I too have given up. When there's so much ignorance about what this means within groups that should know/care (DVD sites, SW sites, etc.) you're fighting a losing battle. I can't even imagine what a mainstream media article would do when faced with having to explain this.

Honestly, given the amazing number of people who are completely clueless as to what 16x9 enhancement is, I'm shocked that we have as many anamorphic DVDs as we do...

That is so true, and it is a wonder that every DVD this year on the market will be Anamorphic Widescreen. It is astounding that DVD's even get DTS sound & Dolby Digital too when most fans don't even have surround sound either.

If you think about what the majority know about all these terms, most DVD's should be non-anamorphic or fullscreen, and be dolby pro-logic. Oh wait, that is what the O-OT release has.

That's really what pisses me off about this. If the fanbase hadn't been so fractured over the definition of anamorphic enhancement for DVDs, we might have actually made a difference.

It felt like there were too many people defending any decision Lucas made to look at the subject objectively.

We're all way too emotionally invested in this series for our own good, whether we'd like to admit it or not.

Disappointing, but I've gotten to the point where I just don't get upset over decisions about this series anymore. But maybe that's because I'm very happy with the 2004 DVDs(aside from the screwups) and my Definitive Collection LDs.

You would think that the majority of the nerd-base awaiting these releases would be hip to the technology. Sigh....

Studios have, and will, try to slip things in to "dumb down" or cater DVD releases to what they think the masses will like, all the time.

A good example is what Lions Gate has done with a few of their releases, Lord of War for example. They released this in 1.78 : 1 instead of the OAR, and the consensus (and official response?) was that this was done because it's "full screen" for J6P and his HDTV.

Another example was the Mel Brooks Collection, where they were throwing old presses of DVDs that were non-anamorphic, presumable because they thought that nobody would catch it.

Or broadcasting Batman Begins in "J6P fullscreen 1.78 : 1" on HD.

The studios do, in a lot of cases, listen to the minority elite however, and correct their mistakes or blunders or assumptions.

Just not George Lucas and Co.

Not every DVD, Street Fighter II was just released in non-anamorphic letterbox.

I think the abundance of Anamorphic transfers is mostly a side-effect of the fact that the major studios master all their new transfers in high-definition for the past few years. It's just as easy, and expensive, to downconvert the HD master to Anamorphic Widescreen as it would be to downcovert to non-anamorphic letterbox. So it's not altruism on the studio's part, just economics.

What amazes me is how many extras are non-anamorphic letterbox instead of anamorphic widescreen. I think even some extras on HD DVD or Blu-Ray may suffer from this, since most are straight MPEG2 standard-def DVD ports. You'd think at this late stage in the game, the extras would be shot and mastered in HD too.

The official response was that 1.78:1 was what the "producers gave" to Lions Gate to master, and it was the producers' preferred aspect ratio. Of course, shortly later Lions Gate quietly remastered the 2-disc set to have the proper aspect ratio, but they've never officially admitted any mistake.

I think that's more a mandate from HBO than from the studio. Other HD networks broadcast in OAR, but HBO crops everything they can to 1.78:1.

Perhaps the campaign would have gained more traction if we had complained that the transfers are not "Enhanced for 16:9 Widescreen displays". Even J6P now understands what that means. (They think "hang-on-the-wall-Plasma"; and they know they want one one day ...)

Sadly, there's actually a surprising large number of consumers that think that "Widescreen" DVDs only work on "Widescreen" TVs; they actually think the DVD won't work on their standard 4:3 TV. The subtle differences between "Enchanced Widescreen" and "Leterboxed" would probably be lost on them.

It costs a lot more to shoot and produce a featurette in HD, and there's very little demand for it. People want their movies to be presented in the best quality possible, but don't care nearly as much about what the EPK interviews or behind-the-scenes crap look like.

I agree with that. I don't really care about the quality of the extras, as long as they're not terrible (unless it's something old that wasn't well preserved over the years). I would like to see trailers, and music videos (which are essentially short films anyway), in good quality, but those generally don't take up too much disc space.

actually, the revenge of the sith is aired in 2:35;1 oar on hbohd

Right, which is why I said "everything they can." Sith was obviously one in which Lucas could overrule any AR preference by HBO.

