New Posts  All Forums:Forum Nav:

What tv on dvd sets are "fake" widescreen?

post #1 of 97
3/9/08 at 2:32pm
Thread Starter 
I have an idea that nearly everything I own from ADV(Beastmaster,Earth final Conflict, Andromeda) has been butchered with the tops, and bottoms cut off. I'm not positive, but shows filmed for tv in 1997 I believe were filmed 1:33 and not shot in Widescreen. Also the first two seasons of The Lost World are fine, but season 3 is widescreen. Anyone know if this is true, and also if you know of another fake widescreen show, please list it.
Reply
post #2 of 97
3/9/08 at 2:43pm

Re: What tv on dvd sets are "fake" widescreen?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Bryan^H
I have an idea that nearly everything I own from ADV(Beastmaster,Earth final Conflict, Andromeda) has been butchered with the tops, and bottoms cut off. I'm not positive, but shows filmed for tv in 1997 I believe were filmed 1:33 and not shot in Widescreen. Also the first two seasons of The Lost World are fine, but season 3 is widescreen. Anyone know if this is true, and also if you know of another fake widescreen show, please list it.
Wow, I'd really like to know if this is true about Andromeda. I own the Slipstream Collection (the entire series consisting of fifty discs housed in twenty-five slim cases). I hope the widescreen for this edition has not been butchered.
Reply
post #3 of 97
3/9/08 at 2:48pm

Re: What tv on dvd sets are "fake" widescreen?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Bryan^H
I'm not positive, but shows filmed for tv in 1997 I believe were filmed 1:33 and not shot in Widescreen.
Not necessarily. Stargate SG-1 began in 1997 and was shot in 16:9 from the start. I suppose it could be a unique case, but since one TV series was shot that way back then, isn't it possible that others were as well?
Reply
post #4 of 97
3/9/08 at 2:51pm
Thread Starter 

Re: What tv on dvd sets are "fake" widescreen?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Ockeghem
Wow, I'd really like to know if this is true about Andromeda. I own the Slipstream Collection (the entire series consisting of fifty discs housed in twenty-five slim cases). I hope the widescreen for this edition has not been butchered.

Andromeda looks amazing on dvd. I just picked up the Slipstream collection(really digging it) through Amazon's sale. I don't want to alarm you about the widescreen issue. It's very possible it was filmed 1:85, 1:78 and not 1:33 which is the standard way tv shows(not the current ones) were shot up until a few years ago! I'm just curious. I have been skeptical about tv widescreen ever since the Kung Fu season 1 fiasco.
Reply
post #5 of 97
3/9/08 at 3:02pm
Thread Starter 

Re: What tv on dvd sets are "fake" widescreen?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Arild
Not necessarily. Stargate SG-1 began in 1997 and was shot in 16:9 from the start. I suppose it could be a unique case, but since one TV series was shot that way back then, isn't it possible that others were as well?

Yeah, very possible. When I used to see all these first run syndicated shows on tv, they weren't widescreen, but that doesn't mean anything, as networks never aired them that way even if they were shot widescreen. That's why this issue is so tough to determine.
Reply
post #6 of 97
3/9/08 at 3:18pm

Re: What tv on dvd sets are "fake" widescreen?

Kung Fu season 1 (and I think 2) certainly is. Something I therefore passed on. They did finally fix it for season 3.
Reply
post #7 of 97
3/9/08 at 4:18pm

Re: What tv on dvd sets are "fake" widescreen?

There were other shows (The X-Files and Millennium) that switched over to 1.78 in the 1997-1998 season so at least you know it wasn't completely unheard of at that time.

I think you're probably OK since it's a sci-fi show so you'd have heard some outcry if they tampered with the AR back when they were released.
Reply
post #8 of 97
3/9/08 at 4:25pm

Re: What tv on dvd sets are "fake" widescreen?

"Kung Fu" would not have been filmed with the 16x9 area protected for potential widescreen broadcast. More recent shows would, especially those series sold into foreign markets. I'm under the impression that widescreen television was more widely adopted in Europe than it was in the US by the late 90s. "Buffy" is one example of a show shot primarily for 4:3, but had the 16x9 area protected for European broadcast.

