Pee-wee's Big Adventure - October 4th, 2011

[DarknessBDJM]

Originally Posted by notops

Warner does no cropping when changing the ratio from 1.85 to 1.78

Cropping implies losing information. No such thing happens, as the change from 1.85 to 1.78 actually adds information to the extreme top and bottom of the screen (assuming your Overscan is turned off).

No, that's not true. 1.85:1 is a wider ratio and to the 1.78:1/16:9 widescreen hdtv's use, they cannot produce it natively so what is done to the films shown unchanged in that ratio and keep the wider width is to essentially make it smaller to fit the screen and so one gets the small black bars at the top and bottom of the screen (the same thing with the even wider 2.39:1 films). When 1.85:1 films are adapted fit the entire screen vertically on a 1.78:1/16:9 tv screen they chop off some of the picture at the sides (which is absurd a the black bars at the top and bottom are too small to notice for most viewers). If you have a computer program like VLC you can see this for yourself as they have options for a 1.85:1 DVD or Blu-Ray image to fill the entire 16:9 screen.

It's not a lot of the image lost, but it is image lost and many people don't like that to varying degrees. It's nowhere near as bad as seeing 2.39:1 movies like Blade cropped to 1.78:1, but it's a problem nonetheless.