Please explain.....I would like to hear your explaination.

Semantics.

Of course, that's specifically what I was in search of......to see if it existed.....and it apparently does, just in a very limited quantity, unfortunately for my desires.


It's my understanding that T2 Judgement Day was a 2.35:1 transfer from super 35....forgive me if I'm wrong, but, isn't this in fact "cropping " the image from the original negative which is inherently 1.85:1.....????? Read this Mr NaCl >>>>

Super 35 uses standard "spherical" camera lenses, which are faster, smaller, and cheaper to rent—a factor in low-budget production—and provide a wider range of lens choices to the cinematographer. The chief advantage of Super 35 in productions such as James Cameron's is its adaptability to different release formats. Super 35 negatives can be used to produce high-quality releases in any aspect ratio, as the final frame will be extracted and converted from the larger full frame negative. This also means that a full-frame video release can actually use more of the frame than the theatrical release, provided that the extra frame space is "protected for" during filming. Generally the aspect ratio(s) and extraction method (either from a common center or common topline) need to be chosen by the director of photography ahead of time, in order that the correct ground glass can be created to allow the camera operator to see where the extracted frame will be. Super 35 ratios have included 1.85:1 ("flat" print), 2.20:1 (70 mm), 2.39:1 (anamorphic print), 16:9 (widescreen video), and 4:3 (fullscreen video). 1.66:1 and 1.75:1 have been indicated in some Super 35 frame leader charts, although generally they have not been used for Super 35 productions due to both relative lack of usage since the rise of Super 35 and their greater use of negative frame space by virtue of their increased vertical dimension.

Theoretically, 2.39:1 release prints made from Super 35 should have slightly lower technical quality than films produced directly in the anamorphic format, because part of the Super 35 image is thrown away when printing to this format. This is partially offset by Super 35's use of a large film area to begin with. Films produced in Super 35 include Top Gun (1986), Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991), The Fifth Element (1997), Titanic (1997), and I, Robot (2004). Films like these demonstrate that in skilled hands any loss in quality need not be appreciable to the untrained eye. Super 35 mm film format also gives consumers the incentive to buy both the widescreen and full screen versions of the same film (assuming that the image was 4-perf and protected for 1.33:1 composition), especially films without special effects.

Here's the original post samre5 is quoting from:

So I think the quote samre5 extracted is a result of either poor wording or just lack of context. orangerunner's own position is obviously that the original scope framing is the "correct" image.


T2 was shot on Super35 4-perf, which has an aspect ratio of 1.33:1. However, it was composed for, in camera, scope 2.35:1. The cinematographer will utilize a viewfinder with lines in it marking the 2.35:1 scope frame within the image and compose the image to that frame (in extreme cases the frame might be masked off).

So while a Super35 scope image is technically cropped, it's cropped to the frame that it was composed for. This is the same as with the majority of 1.85:1 films shot in the past several decades on 1.37:1 film: they are composed for the theatrical frame, with the extra negative space being superfluous, if not outright unusable (due to lack of SFX, or people/things being in the image area that shouldn't be).

That reminds me: A T2 1.78:1 image could only potentially be open-matte for shots that didn't have any SFX in them, since the SFX would've only been composed and rendered for the scope image. So parts of T2 have to be cropped to fit anything other than a scope frame.

How much information was captured on the camera negative has no bearing on how the image was composed. Movie directors frame their shots the way they do on purpose. They don't just arbitrarily point the camera in the general direction of the actors and call that good enough. The position of people and objects within the frame is a hugely important aspect of the filmmaking art.

Read this. It has many pictures to illustrate:

http://www.highdefdigest.com/news/show/764

Ha! Promoting your own writing, I see.

Seriously though, that's a good article. I like the Dark City example in particular.

Jay G. displaying a little sarchastic and humorous side............have you contemplated the name change to V---GER yet ??

I didn't like ST:TMP all that much.

I believe that given the opportunity to purchase a DVD or Blu-ray movie that has been cropped by the studio from a 2.35:1 theatrical presentation for "full view" on 16x9 HDTV displays........... every day people that know nothing about the art of film-making.....(nor would they care)......would buy these versions on both formats over the OAR theatrical version because it is what people want.........you all who are so compelled to fight for OAR only are being over-protective........you feel strongly that there should only be regular Coke available and that it's existence will be threatened if they make diet Coke...............I don't want to deny you........I just want diet Coke.

The images in post #196 show it clearly

4:3 MAR DVDs were common because studios thought "it is what people want" as well, and this thinking sometimes screwed us out of an OAR release. Colorized versions of films have been made because it's thought "it is what people want." HBO shows films on their channels in MAR (4:3 for SD and 16:9 fo HD) because they think "it's what people want." However, when a title is released OAR-only, those MAR "fans" still buy it, because it's the movie they want, and the presentation to them is incidental, even if they find letterboxing somewhat annoying.

Besides, arguing what the "masses" want is often an excersize in racing to the bottom of the barrel.