It's possible that your "Andromeda" (and other) DVDs are not cropping off the top and bottom, but are showing additional image on the sides that may not have been part of the original US broadcast. But I defer to anyone who knows that show better than I do...!
Reply
post #9 of 97
3/9/08 at 4:28pm

Re: What tv on dvd sets are "fake" widescreen?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Mary_P
"Kung Fu" would not have been filmed with the 16x9 area protected for potential widescreen broadcast.
Trust me, George knows that.
Reply
post #10 of 97
3/9/08 at 5:40pm
Thread Starter 

Re: What tv on dvd sets are "fake" widescreen?

Quote:
Originally Posted by george kaplan
Kung Fu season 1 (and I think 2) certainly is. Something I therefore passed on. They did finally fix it for season 3.

Seasons 2, and 3 are fine. It's just too bad about season 1. I own it, and for a show 35 years old the picture quality is astonishing, but knowing I'm not seeing the whole picture really bugs me!
Reply
post #11 of 97
3/9/08 at 5:49pm
Thread Starter 

Re: What tv on dvd sets are "fake" widescreen?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Mary_P

It's possible that your "Andromeda" (and other) DVDs are not cropping off the top and bottom, but are showing additional image on the sides that may not have been part of the original US broadcast. But I defer to anyone who knows that show better than I do...!

I think your correct. The more I looked into it, I realized these shows were most likely filmed widescreen, and just shown on tv in a full screen form. I'm not going to let it bother me anymore!


Wow, Kung Fu season 1, and the V tv movies are apparently the only fake widescreen shows on dvd. Looks like Warner Brothers needs to start re-issuing these correctly
Reply
post #12 of 97
3/9/08 at 7:26pm

Re: What tv on dvd sets are "fake" widescreen?

Starting in the early 90s a number of television series began shooting in Super35 to "future proof" them for HDTV. So their original aspect ratios were neither 1.33:1 nor 1.78:1. Instead either frame could be extracted from the oversized Super35 frame. (Just as Terminator 2, Titanic and Apollo 13 had both 1.33:1 TV versions and 2.35:1 theatrical versions extracted from the same original film.)

So it isn't necessarily a matter of "fake widescreen" and many shows that have the tops and bottom of the frams trimmed for widescreen also show more of the image on the sides than the original broadcast does. (You can see exactly the same thing if you compare many shot-on-film HDTV series broadcasts to their SD broadcast counterparts.)

Regards,

Joe
Reply
post #13 of 97
3/9/08 at 7:44pm

Re: What tv on dvd sets are "fake" widescreen?

Andromeda is neither "fake widesceen" nor "butchered", it was filmed and composed widescreen. Not long after the 1st few eps aired I had an opportunity to ask Robert Hewitt Wolfe in a live chat if the show had been filmed wide, since it had a cramped look, he said that it was, but none of the syndicated stations it was airing on at the time wanted the wide version. Same for EFC and Beastmaster (as you noticed, they started filming wide in season 3).
Reply
post #14 of 97
3/9/08 at 8:44pm

Re: What tv on dvd sets are "fake" widescreen?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Bryan^H
Andromeda looks amazing on dvd. I just picked up the Slipstream collection(really digging it) through Amazon's sale. I don't want to alarm you about the widescreen issue. It's very possible it was filmed 1:85, 1:78 and not 1:33 which is the standard way tv shows(not the current ones) were shot up until a few years ago! I'm just curious. I have been skeptical about tv widescreen ever since the Kung Fu season 1 fiasco.
Bryan^H,

Agreed about how amazing it looks. It's one of those series that IMO cannot be enjoyed to the fullest on television. I noticed a huge difference in the sound quality between the DVDs and the televised versions. Thanks for the additional info, BTW.
Reply
post #15 of 97
3/9/08 at 9:52pm
Thread Starter 

Re: What tv on dvd sets are "fake" widescreen?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Rick P
Andromeda is neither "fake widesceen" nor "butchered", it was filmed and composed widescreen. Not long after the 1st few eps aired I had an opportunity to ask Robert Hewitt Wolfe in a live chat if the show had been filmed wide, since it had a cramped look, he said that it was, but none of the syndicated stations it was airing on at the time wanted the wide version. Same for EFC and Beastmaster (as you noticed, they started filming wide in season 3).


Thank you.
Reply
post #16 of 97
3/9/08 at 9:57pm

Re: What tv on dvd sets are "fake" widescreen?

