Cropped from widescreen to fullscreen 1.33

[Cypher]

How many movies have you seen where the widescreen print has been cropped to fullscreen 1.33/1.

I just watched Vengeance of the Zombie (1973) on blu-ray and according to imdb this film was filmed in 1.85 aspect ratio yet it appear on blu-ray as 1.33.

I would have thought the days of cropping movies was over since blu-rays pretty much require a widescreen HDTV.

The picture quality is nice otherwise.

[HD Goofnut]

Originally Posted by Cypher

How many movies have you seen where the widescreen print has been cropped to fullscreen 1.33/1.

I just watched Vengeance of the Zombie (1973) on blu-ray and according to imdb this film was filmed in 1.85 aspect ratio yet it appear on blu-ray as 1.33.

I would have thought the days of cropping movies was over since blu-rays pretty much require a widescreen HDTV.

The picture quality is nice otherwise.

It all depends on what master the releasing studio is using. Take Alliance out of Canada for example. Most of their films on BD are 1.78:1 even if the release was originally wider than that. This is because they mainly use the HD broadcasts versions, which are of course cropped to 1.78:1 or 16:9.

[DaveFi]

Did you notice on IMDB where it said "70 mm (blow-up)"? So even though theatrically it was shown at 1.85, quite possibly the OAR was 1.33. It could also have been the case where this is the preferred AR of the director.

[42041]

I've never run into that myself. Seems like it'd be really unusual to both violate the OAR and piss off the black bar haters.
Also, are you sure it's cropped rather than open-matte? If something was originally shot flat to be shown in 1.85:1, you would achieve a 1.33:1 aspect ratio by opening up the whole frame.

[steve_dave]

Originally Posted by HD Goofnut

It all depends on what master the releasing studio is using. Take Alliance out of Canada for example. Most of their films on BD are 1.78:1 even if the release was originally wider than that. This is because they mainly use the HD broadcasts versions, which are of course cropped to 1.78:1 or 16:9.

FYI: Alliance handles distribution for Universal, Miramax/Dimension, and The Weinstein Company. Most of their exclusive releases are actually in the original aspect ratio with about a third modified for 1.78:1. All of the titles released at the same time or about the same time by Alliance are the same as their US counterparts but most have localized covers and disc art.

Alliance's combo pack for Traffic is actually the preferred release for most as it is not a flipper and actually includes 1 BD disc and a 1 DVD disc in the set.