Uncropped OAR Movies: Post your sightings here. - Page 2

This question is for those who are against OAR and want their screen's filled up; when you buy a particular DVD w/an OAR of 2.35:1, do you buy the widescreen or the pan and scan one?

I've asked this question to the screen filling black bar haters on numerous occasions, but have yet to receive an intelligent reply. Remember that if they have a 16x9 set, they will still get side bars on their P&S DVD viewing. So there really is no way out for the screen fillers when it comes to 2.35 DVDs. To avoid hypocrisy, they can only respond that they don't watch 2.35 DVDs. Any other response invalidates their reasons for hating 2.35 HD content.

I'd image that they buy WS and ZOOM it

Hey, "Just" mode looks really good.

Or buy "Full-Frame" and stretch it.

that's the funny part...

they don't mind chopping off the sides (25% of the picture)
but lord knows they absolutly will not STRETCH (distort) the picture .1%

King David (1985, Richard Gere) was OAR on InHD today. I think there are a couple of more showings over the next few days.

I thought 16X9 tv's where actually 1:77 but a 1:85 Movie would play without any blackbars

Thank God the Mona Lisa happened to fit right into the frame Leonardo had

Screenfillers don't care about the art of a film. It's just entertainment to them. That's why they dismiss "the way the director intended" so easily!

But this and Josh Z's analogy is dead on

Little Darlings (1980, Tatum O'Neal, Kristy McNichol) was in OAR last night on INHD2.

This is almost but not quite true. A 16:9 picture is 1.78:1 but most program providers trim 1.85:1 movies to fit the 16:9 format because less than 3.5% of the horizontal aspect of the original image is lost that way. Although I would prefer 1.85:1 movies to be shown OAR, too, I can live with the loss of 3.5% of the horizontal aspect of the picture if it makes the anti-black bar crowd happy. The problem, though, is that most program providers also trim 2.35:1 films to fit the 16:9 format, thereby eliminating nearly 25% of the horizontal aspect of such films. For this there can be no excuse, it seems to me.

HDTV is 1.7777777777777777777777777777~

=)

1.85 movies on HDTV will probably fill the screen even if not intentionally stretched to do so, simply due to overscan.

The driver in DVD sales at the Wal-Mart level is still NTSC (not HD) for the simple reason that Wal-Mart sells very few HDTVs (the situation at Sam's Club, is, unfortunately even worse). Decisions are made there based on price (in terms of hardware) and the selection of widescreen titles at Wal-Mart has been, from my own observations, *abysmal*.

For this reason, I've been buying my DVDs (practially all widescreen) at Best Buy (or, if BB is out of stock, Border's). I have no 16:9 TVs (yet), but I do most of my DVD watching at my PC (where all is progressive-scan by design/default) so I can deal easily with 16:9.

Also, when I *do* get a 16:9 bedroom set (and I am looking seriously at the 30" Sceptre available via Costco.com) I'll be ready.

I'm watching it now and it looks like one of the best HD transfers I've seen in a long time. Admittedly, I haven't watched a lot of movies recently, but this is far better than some of the stuff I've watched on HBO-HD in the past.

Dave -- I agree I thought the long shots of the actors in the courtroom during the trial scenes were dazzling. Without BOTH HD and the 2.35:1 OAR the effect would have been lost.

See the thread I started about this issue this morning:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...hreadid=453886

I saw Cabin Fever on HBOHD this weekend - it was 2.35:1 and it looked great. The movie is from 2002 - maybe this was before they decided to crop everything.

I thought I read somewhere that movie studios were actually releasing multiple versions of movies these days with different aspect ratios, but I don't remember where I read that.

I can understand folks with sub-36" TVs preferring PS movies, but I don't fall in that category. I have a 25" set in the bedroom and still prefer WS versions.

Unfortunately, I also understand HBO's position on wanting to fill the 16:9 screen. Even among HDTV owners, there seems to be a difference of opinon on this issue. I think some of this goes back to the days before HD tuners could zoom HD channels. But now that they can, why not present everything OAR and let the user zoom as desired? Also, does anypne know just how much money, time, and effort are involved in transferring a film to HD? Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems StarZ used to (and maybe still does) show both PS and WS versions of the same movie at different times/days.

Ding, ding, ding! We have a winner. This is the obvious solution. Movies should always be presented in their OAR and the black-bar haters can zoom it if they wish. What's so difficult about that? Your basic win-win situation; why can't HBO and the other offenders understand this? And to those very few who still don't yet have the ability to do this, time to upgrade to a set/STB that will. You'll be glad you did. We'll be glad you did.

And don't forget the other half of the Faustian bargain resulting from P&S crop jobs - a softer picture due to the zooming. This is an equally egregious sin for anyone who loves HDTV and should never be forgotten in any of the half-dozen concurrent threads that re-hash this issue nearly every day here in the hallowed cyber-halls of AVS.

You forgot I believe Monster's Ball...

The Cooler is umm... interseting. Extremely violent and without really much purpose. It was good, but the violence really detracted from the movie. And I love violence, but when it is there without much purpose it definitely hurts the storytelling..

Releasing to theaters in multiple aspect ratios? No, never happens.

Releasing to DVD in both "Widescreen" and "Full Screen" editions? Yes, many studios do this. The Full Screen edition is 4:3. No studios are releasing 2.35:1 movies formatted for 16:9.

[quote]Originally posted by dneily
[b]
and

Confidence

Looks like TitanTV needs to add another indicator, HD-OAR.