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Are 'Barton Fink' and 'Miller's Crossing' REALLY anamorphic??

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Are 'Barton Fink' and 'Miller's Crossing' REALLY anamorphic??

Old 04-25-08, 07:15 PM
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Are 'Barton Fink' and 'Miller's Crossing' REALLY anamorphic??

Either I've got my TV set up wrong (though every other anamorphic DVD I've tried in the last couple of months looks fine) or there's something wrong with the authoring of these discs. Both look weirdly squished vertically. Though I can't seem to find an online review anywhere that mentions this.

Especially 'Barton Fink', which not only never reaches the sides of the screen, but isn't even centered - there's significantly more vertical black bar on the right than on the left.

These are the Region 1 20th Fox editions, natch.
Old 04-25-08, 07:40 PM
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The quickest way to find out is to throw them into your PC and watch them there.

I'm assuming your TV or player is set up wrong.
Old 04-25-08, 07:45 PM
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They are both anamorphic.
Old 04-25-08, 08:30 PM
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Maybe it's just a framing issue?

The laserdisc editions were 1.33:1, but claimed on the cover that they were not pan-and-scanned, that the Coen brothers wanted the presentation in that aspect ratio. Maybe the letterboxing here is just clumsy (an open-matte negative?). (I REALLY can't think of any logical reason the image in 'Barton Fink' wouldn't at least be centered.)
Old 04-25-08, 10:07 PM
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I just watched Miller's Crossing on my TV last week. It seemed fine to me.
Old 04-25-08, 11:31 PM
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They're both 1.66:1 anamorphic widescreen, meaning there's thin bars on the side. You're watching them in "16x9 mode" which means the image is filling up the TV instead of being letterboxed on the top and bottom.

Wrong:


Right:
Old 04-26-08, 01:23 AM
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Originally Posted by PatrickMcCart
They're both 1.66:1 anamorphic widescreen, meaning there's thin bars on the side. You're watching them in "16x9 mode" which means the image is filling up the TV instead of being letterboxed on the top and bottom.
But the image looks squished, not stretched.

I've got the DVD player (Pioneer) on "wide" and the TV (Panasonic) on "full", which makes every other anamorphic disc I've tried look great. These two titles don't seem to look right on any setting.

I guess they can't be non-anamorphic, or else they'd look decent on the "4:3" setting, but they sure don't look right. On any setting.

Oh, well. I'm sure they'll get replaced with Blu-Ray editions some day.
Old 04-26-08, 01:15 PM
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Originally Posted by PatrickMcCart
They're both 1.66:1 anamorphic widescreen, meaning there's thin bars on the side. You're watching them in "16x9 mode" which means the image is filling up the TV instead of being letterboxed on the top and bottom.
Only Barton Fink is 1.66:1. Miller's Crossing is 1.85:1. Both discs are anamorphic. Miller's has small letterbox bars at the top and bottom of the 16:9 frame. Barton has small pillarbox bars on the left and right. Here are screen caps direct from the DVDs:



Old 04-26-08, 10:48 PM
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Check your DVD player, see if it there is a setting where you tell it what kind of tv you have (16x9/widescreen vs 4x3/standard/etc). Many DVDs do not use the flag which identifies their aspect ratio to the player so they play fine regardless of the player's setting. But every once in a while a disc will be authored to correctly use the flag and if your player is not set up correctly it causes the image to be squished or stretched in odd ways.
Old 04-27-08, 12:39 PM
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Originally Posted by Jah-Wren Ryel
Check your DVD player, see if it there is a setting where you tell it what kind of tv you have (16x9/widescreen vs 4x3/standard/etc). Many DVDs do not use the flag which identifies their aspect ratio to the player so they play fine regardless of the player's setting. But every once in a while a disc will be authored to correctly use the flag and if your player is not set up correctly it causes the image to be squished or stretched in odd ways.
Well, I've got the player on "wide." I've been going through as many discs as I can, just to check, and almost every other anamorphic disc I've tried looks great - I did find one more; Hal Hartley 'No Such Thing' looks just as wrong as these two. If I set the DVD player to "letterbox" and set the TV to "4:3", all three look in perspective (like they did back when I had an old square TV.)

Is there a way to permanently set the player on one setting (like, say, "wide"), so that it doesn't default when an unflagged disc is played?
Old 04-30-08, 11:16 AM
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Originally Posted by wergo
Is there a way to permanently set the player on one setting (like, say, "wide"), so that it doesn't default when an unflagged disc is played?
Sorry, every player is different, I can't even say if the settings you mentioned are the right ones to be fiddling with or if you just got a lucky side-effect of changing a different setting.

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