Aspect Ratios - The Director's Vision

[Mr Wiggy]

Originally Posted by Pondosinatra

The majority of money comes from sales to the home rental, VOID, PPV market.....all widescreen TV's sold since they came out are in 1.85 AR......so here's a thought, make 1.85 the standard friggin aspect ratio!!!

Man, people just don't get it. To hell with all these misinformed plonks and self-proclaimed "artists" spewing this nonsense! I mean, can you imagine Lord of The Rings in 1.85:1? Yuck

[scweb13]

Originally Posted by Pondosinatra

The majority of money comes from sales to the home rental, VOID, PPV market.....all widescreen TV's sold since they came out are in 1.85 AR......so here's a thought, make 1.85 the standard friggin aspect ratio!!!

You FAIL because 16:9 is not even 1.85:1. Try again.

[Dotpattern]

Originally Posted by Pondosinatra

I can't wait until the directors with their precious 'vision' start coming out with movies in say 4.6 format. Enjoy squinting to try and see the movie on your TV - but hey, it's their 'vision'.

You can't wait? Uh...they already did...before the invention of TV. Look at classics like Casablanca, Wizard of Oz, Gone with the Wind, The Searchers, and every movie made before the 1950's. And guess what - no one was squinting in the theater, and no one is squinting now.

[PeterTHX]

Originally Posted by Pondosinatra

Yes, that is the gist of it.

Don't like 1:85? That's fine, but please spare me the 'it's the director's vision' BS as you pop in Gigli and watch it in 2:35.

A few months from now I will be popping in the all-time box office champ AVATAR and watching it 2.40!

[KubrickFan]

Originally Posted by Dotpattern

You can't wait? Uh...they already did...before the invention of TV. Look at classics like Casablanca, Wizard of Oz, Gone with the Wind, The Searchers, and every movie made before the 1950's. And guess what - no one was squinting in the theater, and no one is squinting now.

The Searchers was 1.85:1, actually, so that doesn't count.

Originally Posted by Pondosinatra

I can't wait until the directors with their precious 'vision' start coming out with movies in say 4.6 format. Enjoy squinting to try and see the movie on your TV - but hey, it's their 'vision'.

4.6 would be the regular 1.3 already used, wouldn't it?

And I forgot when all of this became a contest. 2.4:1 is good for certain movies, just as 1.85:1 is good for certain ones. I wouldn't like to see Star Wars in 1.85:1, just as I wouldn't like to see Vertigo in 2.4:1.
I really thought we'd be over this after 12 years since DVD's introduction. But it's like it's becoming worse, with the director's preferred color palette and grain size added to most discussions.

[DNinja]

Can I have my Blu-Rays in their original aspect ratio and NOTHING ELSE? I don't want cropped or open-matte films just because some people can't figure out how to use the zoom on their TV. The zoom feature on televisions should solve the problem for people who want every movie to "fill the screen." Even if every director started filming movies in 1.78:1 from now on, it still wouldn't change the fact that there are thousands of movies that were not filmed in that ratio and would still not fill a 16x9 screen.

[garyrc]

I think it was false advertising for the manufacturers to call 1.78:1 HDTV ("16:9") widescreen, when it was really "narrow screen" compared to the ARs of any American theatrical aspect ratio, except the old 1.37:1 and 1.33:1. When widescreen came to the theaters in the '50s, most people reserved the term "widescreen" for ARs of 1.85:1 and larger, and my friends and I usually had even wider in mind, e.g., 2.2:1 (most 70mm), and most often 2.35:1 (now virtually replaced with 2.39:1, rounded to 2.40:1 by many writers). Leonard Maltin doesn't even include 1.85:1 in his widescreen AR list anymore, since 1.85:1 is usually as narrow as it gets nowadays (except for weird formats like IMAX, and the horrible HDTV AR).

Do we think the manufacturers of HDTVs used the ratio of 16:9 in their advertising so that the consumer wouldn't realize that it was narrower than even 1.85:1 without doing the math?

Do we think that some fine day, not too long from now, they will attempt to sell us flatscreens with ARs of 2.39:1? I'd probably be enough of a fool to buy one, for the sake of immersion and impact, if it were not for my hope that I will have front projection with Common Height by then.
When that day comes, it will be 1.78:1 and 1.85:1 that will look weird, because they don't fill the home screen. I'm sure that filmmakers who use a lot of true widescreen take comfort in this.

[Deciazulado]

1.66 is considered Widescreen

[garyrc]

Was 1.66 used by American filmmakers shooting in the USA? I thought it was a foreign film aspect ratio, not one that the majority of the buying public often saw, or came to think of as widescreen, which is why I said:

Originally Posted by garyrc

compared to the ARs of any American theatrical aspect ratio, except the old 1.37:1 and 1.33:1. .

I remember seeing 1.66 from time to time in Art Houses, but only in a few films from abroad. Most of them seemed to be 1.37, or whole hog for some kind of 'scope, as was the case with Marienbad. Maybe some of the Art Houses in Berkeley and San Francisco didn't have 1.66 masks.

