What aspect ratio will Avatar be when released on Blu-Ray 3D? - Page 2

Yet for home video he's clearly in favor of 1.78:1.

At one point, a version of The Abyss on laserdisc was released in a letterbox format that was not 2.35:1 :


http://www.lddb.com/laserdisc/00878/1561-85/Abyss-The-%281989%29


Perhaps an experiment by Cameron due to flexibility of the Super35 format.

Which is why I'm disappointed.  I was hoping the Blu-ray would include the version that the director believes to be the best-composed, not the one the he thinks people might like better on their televisions or that fills up the screen or whatever his justification for the aspect ratio change is.  

Is that LDDB entry accurate?  I know there was a Cameron-approved full-screen laserdisc, but this is the first of heard of any release that's neither 2.39:1 nor 1.33:1.  Interesting.

I'm not sure if the quoted aspect ratio is correct, but it is true that something other than 2.35:1 and 1.33:1 of The Abyss has been released on laserdisc. I used to own it before I got the Special Edition w/AC-3 audio.

Digital Bits is reporting that 1.78:1 is official.

But something has occurred to me.

Couldn't they use some  of that fancy Blu Ray video overlay technology to lay some black bars over the top and bottom of the film? And then if you want to watch it 2.35:1, you select that and BAM, you're all set. It's not like you'd lose any resolution. A couple of featureless black rectangles wouldn't put much of a load on the player processor.

Then you add a WHOLE DIFFERENT VERSION OF THE FILM on to the list of features the back of the DVD case. For FREE! WHAT A BARGAIN! Or drop it in as an easter egg if you're trying to avoid upsetting Joe 6p or worried about player compatibility or if your corporate overlords have spoken and the possibility of a scope presentation is right out. But for basically free you're shutting up us film snobs who are all 'Cameron says he prefers 2.35:1 for 2D presentation so I'm boycotting this, harumph rabble rabble rabble!'

The composition from 1.78:1 to 2.39:1 isn't a matter of masking the same amount from the top and bottom all the way through.  Some scenes he may want to crop off all from the bottom, others from the top, etc.  Novel idea, but that would be more akin to a "vertical pan and scan" than anything else.

Regardless, I think it's silly for anyone but Cameron to presume what the best AR for this film is.  So he said early on that he prefers the composition of the 2.39:1 version.  Who's to say he hasn't changed his mind?  Perhaps he was offering "lip service" for 2D theaters who were fearing folks would avoid their screens in favor of the cool, 3D ones.

How can you presume to know why he made the decision to release it in 1.78:1 on home video? You're getting EXACTLY what the director of the film in question feels is the best framing for the application. Sheesh.

I don't presume to know.  That's why I listed a couple of different possible reasons why he might have made that decision.  

I don't care "what the director of the film in question feels is the best framing for the application."  I care about what the director of the film in question feels is the best framing for the film itself, without regard to the application.  I respect the artistic right of the director to frame his movie in whatever way he likes, but not to tell me what's the best way for me to watch it in my own home.  If Cameron thinks that the 2.39:1 framing is the best (and he has said that he does), then that's the version I'd like to purchase on Blu-ray.  If he thinks that the 1.78:1 version is a better compromise for home viewing (for example--he hasn't said that about Avatar as far as I know but that's the gist of what he said about the full-screen version of The Abyss), then I respectfully disagree, and would still prefer to watch the better-framed version.

Oh boy. Call him and complain then Carl. I'll say it again - you're getting exactly what James Cameron feels is the best way to present HIS film on Blu-ray. If the "issue" is that important to you I suppose you can mask your display.

Okay.  What's his number?

I'm not the one who's got a problem with the way he's framing Avatar. YOU find it!

Here we go again. And again, and again, and yet again. One more case of a director's choice of AR being questioned, one being rendered invalid over another, frustrations over what looks best on TV....it really is TDK and Buffy all over again.

Have fun keeping the circle, er, rectangle going. :)

Oh, I'm stopping now. Took me a few posts to realize what I was doing...

Double post

Well Carl, it wasn't my intent to insult you or your opinion, and I apologize. I'll admit to being tired of this kind of debate and maybe I should have just kept my mouth shut. In the end it's a pointless exercise. Cameron's the director, it was his call, and that's that as far as I'm concerned. I feel his decision is more than acceptable and I'll leave it at that. Again, my apologies if you were offended. Try not to take things so seriously. We're just talking about film here after all...

For the record (if there is such a thing), I have no opinion because I'll accept whatever AR James Cameron, Christopher Nolan, and Joss Whedon wants for their work to be presented. My opinion on the subject doesn't matter. Maybe that makes me some kind of sheep who will blindly follow whatever they say, but it's their films (and television show) and if I don't get a say in what scenes are included or cut, or choice of audio format, why should I get a say in what aspect ratio they feel is best to preserve their intentions for home viewing? 

Who in the hell am I to say it's not good enough when they aren't compromising anything? It's not like they pan and scanned their work to appeal to certain viewers who are ignorant of these things.

Joss Whedon wanted his television series to be presented like a (once) traditional television series, which meant 1.33:1.
People even went as far as saying it was 'short sighted' and the issue of OAR was thrown out the window.