If we're over-protective, it's because we had to go literally decades without OAR on TV and VHS, with OAR relegated to some releases on the niche Laserdisc format. Now that studios are finally releasing the majority of titles in OAR, we don't really want to lose any ground back to the MAR crowd, lest we lose our OAR releases again.

Seems like those people will also have no problem stretching (horizontally or vertically) to get rid of the "black bars." I don't understand this myself because it makes everything look ridiculous, but it's better for those of us who want the studios to continue selling movies in their OAR. Let joe six-pack stretch.

Well, my intention was to determine what samre meant by "full-widescreen." Basically, yes, he wants 1.78:1 full screen.

You're right: Many people don't care about the art of filmmaking, and would be more than happy if a scope frame was panned and scanned for a 16:9 screen. I have a friend like that.

I don't mind DVD and Blu-ray releases in MAR. Some are uncompromising proponents of OAR, and don't want anything other than what the filmmakers intended. I totally share the appreciation and respect, but not the fervor.

I don't deem watching movies in MAR an abomination. I grew up with them reformatted to fit my screen, and all those years of 4:3 gave me much more appreciation for OAR when I finally got into it and understood it. (I actually still like to collect MAR from television broadcasts, because I like to compare the differences.)

All that said, I am an OAR purist.

Definitely agree. Though I don't think studios would get away with MAR-only these days. The 40 Year Old Virgin and Lord of War are evidence of that.

--THX

Having NO knowledge of the "art" of film making, I don't know what the "accepted term is exactly......."1.78:1 full-screen".....sounds good to me......whatever you call it , your post #196 spelled it out perfectly.

You seem to have, "at least" , the ability to look at this scenario with a somewhat unbiased approach......unlike the film buffs in this forum who defend the notion that every shit movie that hollywood spins out as quickly as possible, to generate income as quickly as possible, should be looked upon in "awe and reverence" and only be made available to be viewed on DVD and Blu-ray as it was displayed in a theater.

Again I say, Hollywood is a "money generating machine".....above all other notions, this is the underlying motivation of Hollywood.........I wasn't "wowed by the cinematography" as I was walking out of the theater during "Hanna and her sisters". It meant nothing to me that it was displayed in it's theatrical aspect ratio......if it was 16x9, my impression would be exactly the same. I do agree that if a movie is "only" going to be offered to the public as one available aspect ratio, that it be offered on DVD and Blu-ray as the OAR and not some compromised version that Hollywood deems more profitable.

That being said, I want 2.35:1 scope movies to be made available as "reformatted as 1.78:1 full-screen", make some room for the masses, the vast majority of people would choose this type of movie OVER the OAR presentation. If most average people were given the choice to buy the same movie , one being the OAR and the other clearly indicating that (in laymans terms) the movie had been "reformatted from it's original 2.35:1 theatrical aspect ratio to fit a 16x9 TV" without "Black Bars, they would put down the OAR package and purchase the "reformatted 1.78:1 version. Knowing what I know about my personal viewing habits, I would. Being aware of OAR fans past struggles, your fears are justified.

For the bigger releases from bigger studios, that's likely. However, we're still stuck with MAR 16:9 only releases of films like Tideland, Creep, The Snow Walker in the US. IMAX titles are routinely cropped to 16:9 MAR for Blu-ray, and Guliver's Travels is 16:9 MAR on Blu-ray.

So MAR-only releases still occur, although they now happen only occasionally instead of often.

Arguing for altering a movie based on quality is a tenuous position, at best. As you point out before, there's probably someone that likes the film you hated, so why should that person be denied an OAR release, just because you didn't think the film was good enough?

And what about other alterations? "Oh, that old film wasn't that good, so a colorized version is fine." "That film sucked, so who cares that the DVD's been edited?" "I didn't care for it that much, so it's fine the DVD only contains an English dub instead of an original language track with subtitles."

For me, defending the original presentation of a film is like defending free speech: you have to defend all of it, even the stuff you don't personally care for, in order to ensure that the stuff you do care for is protected as well.

It may mean nothing to you, but it means a lot to the director, to the cinematographer, and to the people who like the film who want to see it as it was originally intended. And while you may think that the aspect ratio had no effect on you, the careful composition of the images in that film most likely did, compositions that were framed for the original scope presentation.

Let's take an example. As a kid, I loved the original Star Wars trilogy. I saw them aired on TV, and watched them on VHS, all in 4:3 MAR. While I was in my teens, Lucasfilm released a box set of the films in scope OAR on VHS. Now, despite the letterboxed scope version using "less resolution," and filling up only a portion of a 4:3 TV screen, I still enjoyed watching this OAR release more than I did the 4:3 P&S version. It didn't greatly increase my enjoyment of the films that I loved, but it did noticeably improve the experience.

Thank you for your understanding.

Well done, Josh! I've been trying to convince my father of the very points that you so eloquently explain in your article. I just e-mailed him the link. Hopefully, he actually reads it and comprehends it, and thus, my opinion regarding OAR.

TLK

The desire to fill your screen is borne out of your ignorance about why movies are made in widescreen to begin with, nothing more. Perhaps if you educated yourself on the subject by listening to others, rather than just stubbornly flaunting your ignorance, you might understand filmmaking more and even come to appreciate why movies are made the way they are.

