WTF - Opening Credits of Thunderball on BR are Pillarboxed (2 Viewers)

[Carter of Mars]

You realize we'd be having the opposite thread if the titles weren't pillarboxed and were instead trimmed off the sides of the screen, right?

 

[Stephen_J_H]

Yup.

 

[Zack Gibbs]

I no longer understand what they're doing, could you post a "regular" scene for comparison?

 

[Arild]

Oh wow, those people are part of the actual presentation? I always thought they were just other people in the audience. Guess you learn something every day.

..come on. I think you know very well what people are talking about here. All anybody here wants is to have the movie presented in its original format throughout. Is that really too much to ask?

 

[Vern Dias]

It's simple. They reduce the overall size of the image by putting black bars on all sides.

If you don't see the black bars on the top and bottom or the displayed AR changes, then I have bad news for you:

Your display is one of those that have the overscan problem that triggered this "decision" that was made by the studios to cater to the lowest denomination displays out there. Those displays either are not capable of presentinging a "Pixel Perfect" display of the complete 1920x1080 image captured on the BD or you do not have thee display set up properly to display in "Pixel Perfect diplay mode. Note that this symptom wouldn't appear on letterboxed material unless you are doing CIH.

Vern

 

[EnricoE]

Quickpost this image to Myspace, Digg, Facebook, and others!

 

[Zack Gibbs]

Thanks Enrico.

When reading the initial post I thought they had essentially "shrunk" the credits sequence to ensure the titles word visible, and that there was slight pillar boxing with a little more letter boxing.

Looking at what they've actually done, I don't have a clue what the point of that is...

 

[Bob-ATL]

[/quote]..come on. I think you know very well what people are talking about here. All anybody here wants is to have the movie presented in its original format throughout. Is that really too much to ask?[/quote]

Amen, brother.

 

[David Norman]

Bottom line and ultimate question becomes "What did the opening credits look like in the initial presentation?"

Does anyone actually know what was shown on the original prints? If the original presentation showed those small black bars on the side should the DVD/BD not do the same.

I honestly don't know the answer, but my original LD copy from 1989 release which was the 1st LTB release of this title as well as the 1993 Connery Box 2 shows the exact same thing though admittedly it is a bit harder to see. I can definitely see a bit of same pillarbox on both the right and left sides of the screen after the credits start and you can see the same 'fade' in and out of the bars at the beginning and again the end of the opening credits.

The whole idea of letterboxing/pillarboxing/windowboxing and how to scan the film to be 'overscan safe' was still a developing concept in 1989 I wonder if the folks that transferred the video would have conceived of that issue. It was even common that many of the original LTX videos even showed the VBI at the top of the screen.

 

[Mark-P]

Omigod, you people are giving me a headache with your confusion over this. All MGM has done (and it is exactly the same with the ultimate edition DVD) is to slightly squeeze the picture during the credits to bring in the sides and avoid overscan cropping for those who don't have zero-overscan displays.

 

[David Norman]

And maybe not even that. My apologies if this was confirmed or not in the DVD Ultimate Bond discussion since I never read those. Nitpicking is OK to a certain extent, but like arguing grammar you had better have your information correct first or risk looking really bad on multiple fronts.

 

[Douglas Monce]

I don't think they squeezed it at all, at least for Thunderball. I looks to me like they simply reduced the size of the over all image so that the edges of the frame would be inside the "TV Safe" over scan area.

All I can say is if this minor adjustment to the image bothers you, your probably paying too much attention to your equipment and not enough to the movie.

Doug

 

[Mark-P]

Yes, it is slightly sqeezed. The height of the picture does not change from the credits to the rest of the movie. The Ultimate Ed. DVD I have has the title-less sequence as an extra and it is not sqeezed. Here is a capture from each for comparison:

 

[WadeM]

If part of the titles are cut off due to overscan, then guess what? Part of the image is cut off throughout the entire movie! Maybe they should pillarbox the entire movie to please these people.

I agree that this is annoying, but the solution wasn't for the studios to use pillarboxing, but for the TV manufacturer's to stop producing TVs that overscan.

It is an improper decision for the image size to change during the course of a movie, unless it was originally designed that way. Again, if one part of the movie has its image cropped, then the entire movie has the image cropped! It doesn't help to pillarbox only part of the movie.

The first time I noticed this was in a Criterion movie, and I really think it was a bad decision that I wish would stop.


If the image was trimmed off the side of the screen, then it is a problem with the TV set overscanning, and the complaint could properly be directed at the TV manufacturers.

 

[Douglas Monce]

The problem is that until about 4 or 5 years ago, every TV over scanned. It was the nature of a CRT. At this point probably 90% of TVs still overscan. And the over scan gets worse over time, unless you get a technician out to adjust it every year or 2.

They are simply making the product for the vast majority of people who are going to watch it.

Also the pillerboxed titles have been on EVERY version of the film I've ever scene, I'm wondering if it may have even been like that for theaters in the original release? Alas I'm not old enough to have seen it in theaters.

Doug

 

[David Norman]

Alas, I am old enough to have seen it originally, but didn't. I think the first Bond I saw on original release would have been Diamonds are Forever or possibly Live and Let Die.

 

[RickER]

Thank you.

Certainly its not a WTF, smack in the face moment, pillar boxed or squeezed.

 

[Sanjay Gupta]

Personally I find the policy of catering to the lowest common denominator totally unacceptable. Spoiling the experience for all just to try and make up for the limitations and faults of some people's equipment is a totally retarded decision on MGM's part. Yes, my opinion would remain the same irrespective of whether I personally have a tv with overscan or not. One's next TV may not have this problem, specially since more and more new tvs are being made with zero overscan, but the Blu-ray will remain the same way forever.

 

[Will_B]

Modern tvs do not overscan! You can't even buy CRT televisions anymore.

Besides, why would they make a special exception for the title credits? Does anyone really care about the names? No. People watch the credits of a James Bond film for the pretty pictures in the sequence. No one gives a fig if Joe Schmo was the Caterer.

They messed up this disc. Maybe they'd created a version with the opening credits distorted for the purpose of broadcast television (which may have rules about displaying credits in the safe area), and accidentally used it on the BluRay.

Whatever the case, the disc is not right.

 

[Carter of Mars]

Yes, I do.