MooMooMooMoo

I started a new thread with the following ?, but it was suggested that I also post it here. Sorry if i offend anyone by double posting!

Woodstock 4 Disc DVD Full Screen Frame ?
This question is specifically about the UK edition, but I SUSPECT the USA edition is the same:

Disc 3 (bonus performances) is in full screen, but with a black bar frame around the ENTIRE full screen that shrinks the picture by (I'd guess) around 15-20%. The "frame" appears to be even/equal on all 4 sides. Can anyone tell me WHY in the world they'd do this? Is it to make FS look better on WS sets, or..........?

It doesn't appear to me to be aspect ratio correction like we sometimes see with silent films; again at least not for FS. I have a full screen crt television, & I find it really irritating, although the quality is otherwise excellent..

Also as an fyi, I can confirm that the UK dvd set does have both the Amazon AND Target exclusive tracks. The price has gone up since I bought mine, but it's still way cheaper then the US editions. It is R2 PAL.

Superdaddy

This could be pictureboxing, like Criterion does with some of their 1.33:1 releases. If so, it is done to mitigate the effects of overscan on TVs where overscan is an issue. There are quite a few who don't like it when Criterion does this.

That's my best guess, unless your TV has overscan and you are still seeing the black border, in which case I have no other suggestions.

MooMooMooMoo

Thanks for the info! I don't believe my set has overscan, as I've never heard of it. It's really frustrating for me, especially as I basically only have 1 good eye.

MooMooMooMoo

I just watched a BBC documentary in letterboxed wide screen that had some full screen material. The FS footage looked identical to Woodstock D3, so I suspect the answer to my ? is that it was done for widescreen viewers. I guess I'm in the minority having an fs crt, but i still think it sucks.....

slop101

It's not picture boxing. What they've done with these "bonus performances" is present them in their original 16mm 4x3 format, within a 1:85 anamorphic frame. That's why he's getting bars around the entire image.

Not sure why they're presented like this though.

jjcool

Makes sense. The top and bottom bars are from the regular letterbox format, and the bars on the side are added in for the bonus performance.

MooMooMooMoo

I think we've figured it out. Problem again is it is FS footage, this shrinks the picture 15-20% on my FS set. Grr.

Does anyone know if the USA edition does the same on the bonus performance disc?

slop101

Yeah, it's the same thing with the region 1 dvds.

Not sure why they felt they had to put a 1:33 image inside a 1:85 frame - it wouldn't make a difference to widescreen TV owners but screws over standard TV owners.

Rypro 525

i was kind of wondering too, (don't have the set yet), on the old disc, for Jimi's performance, it was windowboxed to a point where you can only see the edges of black bars on all 4 sides. Why didn't they just make it a 1:85 image?

MooMooMooMoo

Just discovered that Rhino did the same thing on their Last Days Of The Fillmore set, only worse: the widescreen is much shorter in height, so the frame is much larger on the full screen segments.

Hopefully no one will feel the need to imitate Rhino on this......

Toddarino

Sorry for bringing up an old thread, but before I finally pick up this release I wanted to see if this was accurate. If so I guess I'll track down the old one.