Or, you can just stay ignorant. Which seems to be what you want to do. In which case, you're just wasting our time here.

Some of us have less patience for willfull, stubborn ignorance than others.

I did explain in my post. What was unclear about this?:

Wow, you and others like you in this forum possess a one dimentional way of thinking that is frustrating at the very least...... your agenda is for one thing only....and that is your holy cause. In your perfect world, there is no other color than the color that you all are. I know what I came in this forum to find out......I'm sorry if you choose to stubbornly ignore the nature of my search. I have discovered in this forum that 2.35:1 movies have in fact been altered and put on DVD.....sorry you choose to stay ignorant and not accept this fact. I have discovered this by listening to others and finding it out. I have also discovered that there are people in here that have an unparallelled sense of superiority and entitlement to the lions share and are filled with a holier than thou mentality, that , under no circumstance will deviate their mindsets to allow the discussion of something other than their one-dimentional mindset because they are threatened. I feel that you may possibly be one of these ignorant stubborn types.

I'm reading this thread, but can't believe that people that appear to be sane and intelligent would ever want to watch a film outside of it's OAR (unless that option wasn't available of course). Must just be messing with us.

Cropping a movie is the same as removing 20-40% of a book or a song.

How so? I'm honestly not sure what you mean.

--THX

It is certainly degrading to an image to literally remove parts of it* (*against the intentions of those who created it in the first place).

There you go throwing around the word "agenda" again. And yes, how awful of people to point out that you may want to rethink your quest.

I didn't address this before, but I'm just as concerned about your assertion that you and your wife don't even finish watching, what was it, 85 percent of the movies you start? I'm wondering why you want to keep watching DVDs and Blu-rays at all. You should at least reconsider how you choose what movies to watch if you find so many of them unwatchable.

I'm not sure what you mean by that, but I'm pretty sure it's offensive.

I'm pretty sure none of us is ignorant of that fact. We have simply been trying to explain why making that sort of modification is a bad thing.

Yes, we're stubborn, but we're far from ignorant. Are you being any less stubborn?

porieux has the right idea. Chopping off a significant percentage of an image and reframing what's left in order to attempt to keep everything in the frame that needs to be there does, if fact, degrade the original image. I don't know what the math is going from 2.35:1 to 1.78:1, but when 2.35:1 scope images are reframed to 4:3, about 45 percent of the image is lost.

The term degrade in this sentence is being used loosely to imply a personal belief rather than answering the actual technical question......Does a 2.35:1 movie reformatted /cropped to 1.78:1, have a superior image to zooming the same 2.35:1 movie to full-screen. The answer appears to be obvious since noone want's to answer the question directly from a technical perspectice for fear of compromise of their position.

"Degrade" is a subjective term, at least according to the first two definitions:
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/degrade
The only possible objective definition that would apply to this scenario is definition 3:
Since reducing the amount of image counts as an impairment, degrade is the correct term for cropping an image.

"Superior" is an even more subjective term than degrade possibly is. People are going to argue that any MAR release cannot be considered "superior" at all.

I already answered this question from a technical perspective over 100 posts ago:

I know I said I was leaving, but this thread has been fun to drop in on and read. The use of various colors and font sizes and styles, and the over-the-top praising of Jay G seemed to indicate that any further responses would just feed the OP's love of drama and hyperbole.

Anyway, it seems like this thread has cycled around to what I was trying to say here a while back.

The point is that "quality"/"degrade"/"superior"--none of that should be used in this context. The OP doesn't actually care about image quality or movie quality or anything else of that ilk. What he cares about is having his screen pixels changing color as much as possible. He doesn't recognize that the pixels being black is actual information the filmmaker wanted to convey. The pixels being black IS, by definition, part of the quality of the image and part of the quality of the movie. But if you try to point this out, you're told it's "semantics" or you have an "agenda" or you're "one-dimensional."

I don't want to muddy this even further, but please keep in mind that my POV on this is coming from someone who wholeheartedly believes in the concept of fanediting. A simple cropped fanedit would be incredibly lazy and stupid, but if someone were to take the time to reframe shots and use their own artistic sensibility to experiment and present a new viewing experience of the film, I support that. A simple center crop or opening of the matte is more akin to a brute-force method that is best left to children and idiots. With that said, the original vision--the theatrical release, or in some cases the director's true version before the studio took it away and hacked it up--should always, always (did I say ALWAYS) be the official release, in OAR, fan edits should never be sold, and they should only be viewed if you have already bought and viewed the official release.

I just watched the series finale of the Sopranos. I almost wonder if the OP

What you've done here is the equivalent to going to a car enthusiast forum and posting (over and over and over again) that you wish all cars had 4 cylinder engines, and that you really want to buy a Ferrari with a V4. When the people there attempt to explain to you the benefits of a V6 or V8 engine for certain types of car, especially the type that you say you want, you call them elitists with a holy cause and a one-dimensional mindset.

In short: Think before posting.