Aspect Ratios on HBO HD - Page 2  

Regarding NetworkTV's last comment:

There may be an HD channel or two (for example, A&E-HD) that send their SD programming in up-converted HD in the "zoom" mode. TNT-HD may be sending 2:40 material zoomed (not panned and scanned) to 1:78 to 1 ratio. Just thoughts running around in my head like rats in a maze.

Regards,
Fitzie

True. But has anyone ever seen master and commander cut to 4:3 on FX SD channel or the 4:3 pan/scan version of schindler's list my mom unwittingly bought?

I also disagree with this HBO policy - at this point, the policy seems outdated as burn-in isn't a big issue anymore. Pan/Scan also seems to make the image softer and lose resolution (The Island on HBO had tons of compression artifacts and looked much softer with ruined compositions because of this cutting). Then again, they occasionally have some effective transfers. Jarhead actually looked very good to me even in 16:9 crop, the Star Wars original trilogy looked excellent (in OAR fortunately), and their original series like Rome and Deadwood look beautiful - except for some random compression of course.

Jarhead probably wasn't cropped. Since it was shot in Super 35mm, it was probably an open-matte 16:9 transfer which didn't need to be cropped or zoomed to fill the screen.

Broadcasting the program both ways, over the course of time, the frequency for each being based on how many subscribers prefer which way.

I would hope that folks would take such an experience as an indication that perhaps one's own personal preference isn't shared by enough others to prevail, and again, after seven years, come to accept that reality. But that's just me.

It really has nothing to do with the majority. It's just plain wrong to alter a movie simply to fill a friggin' screen. If the majority of people are just too ignorant to understand this, well, that's really sad. But it doesn't mean someone who really appreciates the art of movie making should accept butchering a movie. For many of us the display is secondary to the presentation. The display shouldn't configure the presentation.

"It's just plain wrong..." Wasn't that the rationale used to justify the atrocities of the Inquisition? Why is it so hard for people to accept that reasonable people can disagree about things, and that sometimes (ohmygosh) your personal perspective is actually NOT the one that a company is best-off kowtowing to?

I prefer that they crop, when I had my 4:3 SD tv I would wait for movies to come on HBO because they fit my screen and the DVD didn't. HBO used to show the same show on HBO2 with HBO2 being cropped to fit 4:3 and thats the channel I watched. I think part of the reason HBO tries to fill the screen is to differentiate themselves from whats available on DVD.

I know the arguments and I don't care, I had to watch national treasure dvd on a 4:3 tv once and the picture was so small I could hardly see what was going on

We're still not out of the dark ages, sadly. A lot of people that never went to OAR school or appreciated the purity of widescreen laserdiscs/dvds are now buying HDTVs and demanding the same one-size-fits-all experience VHS tapes gave them for so long.

Hopefully we'll never see a compromised HD disc on the shelf.

I hope not either. Most widescreen TV's have crop and zoom functions built in - unlike their 4x3 SD counterparts. As a result, people who want to fill their screen have the option of doing it themselves while leaving OAR available to the rest of us. You can't "unzoom" what isn't there.

Are you seriously comparing preserving the aspect ratio of a movie to the Spanish Inquisition?

I like OAR. It's the way the director wanted to show it, and, if you turn the lights off, you don't even see the bars. Hell, I'll even watch the 4:3 versions of Buffy: The Vampire Slayer if that's what Joss Whedon wants.

What I find weird about HBO's policy is that they show a 16:9 crop of 2.35 material, in order to, as some say, "fill the screen". However, they present nearly all their 4:3 programming with pillarbars, which I personally find MORE distracting. This leads me to believe they're not the sole cause of the pan+scan.

And, to the people that don't like OAR, that's fine with me, just don't stop others from getting the full OAR when there are plenty of methods you can implement to get the 16:9 crop, it doesn't work the other way around.

The intended ratio of the Buffy shows was apparently 4:3, although the BBC reformatted them to 16:9 beginning with Season 4:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118276/technical

All of the Buffy shows currently being re-aired on FX are being shown in 4:3 format, with the exception of Once More With Feeling, the musical episode, which was shown in 16:9 letterbox.

