Kung Fu - Season 1 (March 16th) is not OAR (1 Viewer)

[Rodon]

I will bend. I have been wanting it for sooo long. I am a fan of OAR but maybe fair weathered. If OAR Jung Fu is released I will probably by again. But until then I will watch Kung Fu on the only formay available on DVD. I can't wait for this series. Used to stay up late as a kid with my dad so we could watch this!

In fact - I will buy two sets most likely - My Dad will also own this!

 

[Josh Steinberg]

Next up: Gone With The Wind, Casablanca, The Wizard of Oz, and Mr. Smith Goes To Washington Remastered & Modified for 16x9 HD!!

I suppose it won't be *as* bad as seeing Gone With The Wind cropped for CinemaScope 2.35:1 presentation...

 

[Haggai]

I suppose it won't be *as* bad as seeing Gone With The Wind cropped for CinemaScope 2.35:1 presentation...

Did that actually happen anywhere? *terrified look*

 

[Patrick McCart]

Gone with the Wind was re-issued in the 1960's blown-up for 70mm. Hey, despite it being cropped to 2.21:1 and processed by Metrocolor...it had 6-track stereophonic sound!

 

[Dane Marvin]

No, please don't say this is going to happen with The Dukes of Hazzard, too! As much as I love Warner for a lot of great releases in 2003 (Looney Tunes Gold, the 2-Disc SE's, Space Ghost, The West Wing & ER), they've suddenly changed from the potential breakout studio of 2004 into a bunch of fools out to ruin the idea of an original aspect ratio.

What are they thinking?

 

[Frank@N]

The age of tilt and scanning has come.

Seems like this process has been slowly creeping in:

Early Sopranos, early ER, and 24 were all converted to 1.78 ratio (as far as I can recall).

Funny thing, no one has complained much till now...most DVD reviewers seem to be lured in by the increased resolution.

One 'Sex and the City' reviewer bemoaned that the 1.33 image had *not* been converted to 1.78 ratio!

 

[Christian Preischl]

Early Sopranos, early ER, and 24 were all converted to 1.78 ratio (as far as I can recall).

That's different because those shows were all shot wide to begin with, so you're not losing any info (except on ER which still crops a bit on top and bottom for some reason as well as adding info on sides).
As for 24, 16:9 is definitely the ratio to go on this one and also seems to be the preferred format of the producers. I heard negative things about the Sopranos' framing though, with lots of dead space on the sides on the earlier episodes. So 4:3 might have been the better choice on that one. And don't get me started on Buffy.

However, Kung Fu is indeed not the first title to be tilted and scanned. Stephen King's It and the TV version of The Bourne Identity suffered the same fate, both being cropped on the top and bottom. And both of them are Warner titles. Who would have thunk it?

Chris

 

[Robert Ringwald]

Actually, 24 was filmed widescreen and cropped for broadcast. However, it was filmed for both ratios, so they made sure the image was safe in a 4:3 screen while also keeping the 16:9 image composed nicely.

 

[MatthewA]

Stop with this "not as bad as" malarkey and look at it on its own terms. Anyone who buys this is helping to set a precedent that MAR is okay as long as the MAR is wider than 1.33:1.

I am now dreading every Warner TV-on-DVD release that interests me (and to date there have been almost NONE). If they do it to any show I actually want to see I will be mortified beyond belief.

 

[Chet_F]

This is the EXACT reason why Buffy has been released in widescreen over seas. Of course they have broadcast their shows in 16:9 wide also but it's the same idea. The market requests it......the market gets it. Started with Buffy and if you thought that was the end of it your sourly mistaken....this is just the beginning. J6P is still J6P even though he has a widescreen TV.

Inevitably there will be the whiners "I have black bars on the side now DOGONEIT!!I thought those darn things would be gone now that we have one of those new fangled widescreen dohickeys!!!! At least that's what these sales guys said anyways!!"

What REALLY get's me going is how easily people who have fought so hard for OAR in the past few years and now they are like "Well as long as it's widescreen......."

Let the hypocrisy begin!!!!!!!!!!

 

[John_Berger]

Let the hypocrisy begin!

Pfft! Not this widescreen zealot! If my wife decides to buy it, that's her choice; but I've never bought a MARed DVD and I'm not about to start now, even though I like the show as well.

 

[Thomas T]

You can't win! Pan and scan releases of wide screen films, stereo remixes of mono films, colorized B&W movies and now wide screen releases of TV shows shot 1.33.

It should all be so simple really. Release them in their ORIGINAL and INTENDED form whatever it may be. End of discussion.

