Kung Fu - Season 1 (March 16th) is not OAR (1 Viewer)

[Randy A Salas]

If you look back at the link I gave, they show shots that CLEARLY show the full frame version SHOULD be open matte.

Ah, but that same link has an update at the bottom of the page pointing out the same thing that Jeff did: "As of the Second Season, Justice League will be animated in letterbox format." Starcrossed is drawn from second-season episodes.

So everything looks fine--except that the wording on the DVD's package is wrong. It implies that the widescreen version was extracted from the full-screen version--again, the same wording as the Kung Fu DVD--but the opposite is the case.

 

[Jeff Jacobson]

With that "Starcrossed" DVD, they should have just used the pan-and-scan on the fly feature.

 

[Jeff(R)]

Has anyone heard any news about season 2 of Kung Fu on DVD?

 

[David_Blackwell]

Warner UK has announced season 2 for November 1st, 2004 in the UK in.....1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen! yep, they did it again and didn't go with the OAR. Go check it out at DVD Answers.

http://www.dvdanswers.com/index.php?...4849&n=1&burl=

 

[george kaplan]

Pathetic. Fucking Pathetic, grasshopper.

 

[Brian Lawrence]

Ughhh

 

[David Stone]

The matting of OAR down to 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen for 16:9 TV's- The new Pan and Scan for the 21st century.


Kill this practice and kill it quickly before it spreads!

 

[John Leaning]

It's lucky Warners are stuffing up Season 2 as well. Saves me having to add it to my purchase list

 

[Doug^Ch]

I for one will be buying Kung Fu - Season 2 the second it hits the pre-order market. There were a few instances of strange cropping in season one, but I for one didn't think it was that bad. Also, there were great bonus features in season one. Unfortunately for all you OAR fanatics there are more consumers such as myself who would rather have the series in non-OAR than no series at all.

 

[Steve Phillips]

Yeah, us OAR lovers are such FANATICS! :frowning:

 

[Robert Ringwald]

Besides, they have to go out of their way to make it MAR... which makes me wonder why...

I'd honestly consider buying this blind if it were OAR. The first season anyways.

 

[Doug^Ch]

It is a great blind buy. That's how I bought it. The series holds up well; it does not seem dated, and picture quality is very good.

 

[george kaplan]

What I can't figure out is what the hell a pro-MAR fanatic is doing in a pro-OAR forum.

 

[Greg_S_H]

Besides, they have to go out of their way to make it MAR... which makes me wonder why...

It's so it'll fill up a 16x9 screen. Actually, the way I understand it, Kung Fu was prepared for HD broadcasting, and those masters were used for the discs. Unfortunately, as more and more people upgrade to 16x9, the odds are this will be done more regularly.

It won't always be the case, though. I'm pretty sure there were articles about Cheers being prepared for widescreen HD broadcast, and there were fears those discs would also be cropped. The discs turned out to be 4x3.

 

[Doug^Ch]

I would not consider myself a pro MAR fanatic as It doesn't really bother me that much one way or the other. Although, with a 16:9 television, I would rather see a MAR TV show than watching it in a zoom or wide zoom mode to fill the screen to prevent burn in. What's worse a distorted picture from using the zoom button or a cropped picture?

 

[george kaplan]

And frankly, I feel 'dirty' having called you one, but the tone of your original post, essentially dissing those of us not buying Kung Fu because it's MAR, and calling us OAR fanatics, did come across that way.

And to be honest, I still have a hard time understanding how anyone who frequents this forum and understands what is missing in MAR dvds, can say that p&s "doesn't really bother [them] one way or another." I can understand (even if I disagree with them) those people who are essentially pro-OAR, but had to buy Kung Fu anyway, even though it pained them to do so, and they HATE the fact that this show that they want so much has been chopped up. But I'm just never going to understand an informed opinion that p&s is no big deal (as opposed to an uninformed opinion by many of the public, who tend not to be members of this forum).

 

[Steve Phillips]

What's worse......stretching or a cropped picture? They're both awful, I wouldn't consider either. Why not just watch the show in 4X3 as intended? If "burn-in" scared me (it doesn't) I'd simply watch 4X3 material on a 4X3 set.

BTW, I've had a 16X9 set since 2001 and there isn't a trace of burn-in and I've watched plenty of 4X3 stuff in the correct 4X3 mode on it, but that's a debate for another topic.

Count me is as a fanatic, because I won't be buying any old TV shows cropped for 16X9.

 

[Robert Ringwald]

What I mean is "What's the point?"

It just seems like the target audience for these wouldn't appreciate the MAR presentation, and to top that off, would want the show how they remembered it.

With certain studios pushing so hard to release full-frame only discs of various titles, it just seems odd that they would go out of their way to crop something that wasn't intended to be cropped. Of all things, Kung Fu?

 

[David Stone]

With certain studios pushing so hard to release full-frame only discs of various titles, it just seems odd that they would go out of their way to crop something that wasn't intended to be cropped. Of all things, Kung Fu?

Unfortunately, this is one of those "full-frame only" releases. It's just for new 16:9 TV's as opposed to the traditional 4:3 ones. Same stupid decision applied to new technology.

 

[Randy A Salas]

Season 2 might just yet be in its original 4:3 aspect ratio when it's released in R1. I talked to the guys who produced the extras for S1 and S2 this week, and they said that Warner is well aware of the outcry over the first set. Although they did nothing but produce the extras, they expressed a glimmer of hope that Warner will change tack for S2.