Well, I disagree. I'd rather these extras were shot/produced in HD. At the least, they could be shot in anamorphic WS. That's what, flipping a switch on most video cameras nowadays?

I'm not the only one who thinks about HD extras. David Carnoy listed the lack of HD extras as one of "Ten ways HD-DVD falls short"
http://reviews.cnet.com/4520-6449_7-6510291-1.html

Honestly though, I thought a lot of featurettes and such were already being shot in HD. I swore I read this a few years ago, although I can't find any articles or interviews that mention it at the moment. I looks like, at the least, they are going in that direction:


http://www.videostoremag.com/news/ht...rticle_id=8903

http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,126163,00.asp

How much is a lot more?

I'm sure you'd probably get 20 different answers if you asked 20 different producers. There's a quote a couple of posts up that says 35-60% more.

I remember reading an article in the WSJ about shooting TV commercials in HD (around the time of the superbowl) and why more companies didn't do it year round. The quote in that was it cost 30% more to shoot in HD.

I can understand why some commercials aren't produced in HD yet: The majority of TVs are still standard def, and commercials are transitory by nature.

However, with featurettes and extras, you'd think studios would realize that these are features that they could potentially use for decades into the future. An extra 35-60% now seems small when compared to the prospect of creating all-new HD featurettes and extras further down the line, which would cost an extra 135-160%.

Anyway, HD or not, there's still a lot of extras today that are apparently shot and produced in widescreen that aren't anamorphic. I'm really thinking of two Universal titles right now, 40-Year-Old Virgin and Serenity. From what I remember of those discs, all the extras are widescreen, and none of them are anamorphic. It seems strange that if you're going to shoot like a 20 minute making of in widescreen, why present it non-anamorphic on the DVD? IS there that much of a space savings between a non-anamorphic image vs. an anamorphic one?

Why would shooting featurettes in HD cost "35-60% more"? More expensive equipment? Additional production costs? More staff?

I have to imagine that even if HD costs one-third more now (in the hocus-pocus world of movie accounting) those costs will rapidly decrease. At some point, most standard equipment will be replaced with HD equipment, then what adds to the higher cost? Extra makeup?

Both the cameras and the post-production equipment are all more expensive.

To be fair though, the cameras and equipment would be a one-time purchase that could be used on a multitude of extras for multiple films.

www.thedigitalbits.com reported at Comic-Con, Steve Sansweet O-OT DVD presentation was announced as non-anamorphic, but shown on the screen zoomed to Anamorphic! They are the more slimy than I thought, it is almost laughable now. If they had any balls they would have showed it on the big screen in non-anamorphic with bars on all 4 sides and the image only taking up half the screen.

But in the same breath, Sansweet was handing out, 'Han shoots first' buttons.

Lucas =$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

That vision stuff he talks about is utterly laughable, if he was so steadfast on changing the Han shoots first scene, then why the hell would he be marketing the new DVD's against his vision? It is so sad how the man has fallen from grace in 10 short years.

Isn't that the fault & choice of the Comic-Con location's A/V staff? I hardly think Lucas was working the projector.

Isn't that the way you'd almost have to watch a non-anamorphic transfer on a widescreen TV? Doesn't seem too disingenuous to me. Of course, the image quality should have looked awful zoomed in...

You're correct. It is the way most people would be watching it on a WS TV, and it apparently did look awful zoomed in:

http://www.aintitcool.com/display.cgi?id=23941
http://www.collider.com/entertainmen...id=2660&tcid=1

To me, it doesn't seem disingenuous to zoom it in either. Every WS TV has a zoom feature, and for me the problem wasn't ever that there'd be "black bars on all sides." The problem is the loss of resolution compared to an anamorphic widescreen transfer.

What is disingenuous is Lucasfilm first calling the original versions "bonus features" as a rationalization for their sub-par treatment of them, then turning around and marketing them as the main reason to buy these new DVDs, with "Han Shoots First" buttons an all.

Also disingenuous: This apparent comment from Lucasfilm's Steve Sansweet at ComicCon about the transfers: