You are confusing theatrical and television. Until the '50s, 1.33 (1.37):1 was indeed the standard academy ratio.

Big Screen has never been used to describe a specific aspect ratio, just a general reference to theatrical presentations (over TVs) or large TVs themselves.

I'm not confusing anything, I am simply pointing out terminlogies that were actually used several years ago. Since the thread pertains to DVDs, I used terms that were in use by others at the start of the DVD age. If you wish to say that the editors of Widescreen Review and Leonard Maltin were confused, then go ahead.
1:33 and variations were indeed used exclusively until the 1950's, as was B&W film stock, but it was never called Academy Standard, and certainly wouldn't be called Academy Standard in any reference to DVDs.

Do you still have the issue or are you speaking from memory? I think it's much more likely that you're confused.

Sorry, but you're just completely wrong. Academy Standard means 1.37:1 and always has.

Here's a useful page with information about various aspect ratios:

http://www.widescreen.org/aspect_ratios.shtml

While I'd be surprised if a DVD referred to a 1.33:1/1.37:1 aspect ratio as "Academy Standard", I agree that it what 1.37:1 was called back in the day. And it's a sad day in DVDtalk land when Leonard Maltin's confusion on a subject is considered proof.

Off-topic:

Why are US TV sets 1.78:1 (or so) when (non-Scope) movies are usually 1.85:1 or sometimes 1.66:1?

Maltin was referring to theatrical presentation in that quote. It's been in there for years. Academy still refers to 1.33:1. Always has, even though 1.85:1 is now standard.

US TVs are 1.78:1 as a compromise between 1.33:1 and 1:85.1.

I have the very first issue of Widescreen Review November/December 1992 Issue 1 Vol. 1. On page 23 (it was a very thin 48pg mag.) in an article titled "The Shape of Film" it explains all the different ratios and there isn't one called "Big Screen". I'm sure it hasn't changed to include "Big Screen" in 1999.

As a person who has worked in the film industry and went to film school, I can verify everything Josh Z has said. 1.37:1 was, and still is, referred to by the industry as "Academy Standard" or "Academy Aperture" or just "Academy" for short. They used to use 1.19:1 and 1.33:1 before officially adopting 1.37:1 as the AMPAS standard in 1932. "Big Screen" is not, and has never been, an industry recognized term. That's just a generic marketing term used by TV salesmen. It's already been mentioned, but perhaps it bares repeating since some are still confused:

- Widescreen refers to any rectangular aspect ratio that's wider in scope than 1.37:1. It does not mean the same thing as "letterbox" nor does it mean "anamorphically enhanced". The two most commonly used widescreen formats are 1.85:1 (also referred to as "flat") and 2.35:1 (often referred to as "scope"), but filmmakers often use others besides.

- Letterbox refers to the black bars that appear at the top and bottom of the screen when the viewable image happens to be wider than the display. Since TV's used a 1.33:1 (a.k.a. 4:3) display pretty universally until the dawn of HDTV - there were widescreen TVs before, they just weren't very commonplace - people began to associate letterboxing with widescreen aspect ratios, and the terms started to be used interchangeably. But if you had a 2.35:1 display and watched a 1.85:1 widescreen film, there'd be no letterboxing but rather windowboxing (bars on the sides). So letterbox and widescreen are mutually exclusive terms.

- Anamorphic simply put is when the black "letterbox" bars are added in by the player rather than hard coded to the image. This allows all the picture resolution to be fully invested in the actual image rather than wasting a bunch of it on the bars. So on a HD display an anamorphic image will be more detailed than a non-anamorphic one. Anamorphic has a totally different meaning when you're talking about the actual filming process. And what's led to a lot of confusion is how the DVD industry has started using the term "letterboxed" to mean "non-anamorphic" - that's a misnomer. For example, a 2.35:1 anamorphic DVD is still letterboxed on a 1.78:1 display.

As caligulathegod mentioned, it was a compromise between the common 1.33:1 TV screen size and the 1.85:1 modern standard for most motion pictures. Television was invented back when movies were almost all shot 1.37:1. So when it came time to decide on a standard display ratio they chose 1.33:1 since it was about the same as motion pictures and would make film-to-TV transfers easy. But then the popularity of TV in America nearly killed the exhibition business for the studios since people weren't that interested in seeing too many movies theatrically anymore. So as a response to this threat, the studios adopted the strategy of creating a big enveloping theatrical experience that couldn't be equalled in the home. They experimented with a whole lot of gimmicks, but among the most successful were stereo sound (and later multi-channel surround sound) and super widescreen images. Also movies themselves started to get "bigger" - more elaborate special effects, more grandiose locations and sets, epic plots, etc.

Eventually most every movie was shot in widescreen, which is what we have today. So obviously that presented problems when it came time to transfer films for TV display. You can't fit a rectangle into a square without either cutting part of it off (cropping) or artifically morphing it (vertical stretching or horizontal squeezing). Since morphing makes it look like total shit, they went with cropping. Later they developed pan & scan which is when a computer basically digitally creates artifical "pans" across the film frame. Then there's open matte. Films shot open matte were the best compromise, assuming the director did his/her job right when filming. The director looks through the viewfinder on the camera and sees 4 little divits indicating the frame for the widescreen image within the full screen one and composes his/her shot accordingly. The entire 1.37:1 image is photographed and matted to widescreen in the theaters. And then the entire Academy image is shown on TV. The problem there is, directors were specifically composing for the widescreen divited area and not the "open matte" shot. So what you get isn't what they intended you to see. So when the HDTV format came along, everyone saw it as an opportunity to put an end to all this ridculous movie vs. TV transfer business and jumped on the chance to go with a display image that better matches movies once again. But since there is no one universal widescreen aspect ratio, and a lot of old movies and TV shows are still 1.33:1 or 1:37:1 they opted for a compromise. If they had gone with 2.35:1, for instance, then every time you watched Gone with the Wind or Star Trek you'd be looking at huge windowboxes on the sides. 1.78:1 is just a good middle-of-the-road compromise.

I investigated and now see the term Academy Standard is still often used to refer to the 1.33:1 ratio (my apologies to Josh Z). One of my guides refers to 1.85:1 as Academy Standard and another refers to it as Academy Flat Standard, but I see that Hollywood obviously still considers 4:3 to be a standard filmmaking ratio for some reason.
The term "Big Screen" may not have been an industry recognized term, but it was used by early DVD reviewers to describe ratios between 1.33 and 1.85:1...even Leonard Maltin didn't know what to call this area between TV format and Widescreen size...apparently some reviewers settled on the term "Big Screen" (and apparently the term has been forgotten to time, for better or worse.) Never used the term myself, though others did.

Joliom, you're post is excellent and very informative. I just have one very minor point of correction:

"Windowboxing" (sometimes called "pictureboxing") usually refers to bars on all 4 sides of the image, like Criterion has taken to doing recently with discs such as The Seven Samurai. Bars on only the left and right sides would be called "pillarboxing".

I've read that 16:9 is a compromise between 4:3 and 2.39:1, since 4:3 squared is 16:9 and 4:3 cubed is 64:27 or 2.37:1, nearly 2.39:1. 16:9 is a midpoint between the two, meaning that 4:3 and 2.39:1 images are shown with about the same amount of blank space.

I don't think so because I've read many Laserdisc reviews before DVD came along and they never used the term "Big Screen" and I'm sure these same LD reviewers were the first to review DVDs.

I challenge you to locate some of those early DVD reviews that supposedly use the term.

"Big Screen" is a term used to describe film; not in terms of aspect ratio though, but it terms of type of release. Movie theaters are sometimes called "the big screen" to differentiate from the "small-screen" of TV. So a movie might be said to have had "a big-screen release" or a "big-screen film" to separate it from TV or DTV faire. By default, any big-screen release in the last several decades would be assumed to be in some degree of widescreen.

I could see a DVD review saying something like "This big-screen film is shown in it's proper aspect ratio," and JOKipper mistaking the context the term is being used in.

So do I. The only times I've really heard the term "Big Screen" is when someone says "I want/got one of those big screen tvs". Which usually meant in the 80's-90's a rear projection SD CRT. Even in TV sales ads that was what big screen meant even in advertising. I've never read or heard someone mention it as an aspect ratio.

EDIT: Okay, I'm in a process of renovating my home and found an old box full of old magazines and ads. I found the term "Big Screen" on an old Good Guys sales ad (some of you will remember they went out of business a couple of years ago). In the ads I found in every discription from a Panasonic PT51G42 to an RCA P46820BL was the term "Big Screen" to describe almost all the RPTV they had on sale. It was dated 3/2/98. So, yeah, the term was used but only for TVs. I'll even post the ad if you all want.

You are absolutely correct! I was being colloquial, while decrying colloquialisms. Oh the hypocrisy. :lol:

Actually Academy Standard is 1.37:1 not 1.33:1. 1.33:1 is the standard TV display ratio. Although in the '20s a lot of filmmakers did shoot 1.33:1 quite commonly.

Standard 35mm film had an aspect ratio of 1.33:1 until sound was added, using all of the negative frame space. When audio tracks were added to 35mm film, the aspect ratio was changed to 1.37:1 to fit in the smaller negative space left for image:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academy_ratio

1. I've seen the term "Academy Flat Standard" used to describe 1.85:1.
2. Shut up about Leonard Maltin. He is an idiot and constantly referencing him makes you seem just as bright. :)