They already do that. The people that don't care about seeing the whole movie can tune into the SD channel and stretch it to fill their screen.

If you don't mind 25% chopped off, what's another 25% chopped off going to matter? We don't need 3 different versions.

Excuse me??? I find it hard to believe that you're comparing the OAR issue with the Inquisition. Actually, I don't find it hard to believe.

I must assume that you're a fan of Reader's Digest condensed books. Or you wouldn't mind viewing only 1/2 of a painting. That's OK. Many like reading condensed books. But don't force me to read them. And HBO is forcing me (ya, I know I can cancel and probably will in the near future) to watch a condensed version of a movie.

Fortunately, now that BD and HD DVD is here, and as the number of movies in HD and OAR continue to climb on these formats, the premium movie channels will become irrelevant to me.

Nobody expects that!

bicker1's chief weapon is surprise.

Yeah, even he never knows what he'll say next...


"We flattened their fingers, we branded their buns!
Nothing is working! Send in the nuns!"

Surely that's a joke - at least I hope it was a joke. Why anyone would voluntarily forego watching a movie on DVD at an OAR of 2.35:1 and a resolution of 480p in order to watch it on HBO, brutally cropped to 1.33:1, with its resolution reduced to 480i, escapes me.

Oh no. The world has gone mad!!!!

It's not about the personal preference of the viewer, it should be about the personal preference of the filmmaker. You have no idea how aggravating it is to a DP for their work to be butchered by cropping.

And if the film does not appeal to you, either because of content or because of the black bars or whatever, you're free not to watch. Not every film is for everyone...

Plus, I'll add that letter-boxing has become very standard in recent years. In music videos, ads, etc. NBC runs a majority of their primetime programming in letter-boxed widescreen on the SD feed. Viewers haven't revolted. When NBC puts on a great show like Heroes, people watch.

Anyone who prefers watching cropped material is a) not actually watching the original film but rather a watered down version and b) not a fan of filmmaking as an art. Again, not everyone has to consider film as an art form, but still we should understand what we are talking about here.

Joe 6, Jethro and the whole family have come to play the slash and zoom game. Let em watch VHS for the rest of their short brutish lives......

I say we take up arms....and cry "...this is OAR LAND" When the zoom zoom crop boys yell
"lets be reasonable" we kick them in the pit!!!!!!!!

You sir are a heathen unworthy of AVS

Strictly speaking, we already have; as is the case with SD DVDs, many 1.85:1 films have been either zoomed or had their mattes opened to provide 16:9 presentations on HD disc.

No, I'm comparing the insanely abusive manner in which some people conduct themselves on this thread to the Spanish Inquisition. To be honest, I prefer OAR much more than I've been letting on/prefer pan and scan much less than I've been letting on (I prefer OAR on 4:3, because in that case I feel that you're missing too much of the action, but on 16:9 I prefer full screen), but the way some people were ripping into HBO and posting disparaging remarks about other people who prefer pan and scan drove me to present a more extreme view, because I found such comments reprehensible. Some people should be ashamed of themselves.

Then you lose definition. Some people care more about video QUALITY than video QUANTITY.

Case in point. Frank, you owe me, and everyone who actually DOES read Reader's Digest, an apology.

There must be room for both. Respect for the audience means recognizing that some people want entertainment, not art. Indeed, the vast majority want entertainment, so the vast majority should be aimed at entertaining rather than presenting a specific artistic vision. Everything in its own measure.

So you don't think you lose definition when you cut off a quarter of the picture?

The difference between 1.85:1 and 1.78:1 is a couple of scan lines, and has no effect on the compositional intent of a shot. Many filmmakers request that their 1.85:1 moves be opened up to 1.78:1.

As an example, a post in another thread mentioned that "The World's Fastest Indian" is open-matted to 16:9 on HD DVD, yet it was shown on HDNet in 2.35:1 OAR.

I suppose my previous posts have proved that I am an OAR purist but I can easily live with the practice of cropping 1.85:1 films to 1.78:1. Even if a 1.85:1 film is cropped to 1.78:1, less than four percent of its horizontal aspect is lost: 1.78/1.85=.962. Still, HBO's practice of cropping 2.35:1 movies to 1.78:1 is butchery, it seems to me.