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The first ever letterboxed home video release

post #1 of 20
8/17/07 at 3:41am
Thread Starter 
I just thought this was interesting.

http://www.cedmagic.com/featured/amarcord.html
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post #2 of 20
8/17/07 at 4:32am

Re: The first ever letterboxed home video release

I still have a CED player and a bunch of movies. Been about 25 years since I got it - it was my first home video player and my first collection of movies. I have some movies on CED that still have not been released on DVD (Let It Be, No Nukes); I know I should transfer them, but I'd have to take the time to hook up the player.
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post #3 of 20
8/17/07 at 9:23am

Re: The first ever letterboxed home video release

Interesting read, as I immediately guessed Woody Allen's
Manhattan. I remember when it came out on VHS
and was very confused by the black bars. I thought it was
some sort of artistic effect that was done for the film.

How naive I was back then. Not that much has changed today.
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post #4 of 20
8/17/07 at 9:25am
Thread Starter 

Re: The first ever letterboxed home video release

Quote:
Originally Posted by Ronald Epstein
Interesting read, as I immediately guessed Woody Allen's
Manhattan. I remember when it came out on VHS
and was very confused by the black bars. I thought it was
some sort of artistic effect that was done for the film.

How naive I was back then. Not that much has changed today.

In a sense, I suppose that choosing to film a movie in a widescreen AR is an artistic decision.
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post #5 of 20
8/17/07 at 9:46am

Re: The first ever letterboxed home video release

I think CED also introduced secondary audio tracks, extras, and interactivity.
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post #6 of 20
8/17/07 at 11:50am

Re: The first ever letterboxed home video release

Quote:
Originally Posted by Patrick McCart
I think CED also introduced secondary audio tracks, extras, and interactivity.

Those were LaserDisc features. Both dual audio and interactivity were used on early industrial discs, and there were attempts to produce consumer products with the same features — "How to watch Pro Football" and the "Mysterydisc" come to mind. CED was released 3 or 4 years later (although for the first year or two of LDs life it was nearly impossible to get discs and players), and concentrated on the cheapest possible players and discs for a while (so, for example, most CED players were not built with the ability to output stereo audio, even when it was on the disc). The interactive CED players, at the high end of the range, only came along rather late in the game.

Somewhere I remember encountering another claimant to the title of "first widescreen home video release", but I can't remember what it was!
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post #7 of 20
8/17/07 at 12:23pm

Re: The first ever letterboxed home video release

As I recall, the "black bars" for MANHATTAN were actually gray.
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post #8 of 20
8/17/07 at 2:03pm

Re: The first ever letterboxed home video release

Yes, they were originally gray. I saw it on tv a few times in the 80's that way too. I don't think there ever was a pan and scan version of the film.
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post #9 of 20
8/17/07 at 2:20pm

Re: The first ever letterboxed home video release

Woody Allen's contract on MANHATTAN specifically stated that the film could not be shown on television without being letterboxed, preserving the OAR of the film. If this concept gives some people problems today, you can imagine how this went down in the early 80s!

It prevented MAHATTAN from ever being sold to network television. Being a spring '79 theatrical release, it would have been a candidate for TV network airing in mid-late '81, but that never happened.

Accordingly, when MAGNETIC VIDEO (remember them?-they later were purchased by Fox) made their deal to cherry pick the United Artists library for home video release (just prior to MGM's purchase of UA), they did not select MANHATTAN due to the forced letterboxing issue.

That's why the eventual video release was on MGM/UA's own home video label, and not CBS/FOX's home video label.

Indeed the broadcast and home video versions had a light gray letterboxing, not black bars. The gray letterboxing was distracting, so the MGM/UA laserdisc remaster in the early '90s with black bars was welcome.

It's sad that nearly 30 years later OAR is still something that's a problem for so many people (Witnesseth the 1.77 FF HD broadcasts on HBO of most 2.35 titles).
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post #10 of 20
8/17/07 at 3:37pm

Re: The first ever letterboxed home video release

Dont know if it was first, but I had a Beta tape from Media/Meda? that was letterboxed of "A Boy and His Dog". I believe I bought it in 78/79 area, but it was for sure before CED discs came out.

Ed
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post #11 of 20
8/17/07 at 3:44pm

Re: The first ever letterboxed home video release

Amarcord, Monty Python & the Holy Grail, The Long Goodbye, King of Hearts and Manhattan... right there is a more solid list of titles than what's been released so far on HD-DVD and Blu-Ray put together.
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post #12 of 20
8/17/07 at 6:33pm

Re: The first ever letterboxed home video release

What I have always wanted to know is: Which were the first films to be broadcast on TV all the way through in 2.35:1 letterbox. The BBC broadcast 2001 in the late-70s (?) OAR, I believe, but added 'stars' to the black bars! Kubrick may have had a hand in this - not the stars, though!
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post #13 of 20
8/17/07 at 6:36pm

Re: The first ever letterboxed home video release

King of Hearts needs a new anamorphic transfer, btw.
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post #14 of 20
8/18/07 at 10:57am

Re: The first ever letterboxed home video release

Quote:
Originally Posted by Gordon McMurphy
What I have always wanted to know is: Which were the first films to be broadcast on TV all the way through in 2.35:1 letterbox. The BBC broadcast 2001 in the late-70s (?) OAR, I believe, but added 'stars' to the black bars! Kubrick may have had a hand in this - not the stars, though!

