Wrong way letterboxing?!?: The Black Hole Fotomat Beta vs Anchor Bay VHS

[tripletopper]

I finally got my UHF broadcaster to broadcast old school media so we don't have to lug stuff upstairs and plug things in.

I decided to test it out on an Anchor Bay copy of the Black Hole on VHS

It's advertised as widescreen edition. Ideally according to the movie theorists it should contain more information than the 4x3 information on VHS.

Well I played it and technically it is 2 35 to 1 but I think they missed the point of doing that by instead of zooming out and showing the whole film they took the 4x3 of a videotape version and zoomed in and cut off the top and bottom.

I remember on the Fotomat Beta copy, I remember the opening scene with the computer vector graphics displaying the black hole on the introduction, I distinctly remember in addition to the credits there were computer displays that would be represented on a normal ship if one was in such a situation like "apporaching black hole" or a gravity reading, or something.

First of all is that just me and my active less than 5 year old imagination remembering those display warnings in the Fotomat version? Or were they really in there?

If they were in the original theatrical scene, which I would have been way too young to see and remember, then chopping off the sides of a 2.35 to one to down to 4x3 whatever removed some of the sides but apparently the panners and scanners thought that was important information in the movie so they somehow put that in.

So if my memory is cracked then this Anchor Bay version is actually a "wrong way letterbox copy" where you get to 2.35 to 1 by subtracting film data instead of adding film data.

I also noticed I bought a few clearances on letterbox copies of a few movies on DVD about 17 years ago which were Last Action Hero, Adventures in Babysitting, UHF, and My Stepmother is an Alien.

One time I got some money back from MGM for buying UHF even though my memory wasn't that particular until I compared the preserved scene with the outtakes. the outtakes next to The preserve scenes definitely show that they did letterboxing by subtraction.

And then I noticed a certain shot that I noticed well that was completely gone in the widescreen version but was in the VHS version and the basic cable version. I assume Best Buy was closing out of those because those were considered illegal widescreen versions where they did widescreen by subtraction not addition.

I remember in the days of HD DVD versus Blu-ray that one of those two coalitions had a rule that everything must be in their maximum "film data" mode preserving the entire film and using black bars to adjust the ratios so that the whole film is preserved. If that was the Blu-ray coalition's original policy and it got abandoned once HD DVD bit the dust, then the brand name Blu-ray doesn't mean anything anymore. I can understand if that was the HD DVD coalition's policy and then Blu-ray coalition thoughts that that was one aspect of their victory. (By the way the difference in the HD movie disc by players sold was to 3 significant figures the difference between PlayStation 3s sold versus Xbox 360 add on adapters sold)

Is there a way you could tell whether they do letterboxing by addition or letterboxing by subtraction? I noticed too many of the shows on basic cable that were originally 4x3 get zoomed in to fit in 16 by 9 and make some of those pictures awful. Both in terms of pixel quality and in terms of artistic composition.

Maybe if this generates a lot of talk that could be a permanent category called letterboxing by subtraction which you discuss movies to warn people that the so-called preserved movie actually only preserves the donut hole and not the dough.