Paramount to re-do "Godfather" DVDs

The region 1's are slightly cropped on top (and bottom) and the Region 2's are badly cropped on both side edges... I have just compared all 4 discs (Region 1 vs. Region 2). You can see HERE

Regards,

Thanks for that Gary. What most surprised me is that the R2 appears to be filtered more heavily than the R1! Lots of fine detail is missing from the R2 grabs, and shadow detail is also compromised. They still look okay for thirty-year-old films though, and unless Lowry's efforts are truly spectacular then I won't be upgrading.

Damin J Toell,
Can not comment on how "common" this is.
However, in the case of The Godfather DVD's, it was the choice of the Director of Photography, backed by FFC.

Carlo Medina,
So I am not counting you as an OAR advocate.

ScottR,
Are you saying that this makes the DVD version better than the VHS (as far as ratio goes) or are you saying that makes the DVD presentation; OK?
Even though the DVD clearly is missing information.

Gary Tooze,
Thank you for the screen captures.

I consider myself to be an OAR advocate, but even some of the most high profile DVD sites use 1.78:1 and 1.85:1 interchangably, and there's been considerable debate on this forum as to which aspect ratio 'scope' refers to...2.35:1, 2.39:1, or 2.40:1. I understand that you feel strongly about this, but I think completely dismissing someone's opinion because of a 2.09%-3.79% difference in image size...a difference virtually all of us, I'd imagine, would have considerable difficulty spotting after taking overscan into account...is unfair.

I see they cut the sides because of burned negative.

I see nothing wrong with the R1 ratio.....honestly, the framing looks very balanced.

Agreed. It's like worrying about older 1.37:1 movies shown in 1.33:1 - it's such a tiny difference that it seems absurd to accuse someone of not caring about OAR because they don't fret over this.

Besides, given the overscan so common on many TVs, even a perfectly OAR DVD could end up as MAR on anyone's set...

Showing a 1.85:1 at 1.78:1 is just a matter of a few less lines of resolution being matted.

In fact, a lot of films, when matted EXACTLY, end up being tight in a few shots. It's better to have a little less matting than having too much.

I don't know if this is old news or not, but...

Davis DVD says that a single disc version of the film will be released on May 11th and similar releases of the other two films are likely to follow.

I agree, but would add that Lowry can do more than remove grain (a bad thing really), they can remove dirt and scratches.

I had the opportunity to see both Godfather 1 and 2 a few months ago at The Academy Theater in Beverly Hills. They were using their own archived prints. This is an absolute state of the art facility.

I can tell you that the DVD's, while not "reference" quality, do a pretty good job of accurately representing the look of these films. I think most of what people see in these DVD's that bothers them is inherent in the source.

This is something that Mr. Lowry will no doubt be able to improve upon. I just hope he doesn't go too far, and maintains the original look of the films. I know that is one of his goals.

My understanding is that the scope ratio IS 2.40:1 (or, more accurately, 2.39:1). We still refer to it as 2.35:1 because that was the ratio of the Panavision process until it switched to the current ratio in 1971; it would seem the original terminology stuck.

If the margin of error between 1.78:1 and 1.85:1 is so great to you that you consider anyone who would purchase such a modified disc to not be an OAR advocate, it is perhaps for your own good that you are blissfully unaware how many 1.78:1 transfers of 1.85:1 films you have in your collection. I sure hope you don't own any 1.33:1 transfers of 1.37:1 films, either.



And I am not counting you as the one to judge who among us "really" care about OAR...

DJ

Wow. What was I saying about not upgrading? I've checked my R2s and all three movies look like shit, totally devoid of fine detail and plenty of edge halos to boot. They even have player generated subs! And they're also going straight onto ebay. So I'll definitely get the R1 Lowry versions as long as they get released as part of a trilogy boxset, because I don't want to have to shell out for the current R1 box and then replace GF 1 & 2. I'd rather get the movies in one purchase, as opposed to several.

Yeah, I'm debating whether or not to sell my boxset on Ebay now. I am thinking I can get more for it now, as opposed to later. Of course, we'll have to wait and see, but surely the Lowry versions will look better than what we have now. Also, I don't want part III, making it more attractive to sell my set and just buy parts I and II when they are restored and re-released. As far as the extras disc that came with the current box set, I could care less about it - even though they were "decent" extras - this is never a deciding point for me. I only really care about video and audio quality.

Theatrical projection is imperfect...DPs compose images assuming that there will be some matting of the top and sides. If you watch a 1.77:1 DVD at home of a 1.85:1 movie, there's a fair chance that the composition is more accurate than what you saw in the theater.

And FYI, I didn't say I've never watched a non-OAR movie. It has certainly been many, many years since I've rented or bought one, and I don't watch modified-for-broadcast (content or composition) movies, so I don't really ever see them. When I was a kid with no home resources other than TV and eventually VHS, of course I watched MAR (didn't know better, either). Fortunately since the mid 80s laserdisc and DVD has been very good to me.

Tell me about it!

I just saw "Love Actually" (which I liked). It was a 2.35 movie. But there is a scene where Emma Thompson is in her bedroom and the top of her head was cut off. You could see the rest of her body, from her feet to her head, just not the top of the head - the screen matte cut right above her eyebrows. I am willing to bet $$$ that it wasn't shot that way, and I'll definitely check it out when I buy the DVD.

