4:3 Cartoons ... On Blu-ray?

[Tyrindor]

I have a huge collection of 4:3 cartoons such as Simpsons, American Dad, Family Guy, South Park, Etc and i'm wondering if I should halt on any new additions and wait for blu-ray releases... but none have been announced.

Simpsons/South Park finally went 16:9 and HD, however I'm wondering what the chances of earlier seasons and current american dad/family guy seasons coming to blu-ray would be. They'd either have to keep the original 4:3, or crop it to 16:9 and depending on how they were drawn there might not even be a quality increase.

Thoughts?

[AFightingPanda]

most of these shows were produced without the forethought of HD. Meaning you cant release them in blu ray....well you can you just wouldnt get anything out of it. I know that south park is going back and re-rendering out their old seasons in the higher res and are going to be going the blu ray route at some point in the future.

[Tyrindor]

Originally Posted by AFightingPanda

most of these shows were produced without the forethought of HD. Meaning you cant release them in blu ray....well you can you just wouldnt get anything out of it. I know that south park is going back and re-rendering out their old seasons in the higher res and are going to be going the blu ray route at some point in the future.

Yea exactly, some of these shows (maybe all) are going to be remastered for blu-ray just for the $.

I'm really not interested in cropped pictures tho, I'm willing to bet that south park will be cropped to 16:9 and some of the picture will be loss. I'd rather them just release high quality/remastered 4:3 versions.

[kndy]

Originally Posted by Tyrindor

Yea exactly, some of these shows (maybe all) are going to be remastered for blu-ray just for the $.

I'm really not interested in cropped pictures tho, I'm willing to bet that south park will be cropped to 16:9 and some of the picture will be loss. I'd rather them just release high quality/remastered 4:3 versions.

South Park S12 was actually quite nice on Blu-ray (although 1080i) but an example of animation released on Blu-ray that was not 16:9 was the anime "Yukikaze" which was 4:3 (1080i HD). One I wanted to purchase but haven't yet (since I own the DVD box sets) was the Justice League S1.

[BPHusker]

I could have sworn I read somewhere that they were redoing all the previous seasons in Southpark as HD. Hopefully that is the case.

[AFightingPanda]

Originally Posted by Tyrindor

Yea exactly, some of these shows (maybe all) are going to be remastered for blu-ray just for the $.

I'm really not interested in cropped pictures tho, I'm willing to bet that south park will be cropped to 16:9 and some of the picture will be loss. I'd rather them just release high quality/remastered 4:3 versions.

I think I read they are going to be opening up the shots, not cropping them.

[redtornado]

I figure with The Simpsons, theres really not much they can do with it. Newer toons like Venture Bros just blow them away.

Still waiting for Scooby Doo Where Are You? on blu-ray

[steve_dave]

Originally Posted by Tyrindor

I have a huge collection of 4:3 cartoons such as Simpsons, American Dad, Family Guy, South Park...

South Park Studios has kept all of the digital files and they are currently in the process of remastering every episode in true high-definition. Matt Stone and Trey Parker did say that this will be a long process since they will be re-doing and re-rendering the episodes to 1080i. None of the framing will be cropped to 1.78;1 widescreen, instead entire shots will be recomposed for the 1.78;1 screen. Its the reverse of what Pixar does to modify thier films for 1.33:1 televisions.

They already started work in 1080i/30f so unfortunately, they would have to go back and do another pass for 1080p/24 which is cost prohibitive for them.

And yes, you can remaster The Simpsons, Family Guy, and American Dad in HD but they will be 4x3 pillarboxed like Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs & Pinocchio. Also, due to the filmstock used for the earlier seasons of The Simpsons, even remastered in HD, they would look rather poor.

[Afrobean]

Originally Posted by Tyrindor

I'm really not interested in cropped pictures tho, I'm willing to bet that south park will be cropped to 16:9 and some of the picture will be loss. I'd rather them just release high quality/remastered 4:3 versions.

What they've done for South Park is a little more complicated than mere cropping. Yes, they seem to achieve the widening of the frame by cutting top/bottom, but the frame is literally recomposed when necessary. It's like saying The Shining presented in its OAR of 1.85:1 is bad because it crops image out that appears in the fullscreen home video release. Cropping is not a fundamentally bad thing, it is only a bad thing when it is at odds with the creative intent. If the folks making the show are going back and recomposing the frame to create 16:9, I don't mind that it's "cropped", so long as they take care to recompose elements that need to be changed or altered. For example, I certainly hope that no heads will be chopped off or other such pitfalls of sloppy cropping.

Originally Posted by AFightingPanda

I think I read they are going to be opening up the shots, not cropping them.

Is opening the matte more in line with creative intent than cutting out a portion containing negligible information?

That's up to the creative staff to decide. Technically speaking, I'm sure they could do whichever they choose and it would be fine. Hopefully they'll make use of both where applicable to create a new 16:9 presentation that maintains good frame composition. I don't watch a lot of TV lately, but I've caught a few episodes of the HD run of The Simpsons and King of the Hill, and frankly, the poor frame composition is annoying. They compose the frame in such a way so that it is framed properly in 4:3, then just open the sides for 16:9, and frankly, the framing looks like crap a lot of the time.