Quote:
I noticed a huge difference in the sound quality between the DVDs and the televised versions.

The broadcast or regular cable showings of the episodes would be limited to analog sound - matrixed Dolby Surround would be the best they could manage. The DVDs are probably mixed in discrete Dolby Digital and thus much better than the original broadcasts. The difference isn't as dramatic between shows broadcast in HDTV and Dolby Digital and their DVD releases.

Regards,

Joe
Reply
post #17 of 97
3/9/08 at 10:24pm

Re: What tv on dvd sets are "fake" widescreen?

The only other fakes that pop to my mind are the revival Dark Shadows series and Route 66 Season One Volume 2.
Reply
post #18 of 97
3/10/08 at 12:45am

Re: What tv on dvd sets are "fake" widescreen?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Mary_P
"Buffy" is one example of a show shot primarily for 4:3, but had the 16x9 area protected for European broadcast.
I believe the same is true for "Relic Hunter", which was co-German produced to begin with. Some HBO movies, like "Traveling Man" (1989) is widescreen on DVD and clearly chopping off a great deal of picture. Warner DVD released "The Quick and the Dead" (1987), and "The Bourne Identity" (1988) in widescreen as well, though I don't think they were shot that way.
Reply
post #19 of 97
3/10/08 at 1:33am

Re: What tv on dvd sets are "fake" widescreen?

Babylon 5 S1 and S2. Although JMS claims they were always shot 'protected for widescreen', it's pretty obvious S1 really wasn't, to the extent that three effects shots show the entire 4:3 frame compressed into 16:9 (rather than cutting off top and bottom, which would have edited out the special effects). And in the series generally close-ups of characters usually show them losing the tops of their heads as well as the tips of their chins.

Also, West Wing S2 is tilt-and-scanned as well, but I don't know if it was shot protected in the first place, as doesn't look obviously 'wrong'.

And I believe V has also been tilt-and-scanned.
Reply
post #20 of 97
3/10/08 at 3:42am

Re: What tv on dvd sets are "fake" widescreen?

Perhaps this would best explain it in detail:

Letterboxing is the practice of transferring widescreen film to video formats while preserving the film's original aspect ratio. Since the video display often has a square aspect ratio, the resulting videographic image has mattes (black bars) above and below it; LTBX is the identifying acronym for films and images so formatted.

Letterboxing is the alternative to the full-screen, pan-and-scan transference of a widescreen film image to videotape or videodisc. In pan-and-scan transfers, the original image is cropped to the 1.33:1 (4:3) aspect ratio of the standard television screen, whereas letterboxing preserves the film's original image composition seen in the cinema.

Letterboxing was for use in 4:3 television displays when widescreen television was in its technologic infancy. Any Academy ratio (1.33:1) film will appear stretched and distorted to fill the widescreen television display, avoided by pillar boxing the image either via the TV set or the DVD player. Occasionally, an image broadcast at 4:3 appears letterboxed on a 4:3 or a 16:9 or wider aspect ratio television screen. This effect is common on personal video websites and old documentaries, either the original image's top and bottom have been matted or it appears stretched and wider than normal, making the people appear fat.

In today's changing home video format, the term "letterbox" sometimes is referred to a motion picture or video that is not been anamorphically enhanced for 16x9 screens, thus not taking full advantage of the DVD or HDTV resolution.
Reply
post #21 of 97
3/10/08 at 3:50am

Re: What tv on dvd sets are "fake" widescreen?

The Babylon 5 Widescreen Conflict

Quote:
Mastering problems

The transfer of Babylon 5 to DVD created significant problems with regard to special-effects/CGI footage. Several factors complicated the process.
Although originally broadcast in the standard television aspect ratio of 4:3, all live-action footage was filmed on Super 35 mm film (with a ratio of 1.65:1). The idea was that, once widescreen televisions (with an aspect ratio of 16:9 or 1.78:1) became more popular, the episodes could be easily converted into a widescreen format.

CGI shots were rendered in the 4:3 ratio, but designed so that the top and bottom of each shot could be removed to create a widescreen image without ruining the image composition.

All of the purely live-action shots were stored as high-definition digital images.

However, CGI shots, and shots combining live-action with CGI, were stored in the much lower-definition NTSC digital format. (Again, the expectation was that it would be relatively cheap in the future to recreate the CGI in widescreen.)

