Scrubs: 16x9 vs 4x3 comparison

[Afrobean]

Originally Posted by MTRodaba2468

A) One could make the argument that films from the early days of cinema shot in black & white was only due to limitations of technology, but that doesn't mean colorization should become the standard practice.

I agree completely, but if it were available to be colorized exactly as it should be, I think it would be a nice option. Now, it's not possible to discover color from a true B&W picture, but as long as a colorization is OPTIONAL, I don't see why anyone would have a problem with it (look at The Mist, I believe it is). ESPECIALLY if it's softcoded to the disc.

B) According to HighDef magazine, which talked about Scrubs going from standard to high definition:

The episodes weren't composed in 16:9. They were composed in 4:3, while protecting for the other aspect ratio.

As far as your question goes, if it's composed in 4:3, than that's how it should be shown, as far as I'm concerned.

Again, if it's optional, I don't understand why any person would find fault in them making it available in 16:9. I mean, they were planning to make it available in 16:9 from the beginning, right? Why after the show is done tell them to they shouldn't even make it available in that format? This is a lot different than The Shining being shot open matte for 4:3 fullscreen TV version... 16:9 Scrubs has only been seen BRIEFLY in flashbacks during the final season.

Based on the wording in the segment from the article I quoted, I would venture to say it's more similar to Kubrick's example than you give it credit for. It doesn't come across as them wanting it to be shown in 16:9 from the start. It comes across as them wanting it to be shown in 4:3, and not wanting their framing to be cropped when shown on HD channels (the last season being the exception, based on it being aired in that AR).

Has there ever been a recent show shot in 4:3 that got cropped in any way for 16:9? Seinfeld got a reframing when it was rescanned, and Hogan's Hero's was just flat-out cropped, but I can't think of a single recent show that has been cropped for presentation in HD.

I disagree about opening up the frame as not being a bad thing. The countless examples of seeing boom mikes and other equipment in the frame as a result should be enough evidence of that.

If it was "protected" I understood that to mean things like that wouldn't be any more apparent than in the "traditional" frame.

The REAL reason for maintaining OAR is to make sure things are framed adequately. Cropping widescreen to 4:3 disrupts the framing, opening from 4:3 to 16:9 disrupts framing. But I choose to believe that because they planned on opening it from the very beginning (unlike, say, Seinfeld), the framing shouldn't be destroyed.

Still doesn't mean it shouldn't be aired in the AR it was composed for.

But what if, as I'm saying, they kept 16:9 in mind,and the reason it aired in 4:3 wasn't for ARTISTIC reasons, but because it was forced on them by the higher ups. Look at Star Wars Clone Wars. The show is composed in 2.4:1, just like the movie, but it's "original" aspect ratio is 16:9; Cartoon Network airs it cropped to 16:9. I hear the 2.4:1 frame later appeared on another network, but the episodes originally appeared in 16:9.

But I digress. I'm talking about OPTIONAL 16:9 formatting. As older episodes become available in syndication in HD, 16:9 is going to be a given probably, but for the home video release, they can EASILY give an option of the originally aired aspect ratio.