Originally Posted by steve_dave

South Park Studios has kept all of the digital files and they are currently in the process of remastering every episode in true high-definition. Matt Stone and Trey Parker did say that this will be a long process since they will be re-doing and re-rendering the episodes to 1080i. None of the framing will be cropped to 1.78;1 widescreen, instead entire shots will be recomposed for the 1.78;1 screen. Its the reverse of what Pixar does to modify thier films for 1.33:1 televisions.

The first few episodes of season 12 have already identified to have been shorter in height than their 4:3 counterparts, rather than longer in width as you are suggesting. The framing of certain parts appears to have been changed so that it does not look "cropped", but I don't think there were any parts of it where the left/right "matte" was opened rather than the top/bottom was "cropped".

And yes, you can remaster The Simpsons, Family Guy, and American Dad in HD but they will be 4x3 pillarboxed like Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs & Pinocchio. Also, due to the filmstock used for the earlier seasons of The Simpsons, even remastered in HD, they would look rather poor.

Many recent animated shows were animated natively at low resolutions. It is possible to feed them through computers to blow up the picture to 1080 vertical resolution, but that would just be a high quality upscale and not a "remaster in HD". Either way, I doubt if it would be cost effective for them to process the low resolution animated material in this way anyway, as any attempt to release the processed material on Blu-ray would probably just be met with people screaming how terrible it is that they're trying to rip off consumers by selling them BDs with material their upconverting DVD player can create (although in truth, a BD presentation of professionally upscaled SD animation would look a be better than just playing a DVD upconverted).

ANNNNNNNNYWAY, yeah, in addition to what others have said, older animation on film can be rescanned (happened with Dragon Ball Z, still waiting for BD release of the TV show though), and there is plenty of 4:3 stuff on BD. Fans of Family Guy and the like may want to look at Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy, which is 1080p in 4:3 aspect ratio. Perhaps the fact that this stuff is available in 1080p at 4:3 suggests that maybe the newer Family Guy and/or American Dad is being animated at 1080p rather than 480p as was previously the practice for animated shows.

[MOONPHASE]

Justice League season 1 is on Blu-ray right now and in it's OAR of 4:3.

[SlmShdy1]

Originally Posted by MOONPHASE

Justice League season 1 is on Blu-ray right now and in it's OAR of 4:3.

There was a thread about this Blu-ray back when it was about to come out. I guess people had assumed that they would release Justice League season one in 16:9 because they had created a widescreen version for TV. But when they released it in 4:3 people were disappointed and are now expecting a double dip. I don't know if it still holds any water or if the 16:9 version is just a cropped picture.

[Pantallicarox]

Yeah for the first season of Justice League the animators created a full screen picture with the intent to crop down to wide screen (the creators wanted wide screen from the start but cartoon network didn't want a wide screen show). So even though the picture is full screen the top and bottom are just fluff, usually just still backgrounds or something like that. They finally started airing them wide screen in season two. Sorry for the long post

[MOONPHASE]

Originally Posted by SlmShdy1

There was a thread about this Blu-ray back when it was about to come out. I guess people had assumed that they would release Justice League season one in 16:9 because they had created a widescreen version for TV. But when they released it in 4:3 people were disappointed and are now expecting a double dip. I don't know if it still holds any water or if the 16:9 version is just a cropped picture.

But wasn't it that Justice League was 4:3 but Justice League Unlimited was 16:9 or at least the newer stuff beyond Justice League season 1?

[AlaskaDon]

I have all seasons of South Park so when season 12 came out in Blu I debated if I should get it on DVD like all the others, or if I should buy it on Blu-ray. Finally, I just couldn't force myself to byu something on DVD that was available in HD and I bought the Blu. While I'm not really sorry that I did, there is no way that I would replace all my existing sets. I just don't see that big of an improvement, and this would be a seriously expensive replacement. I pretty much feel the same way about Venture Bros although I might be tempted to replace those as it would only need to be 2 seasons. I really don't think season 3 looks all that much better on Blu though.

I would probably feel differently about it if I watched these kinds of shows on my front projector like I do with my movies. I watch this stuff in my living room on a smaller display where the improvement is less apparent. Another example is with the recently remastered Looney Tunes Golden Collections on DVD. These look fantastic on my plasma display (upconverted of course) and replacing them with Blu's would be a huge waste of money imho.

[KubrickFan]

Originally Posted by MOONPHASE

But wasn't it that Justice League was 4:3 but Justice League Unlimited was 16:9 or at least the newer stuff beyond Justice League season 1?

No it was shot open matted from the start of season 1 of Justice League.

[Clark Kent]

A lot of older animated shows on network television simply do not have the native resolution to benefit from the picture quality provided by Blu-ray. The Simpsons, over two decades after it premiered, just finally switched to a high-definition pipeline and production for the entire show. Family Guy has still not moved to a production format that would benefit from Blu-ray.

[Afrobean]

Originally Posted by Clark Kent

A lot of older animated shows on network television simply do not have the native resolution to benefit from the picture quality provided by Blu-ray. The Simpsons, over two decades after it premiered, just finally switched to a high-definition pipeline and production for the entire show.

The first 9 seasons or so of Simpsons were animated old-fashioned on cels and such. It is possible that film masters exist somewhere that could be rescanned and remastered.

Family Guy has still not moved to a production format that would benefit from Blu-ray.

Like I said, if they produced the Cavalcade shorts at 4:3 with the higher picture fidelity of 1080p, then it is possible that they're producing Family Guy and American Dad similarly (and simply not airing them at a higher resolution due to the show's refusal to take on the wider aspect ratio).