Artman

Disappointed after reading the thread title, but wasn't fooled by the fan art. I think chances are good for anniversary releases of The Abyss and True Lies next yr though. Of course, we said that five yrs ago...

Gizmo

Someone ask Bill Hunt!

He can say its real and back peddle when it's fake by saying its currently planned.

E Unit

I thought he said that years ago. And a couple of years ago. And last year.

Why So Blu?

<iframe width="420" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/5hR5YNqE3K8" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Jaymole

James Cameron raped my young adulthood...there, are you happy now?

LPMA

I don't know if my edition was different than everyone else's (Canadian edition, maybe?) but I skipped through the chapters and all of it was anamorphic...

bunkaroo

I think it would have been pretty big news if an anamorphic Abyss hit the market anywhere in the world. People would have been importing it a lot.

LPMA

This is the edition I have:

http://www.amazon.ca/Abyss-DVD/dp/B0...s=024543058359

bunkaroo

I remember when that one came out in the states with the same art, the art had it listed incorrectly as anamorphic. I think a fair amount of people actually picked it up hoping it was.

Doing some googling, it seems there are anamorphic versions of this and True Lies out in the past year in China (Region 6), but still no hits I can find on an anamorphic Canadian version.

zyzzle

Why haven't we heard more about those anamorphic releases, then? Are they garbage encodes, or what? Did anyone import that region 6 ABYSS, and is there any report as to improved PQ?

bunkaroo

Google for Abyss region 6 DVD you should find a thread at AVS.

I think at this point in the game, people are waiting for the Blu-ray. If it were 2009 or earlier, I'd probably bite on the import. But now there's no point in a stop-gap. I already have a pretty decent OAR HD recording of True Lies from HDnet Movies.

Dan

Yeah, the disc LPMA linked to is definitely NOT anamorphic. It's 2.35:1 letterboxed. That edition came out when I worked at a retail store that carried it and it was one of the first things I checked because I was going to buy it if it actually was anamorphic.

LPMA

Sorry about the confusion, I just popped the disc in and when saw the image wasn't pillarboxed, I didn't question any further. I had to pop it in the computer to actually realize this was possibly the first instance of my sound system's "auto fit" function to do shit.

OldBoy

this thread makes me sad

hanshotfirst1138

Um, maybe because there is only one version of True Lies and you can get an anamorphic version overseas, and both versions of The Abyss are on the disc and Cameron hasn't tried to suppress them in an Orwellian way, insisting that the first version "doesn't exist?" And I'd have to imagine there's every reason to believe that this will come out eventually, and Cameron hasn't gone mangling the original film prints.

mcnabb

From what I heard, Cameron is re-editing some scenes with Michael Biehn, so he doesn't shoot first in 'The Abyss' as he feels he should not be perceived as a cold blooded killer in the movie.

kidglov3s

Hence what a difference spite makes. People are more/less ok with neglect, but spite brings the claws out. I really don't think there's a good reason to believe we won't eventually have quality releases of the Star Wars films. My thought was more that right now materially if you've purchased a R1 DVD of Horses, Star Wars (1977), True Lies, The Abyss, Rollerball or Alice's Restaurant you have a product of a certain level of quality and everyone kind of makes due with all of those but one.

And the only reason I'm writing you this post now is cause you may know a film in a similar situation. Your favorite film may be in a similar situation, and if it's a situation like that there's only one thing you can do and that's to write an email or go on facebook or twitter, whatever, just go on and say "I can't get anything that I want, at Alice's restaurant." You know, if one person, just one person does it they may think he's really sick and they won't do anything. And if two people, two people do it, in harmony, they may think they're a couple of geeks and they won't do anything. If three people do it, three, can you imagine, three people posting about Alice's Restaurant. They may think it's an Organization. And can you, can you imagine fifty people a day,I said, fifty people a day walking in singin a bar of Alice's Restaurant and walking out. And friends they may thinks it's a movement.

Josh Z

As I recall, the Region 6 DVD of The Abyss was encoded as anamorphic, but was later proven to be merely upconverted from the non-anamorphic letterbox transfer. It's also PAL.

