticeable. HOWEVER, in this case, Ghostbusters 1 chops off the first couple of letters of every single newspaper and magazine headline during the montage where they flash all of the headlines when the Ghostbusters make it big. VERY ANNOYING!!! How could the studio let this happen??? This is supposed to be a special edition? Is anyone at the studios actually paying attention??? It really annoys me that studios release crap that would have been noticed by your average 6 year old. End rant.

Are you sure it's actually that way on the disc and isn't just your TV's overscan cutting it off? Do you have a DVD-Rom drive in your computer? Play it there and see if you still have the same problem.

Were those letters visible on your TV with the old disc?

I know you're being facetious, but I was very interested in learning what the 2 eps are. I'm an RGB fanatic, as are some of us around here (as for me, only the Lorenzo Music year-and-a-half), and I'm glad that Citizen Ghost is there, but I don't give a flying f$!k about the second one. So, for some of us, if the set is really that cheap, and I've never had GBII, it's worth it.

By the way, do any of you remember the Making Ghostbusters movie tie-in book, by Don Shaye? It's quite hard to find now, but I have a shabby copy in storage. That one tome is the penultimate book on the making of the first movie. Nothing they put on a DVD, short of the book itself in .pdf, can rival it.

Wow you are 100% right. I played it on my PC and the headlines were not cut off. Must be my TV. I know nothing about "overscan". Is this phenomenon happening due to the specific mastering of this DVD, or might I be having similar cropping on other DVDs and just not realize it? I've got a pretty good TV (Sony rear projection 58" 16:9 Hi Def) with 4 different aspect/zoom options. I had assumed my set could accurately handle any aspect ratio probelm thrown at it.... Also, Is there anything I can do on my TV to get Ghostbusters to look right???

According to digitallyOBSESSED (http://www.digitallyobsessed.com/sho...w.php3?ID=7699) Partners in Slime runs 26:18, 2:33 longer than Citizen Ghost, which clocks in at the more normal-sounding 23:45.

Knowing that cartoons are given 30 minutes of airtime, and figuring typically about six minutes--sometimes more--needed for commercials during that time, there does appear to be something amiss with the running time for the second episode. So either it was a particularly long episode, requiring fewer commercials during its broadcast, or (more likely), as you noted, Novasonic, the episode on the DVD runs slower, thus skewing the duration.

If the latter is the case, how did this get by QC?

--THX

Overscan is built into almost all consumer televisions. Approximately 5% is normal. This is a carry-over from old analog CRT tubes which were curved a lot more than modern CRT tubes or flat-panel displays, and so the television's cabinet was built to cover up a little bit of the edges. Over time it became a standard.

If you had a display with zero overscan, when you try to watch broadcast TV you'll typically see a lot of signal crap along the sides of the screen that is meant to be hidden by overscan.

All CRT based TVs (such as your RPTV) have overscan. You can get it adjusted, but you'll always need at least some overscan.

It's kind of annoying that I bought the widest TV I could find expressly for this reason, and I still get the sides chopped on this film. Do you think that is just happening due to the odd reimaging for this particluar movie or am I probably losing a bit of the sides on all DVDs?

Hello...

Copper, you could buy a 1,000 inch widescreen tv and still have the same amount of the DVD overscanning on the side. It's how the tv handles overscan. As mentioned above -- all tv's have this -- it's a standard. It's a combo of how your TV treats overscan, and how the movie was show with the "safe-region" in mind that will determine what you see/don't see. 99.9999% of the time, there is no info that is meant to be seen in the overscanned region...

Later,

Matt

Calibration discs like Avia or Digital Video Essentials have test patterns that will tell you how much overscan your TV has.

Crazy how I can't seem to find this set. Been to Best Buy and Borders and nothing.

Just saw a bunch over at Walmart.

Regarding the visual commentary, the reason that was dropped was because the feature didn't work with anamorphic enhancement. If you try to turn on the visual commentary while the DVD player is set for 16:9 mode, you get a message that says:

"In order to properly view the video commentary you must set your DVD player to 4 x 3 display mode. Consult your DVD player manual for specific instructions."

looks like both titles will get stand alone releases on 03.14.06....

Link?

have i let you down before?

http://www.dvdplanet.com/product_lis...846&format=DVD

http://www.dvdplanet.com/product_lis...738&format=DVD

Interesting: The listing for Ghostbusters indicates that it has a video commentary. Everyone knows that feature was dropped from the re-release. Rather misleading, isn't it?

--THX

Does this mean the 2-pack will be going OOP? If so, I better grab it soon, it looks like the 2-pack can be found cheaper than one of those....

why would you need to pick it up just bc it is going oop?

Because it's something I've been meaning to buy, and it looks like I can get that cheaper now than it would be to get the 2 separate releases later

Because this is a DVD forum.