[Deciazulado]

For a while there was 1.66, 1.75, and 1.85

[scweb13]

Originally Posted by garyrc

Was 1.66 used by American filmmakers shooting in the USA? I thought it was a foreign film aspect ratio, not one that the majority of the buying public often saw, or came to think of as widescreen, which is why I said:

Nightmare Before Christmas is 1.66:1. It was filmed entirely in the US. The Crazies is also 1.66:1.

One that doesn't make much sense is The Toolbox Murders. It was filmed at 1.85:1 and was originally released on video at 1.66:1. The upcoming BD from Blue Underground will also be 1.66:1.

[Deciazulado]

Most Standard Widescreen films are not filmed with a hard matte so more area is exposed on the negative than composed for on the groundglass, this prevents 1.85 films having black letterbox bars on 1.66 screenings, as mentioned often.

[Celerony]

Originally Posted by garyrc

Do we think that some fine day, not too long from now, they will attempt to sell us flatscreens with ARs of 2.39:1?

Haha, where have you lived last year?
Philips has brought one onto the market:
http://www.ranco.nl/gadget/Philips/C...ema_21-9_1.jpg (but not in the USA, so far as I know)

[garyrc]

Originally Posted by Celerony

Haha, where have you lived last year?
Philips has brought one onto the market:
http://www.ranco.nl/gadget/Philips/C...ema_21-9_1.jpg (but not in the USA, so far as I know)

If it really is 21:9 (as shown on the Phillips link you provided), once again we have a compromise, since that would be 2.33:1. The good news: most classic 70 mm films will look good, since almost all of them were 2.20:1. Does this mean that they would fill the screen from top to bottom, and have miniscule black bars at the sides? I hope so. 35 mm Panavision & latter day CinemaScope would probably have small, relatively unobtrusive, bars at the top and bottom, right? And even Camera 65 & Ultra would have somewhat less obtrusive bars.

I can't help but be annoyed by Phillips, though. Why didn't they insist on doing this back at the dawn of HDTV? Was the technology not available? Phillips was practically present at the creation of 2.2:1, having manufactured the 70 mm projectors often used by Todd-AO and other 70 mm processes.

[Celerony]

The native panel A/R is 2:37:1, so that's the same as with a beamer combined with an anamorphic lens.

The phrase ''21:9'' is actually a dumb-ass term; we prefer to talk about ''aspect ratio''

[garyrc]

Originally Posted by Celerony

The native panel A/R is 2:37:1, so that's the same as with a beamer combined with an anamorphic lens.

The phrase ''21:9'' is actually a dumb-ass term; we prefer to talk about ''aspect ratio''

I agree ... it surely is a dumb-ass term, as is 16:9. Phillips may be advertising 21:9 only to emphasize that it is wider than other manufacturers' 16:9 HDTVs.
"What a tangled web we weave ...."

[Celerony]

Originally Posted by garyrc

I can't help but be annoyed by Phillips, though. Why didn't they insist on doing this back at the dawn of HDTV? Was the technology not available? Phillips was practically present at the creation of 2.2:1, having manufactured the 70 mm projectors often used by Todd-AO and other 70 mm processes.

You gave the answer yourself, it's HDTV.
Scope is simply not a practical format for normal TV shows etc.

Now, this is ofcourse simply a ''chop the borders off'' solution, altough, with good HD content you can afford it.

[Henners]

I understand how the idea is to preserve the orignal aspect ratios etc

I'm just confused though as I bought a new lcd for my pc widescreen 24"

Though, with the black bars top/bottom - I understand great to keep the wide picture - but what is the point of getting a widescreen tv if my old 3:4 tv can do the same thing with the black bars..

I just would have thought that a widescreen tv would allow the screen to be filled - without loosing any picture cropping.. or does I not make any sense..

Or perhaps.. maybe we need to invent a new model of widescreen tv that is more wider so all the pixels are used in the full widescreen viewing?

[Dotpattern]

Originally Posted by Henners

I understand how the idea is to preserve the orignal aspect ratios etc

I'm just confused though as I bought a new lcd for my pc widescreen 24"

Though, with the black bars top/bottom - I understand great to keep the wide picture - but what is the point of getting a widescreen tv if my old 3:4 tv can do the same thing with the black bars..

I just would have thought that a widescreen tv would allow the screen to be filled - without loosing any picture cropping.. or does I not make any sense..

Or perhaps.. maybe we need to invent a new model of widescreen tv that is more wider so all the pixels are used in the full widescreen viewing?

Any way you slice it, you're going to have black bars - whether they're at the top and bottom or on the sides - including what you're suggesting.

If the tv is wider to make a 2:35 movie fill up the screen, then a 1:85 will have black bars on the sides. And a 4:3 image will have even wider bars on the sides.

[Henners]

Originally Posted by Dotpattern

Any way you slice it, you're going to have black bars - whether they're at the top and bottom or on the sides - including what you're suggesting.

If the tv is wider to make a 2:35 movie fill up the screen, then a 1:85 will have black bars on the sides. And a 4:3 image will have even wider bars on the sides.

hmm... oh yes.. good point..

I guess yeah 16:9 looks like the better one to choose then..

I've tried stretching a 4:3 once.. yuck...