True Lies I believe had a genuine anamorphic DVD in some PAL territories (Australia got one, I think), but the transfer wasn't sanctioned by James Cameron or Lightstorm.

hanshotfirst1138

I do see what you're saying, Lucas has specifically chosen to suppress his versions, whereas Cameron has simply neglected the films. I think he will eventually release them properly when he's not so busy with all of the Avatar stuff. Hopefully sooner

Maybe Disney will do it, I'd love nothing more, I assure you.

My thought was more that right now materially if you've purchased a R1 DVD of Horses, Star Wars (1977), True Lies, The Abyss, Rollerball or Alice's Restaurant you have a product of a certain level of quality and everyone kind of makes due with all of those but one.

I've long since come to the conclusion that while many film fans online may care about these things, the mainstream public just buy it and don't ask questions. The Star Wars situation is pretty unique, but there are plenty of films that have gotten of ill treatment on home video in various different ways

I think the German version is anamorphic and has some extras that the US release doesn't.

zyzzle

[QUOTE=Josh Z;11823212]As I recall, the Region 6 DVD of The Abyss was encoded as anamorphic, but was later proven to be merely upconverted from the non-anamorphic letterbox transfer. It's also PAL.

Well, then it's a useless transfer, as I suspected. 4% PAL speed-up *and* upconvert == BARF.

Bring on the 35+ Mbps Blu-ray, please! ABYSS and TRUE LIES will look fantastic in 1080p, provided the color timing is true to the original theatricals and not tweaked, but I'm 'expecting' Cameron will tweak it as is his custom.

orangerunner

Here's an odd thing that happened to me...

I took my copy of The Abyss and played it in my Sony BDPS360 player onto my 16:9 TV.

The FBI warning, menu and the film itself filled up the entire 16:9 screen as if it were an anamorphic title. The only item that showed as being 4:3 pillarboxed was the 20th Century Fox Home Video logo.

I check the settings on my TV and ran through all of them: "Cinema", "Normal", "Zoomed" etc. and they all filled the screen, no pillarboxing occurred.

I checked the disc files on the computer and everything was labelled as 4:3 except for the FBI logo which was 16:9.

I took the disc out and put it in my HDDVD player and that machine played the disc in 4:3 pillarboxed and only filled the screen in the "zoom" setting.

I thought I would try an experiment and took a DVD copy of Fatal Beauty which is a 4:3 letterboxed title (same as The Abyss), played it back in my Sony Blu-ray and it played back as pillarboxed, which it should.

I tried the title "big", which is also 4:3 letterboxed and it did the same thing as The Abyss. It gave the impression of being 16:9 anamorphic even though it wasn't.

Is this something with the combination of Fox DVD encoding and my Sony Blu-ray player that it zooms the image no matter what setting your TV is on giving the (false) impression of it being anamorphic?

Strange...

Is there something I am overlooking?

whotony

Not sure what your question is but if its why doesnt the movie play as if it was 16x9 anamorphic enhanced it is because it is not. As mentioned just a few p8sts back and a few times in this topic only the menu is enhanced.

TheBang

Check your "Video Settings" on your player. It should be set to the following:

TV Type: 16:9
Screen Format: Original
DVD Aspect Ratio: Letter Box

Josh-da-man

I think that certain non-anamorphic DVDs are somehow flagged to automatically zoom on certain players.

I have noticed this on a couple of my DVDs. My copy of Halloween H20, which is non-anamorphic, would play zoomed when I put it in my Sony blu-ray player. My player was an S360, the same as yours. Other non-enhanced titles would play pillarboxed or windowboxed just as you would expect.

So, no, you're not crazy, and your player settings are good. I've seen the same thing, though I don't own either The Abyss or Big.

*My Halloween H20 disc was the original Disney "Dimension Collectors Series" edition of the film and not the Echo Bridge version if you or anyone else wants to try it on their players.

orangerunner

Thank-you! I'm glad someone else has noticed this too.

If you didn't have the knowledge to open up the files and see they were actually encoded 4:3 you would falsely assume that you were watching an anamorphic picture.

This is especially true because my copy of The Abyss specifically states that it is anamorphic on the slip case specs but the trapsheet just says "2.35:1 Widescreen".