UK anamorphic titles we only get in letterbox in the U.S. (1 Viewer)

[Dick]

All right, I'm steamed. Since buying an all-region, PAL/NTSC player, I've been stocking up on many UK titles, and most of them look terrific. I am grateful I can have these movies looking so much better than their U.S. counterparts (I can live with the PAL speedup, to get such better image quality). But, I am really angry that the studios who have been releasing excellent anamorphic transfers in Europe have given us crap (MGM, Sony, Disney, specifically). I have to ask, why?


If they have already created 16x9 transfers for another country, why would these studios deliberately release inferior transfers here? I don't get it. It couldn't be because U.S. consumers are dumb, as might be the case with widescreen vs. pan-and-scan. These movies are being released in widescreen in both countries, but not enhanced for 16x9 here. OK, maybe the UK accepted widescreen monitors in larger numbers than we did back in the earlier days of the format, but since anamorphic plays just as well (better) on 4.3 screens, why the different releases?


Take, for instance, Corman's 1961 PIT AND THE PENDULUM. In the U.S., this was the one single Roger Corman/Poe title not to receive anamorphic release. I just finished watching the UK edition (which prompted me to post this), and it's so superior to our domestic edition that I just can't believe it! Yet, our U.S. edition features a Corman commentary track and a trailer, not included for the UK edition. What is with that? I seem to recall a lot of HTF members raising hell about the U.S. letterbox version, and hearing something like "MGM cannot provide an anamorphic edition of this film," just like they tried to convince us that a ratio of 1.66:1 could not be presented in an anamorphic format (and we all know that was bulls**t).


From the UK I have been able to collect very superior anamorphic DVD's of Sony titles (MATILDA, THREE WORLDS OF GULLIVER), Disney (ARACHNOPHOBIA, JOURNEY OF NATTY GANN, QUIZ SHOW), and MGM (WHAT'S NEW, PUSSYCAT?, THE BLACK STALLION, ANNIE HALL) and others, which put our releases to shame.


I must say, purchasing a player that will allow you to view these films (such as the Sherwood 5400, which is what I use, and it was well under $200.), is well worth the investment for people who are unhappy with the U.S. letterbox releases of dozens of fine films -- probably hundreds! And, of course, there are scores of movies on DVD in the UK you can't get here in any form.

 

[Chuck Pennington]

Yeah, with my method of conversion, I even remove the speed-up, so my discs are at the proper 24fps and anamorphic AND progressively-encoded. I have had a multi-region, PAL/NTSC player for many years, but I no longer use it to play PAL discs anymore since I can play the proper speed conversions on any players.

 

[Mark Pytel]

Hi I currently have a Pal player and the one thing that I HATE is the speed up. How do you remove it?

Whenever I created burned discs they always come out non anamorphic. Perhaps I am using the wrong software? I have both a Mac and a PC..Chuck if you could show me how to remove the speedup I would be forever grateful My question is how do you get the film on your computer? I have a capture device but it won't work with copyrighted stuff so hooking up the region free player is out.

Any suggestions would be great.

 

[Chuck Pennington]

Oh, my. Capturing it in real time. You're going about things ALL wrong, Mark. PM me and maybe we can talk. There ARE a lot of steps involved, but once you get it done it is just a matter of the doing. Or maybe we could arrange for me to do some of the work for you.