 

[Matthew Chmiel]

(except on ER which still crops a bit on top and bottom for some reason as well as adding info on sides)

IIRC, ER (before it became "widescreen only," it might still be the same) is/was shot on Super 35. I remember reading something years ago when a producer of the show stated this during the show's transition to widescreen.

 

[Rick P]

This is the EXACT reason why Buffy has been released in widescreen over seas. Of course they have broadcast their shows in 16:9 wide also but it's the same idea. The market requests it......the market gets it. Started with Buffy and if you thought that was the end of it your sourly mistaken....

One significent difference, Buffy was FILMED widescreen starting in Season 4. Seasons 1,2,3 were filmed 4:3 and RELEASED 4:3 in all regions. Season 4,5 and 6 were released in R2/R4 in 16:9 and I perfer it that way BECASUE IT WAS FILMED THAT WAY. Noting was cropped, chopped, stretched, tilted or anything else. It was the way it was filmed.

Dark Angel the same way, filmed 16:9 BROADCAST 16:9 (on FoxHDTV) and in R2/R4 RELEASED 16:9, only over here (R1) was it cropped/chopped.

 

[Louis C]

Kung-Fu has been on my waiting list for what seems like forever. Although the non-OAR move is a travesty, I won't be denied my Kung Fu.

Finally it's here!!!!!! I had thought this day might never come.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Season 4,5 and 6 were released in R2/R4 in 16:9 and I perfer it that way BECASUE IT WAS FILMED THAT WAY. Noting was cropped, chopped, stretched, tilted or anything else. It was the way it was filmed.

Then you should want all spherical films that way; all 1.85:1 films should be open-matte since the full frame's 1.37:1, right? All Super 35 2.35:1 films should be 1.37:1 since that's the frame, right?
It doesn't matter what the aspect ratio of the canvas the show/film was shot on. What matters is the aspect ratio that was composed for. It's not about the most information; it's about the right information.

 

[Brian W.]

The age of tilt and scanning has come.

Tilt and scan. Good term! I like that.

I read somewhere that the whole reason this is being released in tilt-and-scan is because Warner Television had already transferred the show to Hi-Def for TV broadcast in 16X9, so Warner Home Video saw it as an opportunity to release the series on DVD cheaply.

I don't think it's a new policy for Warner to do this... I just think they didn't want to spring for new OAR transfers, when they had Hi-Def transfers all ready to go.

Not saying that excuses anything, but I doubt Warner will be going the tilt-and-scan route on most of their TV releases.

 

[David Lambert]

We found out that one of the reasons this was chosen for DVD release is because the show is already being remastered for high-definition by another division, and a DVD set was the logical way to take advantage of the new transfer. As a result, fans of the show with widescreen televisions will be able to take advantage of a 16x9 anamorphic widescreen image on this DVD release (Warner will have to shave a bit off the top and bottom of the image to make it fit).

You see how "optimistically" I worded that when I first posted that news item? I was trying to have a good attitude about it. But, with apologies to Warner, it's hard for me to have a good attitude about modified video formats...in either direction (MARred to fit fullscreen or MARred to fit widescreen...it's still a MODIFIED ASPECT RATIO). My attitude has returned to normal...as evidenced by my subject line in this thread I created. In other words, there's nothing I can find to be optimistic about where this is concerned.


As for it being an isolated incident: I see no reason why it should be. Obviously Warner and other studios (Paramount surely, since Cheers was in that article I mentioned) have it in mind to make these MAR Hi-Def transfers for HDTV use (not a place I want to see MAR items, either). And the temptation WILL be there to use the same transfers for DVDs. Their thinking will be that "if it's good for 'broadcast', then why not use it on DVD?"

Of course, I think exactly the opposite way: I want it on DVD *and* "broadcast" (my use of that term in this case encompasses any method that a show reaches your television: over-the-air antennae, cable, satellite, etc.) only in the original video aspect that it was first seen by the original audience. I want to see it as it originally was.


What's hilarious is that the companies behind tilt-and-scanning (and P&S, too) are actually convincing the studios to buy this equipment (and probably pay for training) to muck about with something that doesn't need to be changed at all. I wonder how many dollars they convince the studios to part with. All "for our convenience" (the viewers). Well, I'm not feeling convenienced...quite the opposite, in fact.

 

[Rodney]

This is a bad precedent, and I am really worried about the posts above saying that they will buy this regardless. This should be as important as Willy Wonka, and we should put a stop to this as soon as possible. I think we need to call, write and email the studio. We need to correct their mistaken impression that we want widescreen only, when in reality we want O-A-R!!!

 

[todd s]

More importantly. Any chance we will get Kung Fu:The Legend Continues?? Seriously, I liked that show.