Christopher Nolan wanted to preserve the effect of the more immersive IMAX presentation of his film and knew the only way to do so was to reformat the IMAX footage to a full 16:9 ratio.

This annoyed people with specific displays, wanting just a straight 2.35 presentation because the shifting would mess with their setups (so what do they do when watching 1.85 or 1.78 movies? Avoid them all? How does that work?) Others were worried about the shifting being a potential distraction. Fair enough. Understandable. A few said it was the wrong AR regardless of what Nolan decided. It's his movie, and he knew he had to make a subtle compromise.

James Cameron wanted his film to be screened in 2D theatrically at 2.35:1, with 3D presentations being in whatever ratio they could provide - his preferred AR of 1.78:1 or the wider AR. He then decides to utilize that 3D presentation's AR for home viewing, most likely because it's the entire frame as shot, with nothing missing unlike the 2.35 presentation.  

Seems as cut and dry as it sounds. Some people don't think it is, or don't think it's good enough or whatever and will argue about it for about 70, 80 pages or more. Some, like me, are probably looked at as being sheep for accepting those choices at face value, blindly following along without question.

So I'm a sheep. I'm fine with it.

Thank you for the apology, and please forgive me if I came across as too serious.  I stand by what I said about the aspect ratio, but I think I probably came across as thinking its a much bigger deal than I actually do.  I don't think 1.78:1 is ideal for Avatar, but if Cameron gives it the thumbs up then I can live with it.  I look forward to re-visiting Avatar in my living room, something on which I imagine we can all agree!

Indeed.

Don't worry, I am too.

Forget it. You're wasting bandwidfh trying to convince people, otherwise, that think a director's decree on aspect ratio is somehow sacrosanct and not to be questioned. It doesn't matter to them that the same director had no problem stating that 2.35:1  was the most pleasing composition for flat projection of this film and actually even had it released in theatres that way. Now that the "King" has decided that 1.78:1 is the crowning aspect ratio for a home release, anybody who doesn't agree and wants to see it in the original theatrical ratio for flat projection is just supposed tug their forelock and say, "As you will it, Mr. The King". Like someone said here it is TDK all over again. Like that one, this one will be just another one to leave on the shelf.   

The people in question are using "constant height" displays, which have an aspect ratio of 2.39:1, so that all movies completely fill the height of the display, but may not completely fill the width, depending on the aspect ratio of the movie.  So, watching a 1.78:1 movie is no problem.  It fills the screen in one dimension (height) but not the other (width), just as with any film whose aspect ratio is different than that of the display on which it's watched.

The problem with The Dark Knight is that while the bulk of the film is 2.39:1, a few select scenes are 1.78:1.  These scenese are "opened up," changing the height but not the width of the image.  This works great on a 1.78:1 display, but not for a 2.39:1 one.  Watching The Dark Knight on such a display would mean either having a large black border around all four sides of the image during the 2.39:1 scenes, or filling the screen with those scenes but cropping the 1.78:1 scenes.

A completely 2.39:1 version of the film was created for traditional (non-Imax) theaters, and would have been the perfect version of the movie to watch for viewers with a constant-height display.  Sadly, Warner chose to omit that version from the Blu-ray.  Inexplicably, it was included on the DVD, which is certainly not the medium on which constant-height display users would be watching the film.

Why not just have all versions available in the set? The theatrial edition was 2:39:1, IMAX was 1.78:1, so...have 'em both. Makes more sense to me. Sorta goes along with Storraro and something like APOCALYPSE NOW. If he wants to OAR to be 2:1, great -- but at least have the full original OAR version available.

This argument was lost on people during the original debate, so I doubt it will convince any of them now.

A lot of people said (without even trying it first) that it wasn't possible, but with The Dark Knight the 1.78:1 IMAX scenes could be cropped (or masked out) and it wouldn't look any different than the DVD's standard theatrical presentation. I tested it many times myself using the DVD as a template, and what's missing in the masked out IMAX scenes is what's missing on the DVD. They could easily have used a BD-J or subtitle masking bar on that disc.

Or perhaps they recognized that the 1/100th of 1% of the home video market that constant height display users represent were not a big concern to the studio releasing the title. I'm not saying that's fair, but I'm sure it was a consideration at Warner for TDK, if it was on their radar at all.

Really?  I wish you'd have said something about this before (or did I just miss it?), because that makes a big difference.  I have not checked myself, but I most definitely recall, back when The Dark Knight was first released on Blu-ray, people reporting that this was not the case.  The 2.39:1 version of the Imax scenes, they said, were not created by simply cropping an equal amount from the top and bottom of the 1.78:1 frame.  

But if they are created that way, then it shouldn't present a problem for constant-height displays, right?  The top and bottom portions of the image will be cropped off during the 1.78:1 Imax scenes (leaving the proper 2.39:1 framing), just as they would be during the rest of the movie when that area contains the black letterbox bars.  

Given the choice of 2.35 or 1.78 ratio for home viewing, I'd opt for 1.78. Fill up the screen, more immersive.

2.35 at the cinema, 1.78 for the home. Perfect.

I didn't see it at the Imax so it'll be interesting to see the film opened up top and bottom. No mike's in frame? (kidding)