Also, this theater had stadium seating and I think the projector had to be put above the screen (projecting downwards) so straight lines flared outwards towards the bottom of the screen.

No they wouldn't. Increasing the bit rate vs. having to re-do transfers (Desperado is the only one I'm aware of) aren't the same.

But I'm no fan of SuperBits anyway. Issue it once, because I'm not going to double dip.

OK, Adam.
However, don't use overscan as an 'excuse' to view non-OAR DVD's.
If you add your 'average' 3.35% error of your it's OK, non-OAR, to an average, for CRT, display overscan of 5%. Your 'admitting' allowing 8.35%, to go MIA.
So, you might just want to stick to it's OK it's not OAR.

Damin J Toell,
Whew!
I am soooooooooo glad you relieved me of that enormous response ability.
Please correct me;
I thought a movie that was not transfer in it's original aspect ratio, was a non-OAR transfer.
Please, enlighten me.
Thanks.

I'm not. I'm saying that unless I was viewing a DVD on a display with zero (or close to it) overscan, I couldn't tell if a DVD was 1.78:1 or 1.85:1. Because even a minute amount of overscan would gobble up the slight letterboxing that differentiates the two aspect ratios, I'm curious how anyone could, with a typical television.


The math doesn't work out like that, at least not necessarily.

Michael St. Clair,
Sorry for overstating your viewing habits.
I overestimated your OAR stance, based on post you made on the "Imax re-formatting??" thread.
Where you said;





If you wish too state that these "quotes" are taken out of context.
You most certainly may.
As they represent the reformatting for IMAX presentation of widescreen films.
I just always thought, those comments were heartfelt, as well as the true feeling you had on OAR, in general.
And, again, sorry for misrepresenting you on your personal viewing history.

Ed,

You're the kind of person who would argue about the significance of ten points on a standardized test (such as the SAT).

To expand on what I was saying earlier, here's a graphical example. Often -- perhaps more often than not -- 1.78:1 presentations are simply less matted versions of 1.85:1 presentations. Below is a screenshot from Good Burger, a 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen DVD from Paramount, next to a screenshot matted to the original 1.85:1 (using red bars to make the difference between the two more pronounced).

1.78:1	1.85:1

Let's pretend there's 5% overscan, equally distributed over the width and height of each image.

1.78:1 with 5% overscan	1.85:1 with 5% overscan

Can you distinguish the differences between the last two pictures? This is, from what I understand, a very, very common scenario.

Since I did not get the current box set yet,for two reasons(price & lack of original mono track).


Does anyone know if the original mono mix for The Godfather will be included on the new dvd?

I thought the stereo remix from the 90's THX video/theatrical rerelease was terrible & bet the 5.1 mixes further add to the terrible quality of the stero mix.

Sounds to me like the popcorn girl didn't know what the framing knob is for. Seriously though, the rule that "you can't cut off tops of heads" only applies to still photography now. While it sounds like it may have been framed a little high, I doubt if you'll see the top of Emma's head in the DVD version; you may see more of her forehead, but not much.

Theaters with steep stadium seating often need to use weird mattes in order to project a rectangle onto the screen. So, quite a bit is cut off of every movie they project there. Every theater has to matte to SOME degree, but when it's projected at a steep angle, it has to be more or else you get the keystone effect.

Oh, and Ed, you need to give it a rest. Seriously. Nobody cares, and now you're just being a pain.

When I start reading comments such as above then it's time for some of you to step back from this discussion before it's too late. I don't care who started it, but it needs to stop now. Some of you made your point, please move on.




Crawdaddy

True.

But you just had to see it for yourself. I mean she was cut off at or right above the eyebrows. Her facial expressions (it was an emotional scene) were obscured by the fact that her eyebrows would go out of frame. It just didn't look right (whereas I've seen other scenes w/ tops of heads cut off that were intended and it doesn't feel as wrong as this scene did) and that more than anything convinced me that the framing was screwed up.

So... how about those Godfather movies? Personally, I love them.

There is the Platonic concept of a film's perfect OAR. And then there is reality. The two rarely, if ever, meet. Theatrical exhibitions are plagued with all sorts of problems, starting with fact that the projected image is usually a trapezoid rather than a perfect rectangle. So, too, is the DVD format plagued with problems that make reaching Platonic perfection near impossible. Among these issues include overscan on monitors and pixel cropping by players. Given all of these issues that basically make watching a film in it's "true" OAR impossible, I (and apparently many others) have an acceptable margin of error. Given that the difference between 1.78:1 and 1.85:1 is usually a matter of a few lines of resolution (that is, far less than what occurs routinely through overscan, anyway), it is well within my margin of error. So, too, are 1.33:1 transfers of 1.37:1 films. Given the small margin of error, I consider such transfers to still be OAR - they are acceptable realistic approximations of a goal that is near-impossible to actually achieve in the real world.

So do you consider 1.33:1 transfers of 1.37:1 films to not be OAR? Do you not own any discs with 1.33:1 transfers of 1.37:1 films? You've mentioned in the past that you own Apocalypse Now on DVD, which is not presented in its original theatrical AR. I guess you don't support OAR, huh? I am not counting you as an OAR advocate.

DJ