A CIH question regarding the Abyss

That DVD is 4:3 letterboxed, not 16:9 letterboxed. So you would need twice the amount of VS. For example, a VS by the player and another VS by the display.

I tried this a while back with my DVD copy - because this is encoded with the letterbox bars rather than anamorphically, you're only starting off with 272 interlaced lines of information in the first place. Even if you use a processor with solid deinterlacing and scaling algorithms to deinterlace and double v-stretch the picture, you're interpolating so much data that it ends up looking pretty lousy. YMMV, but I found it to be way too low quality to enjoy.

Doing two 1.33x vertical stretches might result in a slightly softer image than doing a single 1.78x vertical stretch.

That Abyss non-anamorphic transfer is such a crime, especially given the production value and scope of that movie. I still can't believe Cameron went for it.

When is this darned thing gonna come out on Blu-Ray?

That transfer was originally created in the laserdisc days, before anamorphic enhancement. The DVD just recycles the old transfer. The movie was never remastered for DVD.

Double stretch does make the image soft. The last time I attempted to watch this film, I could not sit through the entire film. I was using the Samsung HD950 for VS, then the display to scale for CIH. Lets hope the BD is better.

Yeah I remembered it was something like that.

What blows me away is that any director, especially a director with the influence and power of James Cameron, can let a film of theirs, especially one that was born of epic hardships like the Abyss, just waste away with the most substandard presentation possible. When the majority of films have been upgraded in presentation (e.g. anamorphic DVD and now HD media) for so long.

If Cameron really cared I can't imagine he wouldn't have been able to get the Abyss a decent new transfer over these years. The impression left is like he doesn't care.

It's just weird.

Regardless if he cares or not, he is too busy with Avatar at this time to worry about The Abyss.

Besides, when it did come out on DVD, I remember reading an article where he stated it was the best he'd seen it and therefore anamorphic enhancement was not needed in his opinion. Notice the same attitude was shown towards the first release of Titanic, and that movie scored him some 11 Oscars!

Exactly. From someone of Cameron's technical savvy and attention to detail I find his attitude towards the presentation of his films on DVD to be bizarre.

Maybe he's not as "techno savy" as he'd have us believe and why AVATAR is 1.78:1

As in mine. However given that I saw it is Scope, it would be nice to show it that way in my home.

The wife and I were talking about that just last weekend. It's one of her favorite movies - she wanted another viewing, but the picture from the laserdisc blown up to 136" is not watchable.

Same with The Sound of Music. Looked OK, not great, on our old 56" projection TV. Totally unwatchable on the projector.

Just a nit: While fairly rare, there were anamorphic laserdiscs. Two of my laserdiscs (Unforgiven and Free Willy) feature anamorphic enhancement. They were promotional discs, given to purchasers of Toshiba's initial line of 16:9 rear-projection units. I bought my 16:9 Toshiba in 1994.

Geez, I'm getting old...

There was four titles if memory serves me right all from WB (?).

Yes, but "Squeeze LDs" were just a short-lived experiment, and a curiosity. Here's the complete list:

http://www.mindspring.com/~laserguru/squeeze.html

I have T2 and Showgirls.

wow cool. T2 would have looked pretty good in that format.

Cool info, thanks for posting the link!

There were two "Squeeze" LDs for T2, a standard transfer and a THX remaster. The THX disc is often listed as one of the best-looking LDs ever released. It has burned-in Japanese subtitles in the picture (not the letterbox bar), sadly.

A little before its time, however CIH ready/friendly none the less given we all complain when STs on BD are not in the active picture.

Whilst in a store the other day, I saw the "definitive" version of the ABYSS on DVD. Like the original DVD, the jacket stated 16:9 enhance even though the actual DVD was a 4 x 3 transfer. Does anyone know if this version is 16:9 or just another 4 x 3 job? The cover has a the "water pseudo pod" imitating EM's face. It has no other wording or title on the front cover.

I believe that's the one I was "tricked" into buying ("definitive version") a while back. The actual image is (as I remember) 16:9, but not enhanced, so it's pillar-boxed/letterboxed and you have to zoom to fill your 16:9 screen.