Over the years, the original computer-generated models, etc., have been lost, making it necessary to use the old 4:3 CGI shots.

This has resulted in several consistent flaws throughout the Babylon 5 DVD release. In particular, quality drops significantly whenever a scene cuts from purely live-action to a shot combining live-action and CGI. This is particularly noticeable on the PAL DVDs, since CGI shots had to be converted from NTSC, as well as being blown up to fit a widescreen television. In addition, while the live-action film was originally widescreen, shots were composed for 4:3, resulting in a conspicuous tendency for actors to clump up in the middle of the screen.
Reply
post #22 of 97
3/10/08 at 5:06am

Re: What tv on dvd sets are "fake" widescreen?

Quote:
However, CGI shots, and shots combining live-action with CGI, were stored in the much lower-definition NTSC digital format. (Again, the expectation was that it would be relatively cheap in the future to recreate the CGI in widescreen.)

Over the years, the original computer-generated models, etc., have been lost, making it necessary to use the old 4:3 CGI shots.

Wow. That's dumb.
Reply
post #23 of 97
3/10/08 at 7:08am

Re: What tv on dvd sets are "fake" widescreen?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Joseph DeMartino
The broadcast or regular cable showings of the episodes would be limited to analog sound - matrixed Dolby Surround would be the best they could manage. The DVDs are probably mixed in discrete Dolby Digital and thus much better than the original broadcasts. The difference isn't as dramatic between shows broadcast in HDTV and Dolby Digital and their DVD releases.

Regards,

Joe
Joe,

Many thanks. I was pleasantly surprised when I purchased the DVD set and heard the difference. No more muffled sound was quite a treat.
Reply
post #24 of 97
3/10/08 at 11:45am

Re: What tv on dvd sets are "fake" widescreen?

I believe that E.R. season 1 on DVD is "fake" widescreen. Correct me if I'm wrong here.
Reply
post #25 of 97
3/10/08 at 12:35pm

Re: What tv on dvd sets are "fake" widescreen?

What about Stephen King's It and Lonesome Dove?
Reply
post #26 of 97
3/10/08 at 2:04pm

Re: What tv on dvd sets are "fake" widescreen?

There are two different versions on DVD of the HBO series, FROM THE EARTH TO THE MOON. Initially released in a 1.33:1 standard TV ratio, the set was later reissued in a 16x9 enhanced version.

The story is that it was shot with both ratios in mind, so that either is correct. Some viewers have complained that certain shots look cropped at the top and/or bottom.

Harry
Reply
post #27 of 97
3/10/08 at 2:06pm

Re: What tv on dvd sets are "fake" widescreen?

Quote:
Originally Posted by HenryDuBrow
I believe the same is true for "Relic Hunter", which was co-German produced to begin with.

Yes, very annoying that, Season 2 was released widescreen in the UK and is now (mostly) out of print, for very complicated reasons, each season is almost a seperate show with all the rights and producers, and has held up series 1 and 3 getting released
Reply
post #28 of 97
3/12/08 at 7:59am

Re: What tv on dvd sets are "fake" widescreen?

Arild, not really. The format was fairly new during the eighties when the format was first presented to DVD. You'll find that every movie that was released up to the mid-90's had the 'matted' version, more widely known as the letterbox/matted format.
Reply
post #29 of 97
3/12/08 at 10:19am

Re: What tv on dvd sets are "fake" widescreen?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Mark Talmadge
Perhaps this would best explain it in detail:

Letterboxing ...

Nice explanation, but it has nothing to do with the discussion in this thread.
Reply
post #30 of 97
3/12/08 at 11:29am

Re: What tv on dvd sets are "fake" widescreen?

I picked up a copy of "Mistrial", an HBO TV movie from 1996, that starred Bill Pullman, Robert Loggia and James Rebhorn (who all coincidence be dammed, starred in "Independence Day" together the same year) on DVD and it was 16x9 enhanced and while it was a good looking presentation, it did look cropped a bit too much, especially since the overscan of my TV covered some of the bottom opening credits. I saw the movie many times on TV back when it aired and I doubt it was shot wide.
Reply
New Posts  All Forums:Forum Nav:
  Return Home
  Back to Forum: TV on DVD and Blu-ray