How The West Was Won, Errol Flynn, Warner Westerns - 26/08/08 (1 Viewer)

[PaulP]

You can see an example of smilebox here: The Cinerama Adventure - "Smilebox" Process

By the way, this 93-minute doc is included so yay! But like I said before, hopefully there will be a good restoration feature on HWWW too.

 

[John Hodson]

*Sigh*; everytime I see a Blu-ray release I fancy, I talk myself round to sticking with SD for a while longer. But, this...

Get thee behind me Warners.

 

[RolandL]

All 3-strip Cinerama films. The 70mm Cinerama films do not need the smilebox.

 

[Mark-P]

That example of smilebox uses pretty mild curvature. It actually doesn't look too bad. The examples I had seen on the new Oklahoma! DVD were horrendously distorted.

 

[PaulP]

DVD Empire has the Ultimate box up for 50% off, only twenty bucks, a no-brainer really!

 

[Stephen_J_H]

Smilebox on Oklahoma? I'm guessing this would have been the Todd-AO version (shot simultaneously in CinemaScope). Where did you see these examples and do you have a link?

 

[TonyDale]

I thought the smilebox demos were on the KING KONG (1933) dvd. . .

 

[Stephen_J_H]

There are smilebox demos on King Kong, but Mark-P was referring to some in connection with Oklahoma, which struck me as odd.

 

[Mark-P]

It's in one of the special features documentaries. Since I can't find any examples posted anywhere on the net, I'll post my own screencap tomorrow.

 

[Simon Howson]

It's part of a documentary comparing Todd-AO with Cinerama. Basically they argue that Todd-AO was intended to be better than CinemaScope, but cheaper than Cinerama.




I don't know why a Todd-AO film would have to be smileboxed as drastically as a Cinerama film. Were Todd-AO screens as deeply curved as Cinerama screens, I didn't think so.

 

[Mark-P]

Thank you Simon! Now I don't have to make my own screencap. This was the silly-looking curvature I was referring to in my first post, ranting about smilebox. But if the smilebox curvature is the subtle version shown in PaulP's link then I am all for it.

 

[Simon Howson]

I just don't think Smilebox works well with Todd-AO material. Or more specifically, the curvature is too radical for a Todd-AO film on those examples from the documentary. I suspect that for a Cinerama film the smilebox format will look a lot better, probably better than watching it flat.

Perhaps also the fact the documentary is 4:3 caused a problem, and to top it off the footage was interlaced. I captured it in VLC with a deinterlacing filter, but that just made it look blurry.

 

[GerardoHP]

When Cinerama movies aren't smileboxed, they suffer from great distortions on the horizontal plane, where lines are broken in 2 parts along the screen joints. Smilebox is the best way to watch Cinerama, better than letterbox and of course better than pan-and-scan.

I'm just a little bothered that they have apparently erased the lines, which I thought were sometimes obtrusive but very cool.

 

[RolandL]

The screens for 3-strip Cinerama should have a 146 degree curve. For 70mm Todd-AO they would be 120 degree. But films like Oklahoma only used 120 degree lenses in a few scenes so, they do not need to be smileboxed.

 

[PaulP]

It looks like that's been addressed. Look closely at the before/after screenshots. It seems the angles of the panels have been horizontally corrected.

And they haven't erased the lines, but aligned the panes without any visible join lines.

 

[RolandL]

I could be wrong but that "the silly-looking curvature" that you refer to is what we will probalby get for the smilebox version of How The West Was Won. I have seen How The West Was Won at a Cinerama theatre and that is pretty much what it looks like. Plus, I think the top people at Warner Brothers probably like the idea that it fills more of the screen.

 

[RolandL]

The CinemaScope "before" frame has been stretched to the size of the "after" Cinerama one below it. I have partially corrected it on my web site - htwwwdvd

 

[john a hunter]

No Todd AO film used the 120 degree bug eye lens all the way thru but only for certain sequences but that did not prevent the format's use of a curved screen in their installations. I'm not sure of the depth of the curvature at the Rivoli in NY but but the time Todd AO opened in Lodon in April 1958, it had been reduced to 5 feet.
I think the first few Todd AO features would benefit greatly from a not to severe Smile box treatment.Especially as we badly need a proper version of Oklahoma!

 

[MarcoBiscotti]

And unfortunately anyone who does not purchase the BluRay disc, will not experience this. :frowning:

 

[RolandL]

Check out the frame from Search For Paradise on the bottom of this page - The Cinerama Adventure - "Smilebox" Process