Uncropped OAR Movies: Post your sightings here. - Page 3

...and Girl with a Pearl Earring on HBO-HD right now.

Girl with a Pearl Earring is lovely--I recorded it, though I'd seen it on rented DVD not that long ago. The transfer is not particularly sharp, but the colors are amazing. I think that it's intended to resemble a Vermeer. Scarlett Johansson (Lost in Translation, another visual-treat flick) is perfectly cast as "Girl". Here's a very good example of a film that would be criminal to chop anything out of any frame.

As I recall, the DVD had a cool music video on it featuring Scarlett--coming to life, walking out of a painting, of course. I don't recall who the song was by or what it was called. (I looked it up--it was called, appropriately, "Girl With A Pearl" by some unknown singer-songwriter billed as simply "Truman". You can see some caps from the video here).

Just a few days back I commented in this post that many people bought their widescreen sets partly in an effort to eliminate the black bars. So sad.

Problem is most people doesn't know if movies on HBOHD or other HD movie channels are OAR or not. Ask them their fave top10 movies and their OAR. Even I don't remember the OAR of my top10 movies. Is there somewhere one can look up OAR of movies? I checked IMDB without success.

The "technical specifications" section on IMDB usually has it.

dneily
Great job keeping the list up but may i have a suggestion?

Edit then Add the list on very first post instead of scattered all over the place.

You can add Patriot Games to the "OAR on HBO" list. PQ seems indifferent at a glance, but's it a favorite so I'll watch.

You should rewrite the base post and give a list of each of the movies sighted, so people would have scan through the entire thread to find out what OAR transfers have been seen on these channels (if you're still tracking all three).

Forest Gump was "OAR on ABC".

Agreed. Isn't that what this topic is all about?

If we add a unique qualifier to the title, then it would be easy to find. Will that help?

It would also be nice if there was some way to know when movies on HBO are open matte as opposed to cropped. The ones that are OAR or open matte, I archive (assuming I like the movie, of course). The crop jobs I don't even bother watching.

I do the same. If I see something I want to archive, I record it to my 6412 and then watch it to determine if it is OAR or open matte. But I have been fooled before by films presented on HBO such as High Crimes and Transporter. They begin 2:35 OAR throughout the credits then switch to cropped.

I could be mistaken, but I recall a thread not too long ago where one of the posters had screen grabs of a good number of so-called HBO chop jobs that turned out to be open-matte when compared to the OAR dvd. Personally I prefer OAR but I don't have a problem with open-matte for >1.85 x'fers.

Can anyone recall this thread or show whether HBO movies are actually cropped or open-matte?

Here's how to check out the OAR of most movies. First, go to the movie's listing on IMDb. Then, click on Amazon.com's DVD icon in the upper right hand corner of the page. Click on the illustration for the movie at Amazon.com, which will take you to a page for that particular DVD only. Next, click on "See more product details." Product details usually reveal whether the movie is 2.35:1 or 1.85:1. Unfortunately, though, a few simply say "widescreen," from which you can't discern what the OAR was.

I remember it too - can't find it, though.

Or, you could just find the film's page at IMDb and click the "technical specs" link on the left, under "Other Info". You'll also find a link for "DVD Details" under the same heading, which will give you minute information on all DVD editions of the movie that have been published.

You can find aspect ratio details here.

Click on the letter starting the title, and then look for the title itself.

If the details specify that the movie was shot in Super 35, there is a possibility the transfer will be open matte.

Edit: Mike beat me on that reply!

If it is shot on Super 35, does that mean it will definitely be open matte vs. cropped? I am guessing not. Is there any way to tell for sure if a movie is open matted or cropped, short of a direct a/b comparison?

No, you can never be sure.

Michael -- This is a good tip, better than my old method of finding OAR, I think. Thanks.

Does that imply that if the movie wasn't shot in Super 35 that it will definitely NOT be open matte? If so, I'll go ahead and be disappointed in advance about Man on Fire on HBO Saturday night.

Carlos_Salcedo was the one who posted those screen shots on his web site. However, all the posts that referenced his site have been removed.

Well, the technical specs are not always there on IMDb for every film--then you can resort to searching out the DVD info at Amazon or some other e-tailer.

quote:
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Originally posted by gwsat
Michael -- This is a good tip, better than my old method of finding OAR, I think. Thanks.
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I suspect that is what got me on to the link to Amazon.com in the first place. I LOVE IMDb and checked out all of its resources years ago. I look something up there nearly every day. I can't believe that I had not looked at the technical details link or the DVD link before I read your earlier post. Nevertheless, until I did read it I had forgotten that IMDb provided those neat links.

Add "The Firm" to the list. It was shown OAR last night, and is scheduled for a couple more showings this month.

It was OAR for you? I thought I remember it being 1.85:1 on HBO last night. That may be the OAR, but this thread is about movies wider than 1.85:1.