Aspect Ratios of movies Please read before posting questions

Thanks for the links to these clear explanations of the different aspect ratios.
Ever since I became aware of this issue with DVD releases I've tried to "vote with my wallet" i.e. find out what the OAR of a movie is and buy the correct DVD version (usually widescreen).
My question here is that I would have hoped that with the HD formats the studios would finally take care in providing us with the AR that the director intended but, if my research is correct, this would seem to not be the case with the recent Uni HD DVD release of The Sting.
George Roy Hill intended this to be in 1.33:1
The studio balked and the top and bottom of the theatrical release was matted in order to give it a widescreen AR, thereby cutting off people's hats and the top of their heads as well as giving a more zoomed in and claustrophobic feeling to the movie when compared to the original 1.33:1 release (available on SD DVD here).
Does anyone have any info on why Uni decided to not go with the OAR that the director intended? And does Uni have any plans in the works to release a version with the original 1.33:1 AR?

Mods: Please move/delete this post if this is not the proper place for these questions to be asked.

i thought the "intended" aspect ratio was 1.85:1.
The negative was 1.37:1.
http://imdb.com/title/tt0070735/technical

This sticky is long overdo. I'll copy a letter to the editor from Home Theatre Magazine and leave the writer anonymous. The perception below is fairly widespread and needs to be corrected. And to the letter writer whoever you are. No one is making fun of you because your letter is representative of many, in fact the majority who misunderstand aspect ratios:

That's interesting. A quick search returns the three links below. The Sting was indeed shot in 4:3 (1.37:1 according to the quoted IMDB link) and the widescreen presentation was created by matting the top and bottom of the full image on the negative.
http://home.earthlink.net/~davidhaye...icles/p06.html
http://home.earthlink.net/~davidhaye...icles/p07.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan_and_scan

I can't, however, find any info on whether George Roy Hill and Universal agreed or disagreed on the 1.85:1 AR theatrical release apart from the claim made by an Amazon reviewer on December 18, 2004:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0783225873/

HPForMe, thanks for posting that. I'm not sure what part of "high definition" makes people think "no bars"

Other links: some of these have other good links

Widescreen advocate
http://www.widescreenadvocate.org/widescreenprimer.html

The Digital Bits (Bill Hunt) aspect ratio primer
http://www.thedigitalbits.com/articl...reenorama.html

The Digital Bits (Bill Hunt) guide to anamorphic DVD
http://www.thedigitalbits.com/articl...hic/index.html


Why Widescreen? DVD Active
http://www.dvdactive.com/editorial/a...idescreen.html

The Letterbox and Widescreen Advocacy Page (Widescreen.org) Best Overall Site
http://www.widescreen.org/widescreen.shtml

Hong Kong Fanactic - Intro to Widescreen
http://hkfanatic.com/widescreen/aspect/aspect.php

American Widescreen Museum
http://www.widescreenmuseum.com/

Swedish Widescreen Page (worth checking out)
http://www1.tripnet.se/~adler/wide2.html

Secrets of Home Video Guide to Enchanced for 16:9 TVs
http://hometheaterhifi.com/volume_6_...vember-99.html

Examples:

http://www.widescreen.org/examples.shtml

http://www.michaeljfoxdatabase.com/W...SvsPNS_MA.html

http://home1.gte.net/res0mrb7/widesc...ent/index.html

http://home1.gte.net/res0mrb7/widesc...mmy/index.html

http://home1.gte.net/res0mrb7/widesc...cks/index.html

http://home1.gte.net/res0mrb7/widesc...ble/index.html

http://home1.gte.net/res0mrb7/widesc...ion/index.html

I think as more people move to 16:9 HDTVs the issue lessons for 1.78 and 1.85 movies and even for 1:33 pillar boxed movies as people can understand a near full screen of those aspect ratios or understand their 4:3 content is smaller than their old widescreen HDTV, and undertstand they get pillarbox or have to expand the image.

I also think that most people find it less disturbing that epic type 2:35 movies still have some letterbars on their wider HDTVs as they are still bigger than their old analog 4:3 TVs. The fact that in most cases now for HD DVD or Blu-ray they get OAR anyway will just lead some to uninformally bitch, but deal with it anyway.

People liked Fullscreen movies when they have smaller 4:3 TV's.

The real problem most consumers had with letterboxing on their DVDs was that the black bars too up not only took much space on their old smaller analog 4:3 TVs but that the resulting wide image was just to small on anything than a 27: TV, where that was just acceptable. A 2:35 image on a 4:3 TV is almost half black bars, that just sucks wind on a 20 inch TV.

But HD DVDs and Blu-ray discs are intended for larger sized 16:9 widescreen HDTVs. Its just less of an issue for most people. People may still be somewhat confused and may complain, but at least they don't have to bothers witching to anamorphic or stretch mode on their DVD player anymore.

On a 32" 16:9 LCD HDTV or anything larger a 1:85/1:78/2:35 image is much bigger, the black bars are much smaller and its more an irritant than a deal breaker.

OAR gets really complicated when it comes to open matte films.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_matte
Is it possible for a director to "intend" a film to be one aspect ratio in the cinema and different one at home? I don't see why not. King Kong is a good example.(there is a whole thread on the issue http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...ight=king+kong)
The cinemax version actually allows you to see more of the image than the theatrical realase . So perhaps it's possible for a film to have multiple "intended" aspect ratios.

I don't know the full story behind The Sting, but I think that Amazon user is just confused on the matting process. Almost all 1.85:1 movies are shot full-aperature 1.37:1 and then matted for theatrical exhibition. That doesn't mean that the intended composition was ever 1.37:1.

The theatrical projection standard for "flat" films was 1.85:1 by the time The Sting was produced. George Roy Hill would not have had much venue for a 1.37:1 movie at that time even if he'd wanted one. Aside from art theaters equipped to project classic Academy Ratio movies, the majority of theaters in the country are incapable of projecting 1.37:1 prints without matting.

When The Blair Witch Project was released in 1999, it had to be printed in windowbox format on the 35mm theatrical prints, so that it could be projected onto 1.85:1 screens with black bars on the sides. But that sort of effort was simply not ever done at the time The Sting was released. Even re-releases of major classic films like Gone With The Wind were cropped to 1.85:1 in most theaters at that time.

well said.

Well... who can say what is better? My point is that there could be multiple versions and not just a deffinitive one. I feel the same way about directors cuts or special editions.

Here is a great article from HighDefDigest on aspect ratios and the feared black bars

Click