2001 was first shown on BBC1 on 1 January 1981 - I saw it, and also watched Spartacus on the other channel the same day! It was mostly pan-and-scan, but occasional scenes were letterboxed and filled in with stars. Kubrick certainly had nothing to do with this - he hated the effect and letterboxing in general. Future BBC broadcasts of the film were P&S throughout.

Manhattan was certainly shown P&S during an 80s Woody Allen season on BBC2 in the late 80s, and this attracted complaints.

I have no idea if it was the earliest, but the earliest 2.35:1-letterbox transmission of a film I know of was the BBC2 Film Club's showing of Last Year at Marienbad in 1986 - letterboxed throughout. Of course, as the film was in French, they could use the black bars for the subtitles. Before then, Channel 4 had been showing Scope films in 1.66:1 or 1.85:1, buit I don't think ever full 2.35:1.
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post #15 of 20
8/18/07 at 11:31am

Re: The first ever letterboxed home video release

Quote:
Originally Posted by Gary Couzens
2001 was first shown on BBC1 on 1 January 1981 - I saw it, and also watched Spartacus on the other channel the same day! It was mostly pan-and-scan, but occasional scenes were letterboxed and filled in with stars. Kubrick certainly had nothing to do with this - he hated the effect and letterboxing in general. Future BBC broadcasts of the film were P&S throughout.

2001 was actually shown on HBO in pan & scan a few years ago. It was really obvious that they were using an ancient video master since it had a ton of dirt and scratches, as well as terrible color. It had to be from the 1980s since all videos since 1991 have been widescreen-only.
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post #16 of 20
8/19/07 at 7:54am

Re: The first ever letterboxed home video release

2001, as far as I know, never had a letterboxed VHS in the UK. BBC 2 and Channel 4 frequently broadcast it in 2.20:1 throughout the late-90s, though and I had a tape of a CH4 presentation. I imported the U.S. letterboxed stereo VHS in early 1998 (when I was 18) before I moved on to DVD. I saw it in 70mm in 2001.
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post #17 of 20
8/21/07 at 1:01am

Re: The first ever letterboxed home video release

The CED of "Amarcord" is actually an unmatted transfer, the top and bottom of the picture are the framelines on the film. There are electronic English subtitles on it too.
The picture quality of the original mono CED of 2001 is laughably bad, the stereo version issued a couple years later has a much better video transfer though still pan & scan.

I don't know why more directors don't insist on no pan & scan versions of movies, seems it would be easier today than in the 80s. Steven Speilberg insisted "The Color Purple" be letterboxed on VHS and that's the only way it was available, but his more recent movies have pan & scan DVDs out.
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post #18 of 20
8/21/07 at 2:26am

Re: The first ever letterboxed home video release

The odd thing is that AFAICR, Hong Kong movies have always been telecast on TV letterboxed, though since their AR tends to be 1.85:1 the bars have always been smaller. And this would have been so even in the early 1980s.

Without knowing about the intricacies of OAR etc, I guess that's why instinctively I knew "widescreen letterbox" versions of Die Hard on VHS were the ones to get (back in 1992) when I was on holiday in London.
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post #19 of 20
8/21/07 at 3:39am

Re: The first ever letterboxed home video release

2001 A Space Odyssey, being one of my all-time favorites, was the first film I ever saw fully letterboxed on TV. It was in the mid-late '80s and a local PBS station was running the film. I didn't actually watch the whole telecast, but when I saw the widescreen image on my TV I was transfixed. It brought back the magnificence of the film that had been lost in all of the pan'n'scan versions I'd seen on TV and home video. I'd seen the film in theatres a number of times, but was unable to capture that magic on my TV screen.

When I saw it, I knew I had to have it, and that led me to investigate the more videophile format of LaserDisc. 2001, as a widescreen transfer, was the first title I bought for that format.

Harry
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post #20 of 20
8/21/07 at 6:20am

Re: The first ever letterboxed home video release

Quote:
Originally Posted by Patrick McCart
2001 was actually shown on HBO in pan & scan a few years ago. It was really obvious that they were using an ancient video master since it had a ton of dirt and scratches, as well as terrible color. It had to be from the 1980s since all videos since 1991 have been widescreen-only.

For the 25th anniversary video release, both widescreen and pan & scan videos were released... I remember going out of my way not to buy the pan & scan at the time.

The original CBS/Fox VHS release of 2001 is one of the most awful looking things I've ever seen, and of course, that was how I first saw the movie. Just for kicks, I once tracked down a copy of that release and was amazed at a) how unwatchable it was and b) how I somehow saw through all of that and recognized there was a brilliant film in there.
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