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"Angel" season two is widescreen, not full-frame as previously announced (1 Viewer)

Nick Martin

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Amazon lists it as Full screen, but TVShowsOnDVD.com
says it's Widescreen.

Guess we will have to wait for official word on this, and avoid speculation.
 

Adam Tyner

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While we're at it, anyone have any solid info as to which it's supposed to be?
I don't know how 'solid' this is, but when Tim Minear was asked about the possibility of seeing season two in widescreen, he made some quip about possibly seeing a grip eating a sandwich or something on the 'opened' part of the frame. That doesn't necessarily mean anything -- he might not have been in the loop about aspect ratios -- but it would seem to indicate that there wasn't a heavy buzz around the set/offices about 16x9 for season two. FWIW, I seem to remember the reviews of the widescreen R2 sets for season two being very positive.
 

Adam Tyner

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If that's meant in reference to what I said a second ago, from http://urchin.earth.li/~sax/mutant/a...r/general.html :

TM: From what I understand, we do allow for letterboxing (this for when TV goes high def). Greenwalt and I have been having conversations with the network about possibly running Angel in widescreen, but I don't see it happening this season anyway. Dunno about for DVD.

Also, don't be surprised if when the frames go wider for some of our eps you see grips and teamsters scratching themselves unappetizingly on the frame's edge.
That response of Tim's was made on 6/27/2001 (you can find his original message on groups.google.com), between seasons 2 and 3.
 

Jeff Kleist

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The number of the ratio is 4:3, and the number of the counting shall be 4:3. 16:9 is right out! And 4:3 being the original ratio reached, thou shalt watch thy Angel season 2 set, and take thy doubts, who being bothersom in thy sight shall snuff it-Book of Joss Chapter 3 verses 9-21

Good rule of thumb for the Buffyverse: If it wasn't wide on US TV, it should not be so

(Firefly was supposed to be wide all through, but Fox in their infinite wisdom said that they would try it for the pilot, and if it wasn't a runaway success they would go to the 4:3 versions to hopefully bring in some black bar haters)
 

Kyle McKnight

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I think you question has been answered...so I must ask this...

Is it possible to encode a 4x3 image anamorphically so that it will play in "anamorphic" mode on a 16x9 set, with black bars on the sides, yet still play as 4:3 on a 1.33:1 set? Maybe I should go read.
 

Jeff Kleist

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Yes Kyle it is. You matte the 4:3 image with side bars and then do a center zoom command (the same way 16:9 menus are full screen). However this needs to be done in the original telecine/mastering process to avoid quality loss.
 

David Lambert

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Amazon lists it as Full screen, but TVShowsOnDVD.com
says it's Widescreen.

Guess we will have to wait for official word on this, and avoid speculation
I'm sorry, I think there was a mistake on our end.

I *thought* I had that marked as Fullscreen. I just changed it back to Fullscreen. I double-checked Fox's information system, and it says Angel Season 2 will be Fullscreen. You can't get more official than that.

Unless Gord himself changed it to widescreen because he found out something different from a source he considers better (and I just shot him a note asking if this happenned, but I really doubt it), I must have slipped up somewhere.

My deepest apologies for the confusion. Angel S2 will be 4:3, I'm sure of it.
 

Jason Seaver

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You matte the 4:3 image with side bars and then do a center zoom command (the same way 16:9 menus are full screen). However this needs to be done in the original telecine/mastering process to avoid quality loss.
Wouldn't there be a quality loss anyway? I thought that a frame is stored on DVD with a set number of pixels, no matter whether it's encoded at 4:3 or 16:9, and storing a 4:3 image as matted 16:9 would just wind up wasting a good chunk of the image as empty space.
 

Joshua_W

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http://www.r2-dvd.org/article.jsp?s...&articleId=3763

Looking at that, it really does look the image was composed for the 4:3 frame.

The first image -- the castle -- has all of the action in the center of the frame. At the left and right of the 16:9 image is pretty much just negative space.

The second image -- the three books -- works a bit better in the wider aspect ratio, but looks okay in 4:3.

The third image -- "Guest Starring Andy Hallett" -- looks strange in 16:9. All of the figures are crowded into the center of the image. I've noticed this with the Buffy sets, too, and it's pretty obvious that they were framing for 4:3. The composition may look fine in 4:3, but if the image is widened, you suddenly wonder why these two people are having a conversation and nearly touching noses.

The fourth and final image looks a bit better in widescreen, but again, the composition still works in 4:3. The three figures would be tough to frame in 4:3 without excessive crowding, and it looks like they pulled it off.
 

PhilipG

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Then call me a heretic cuz I prefer the 16:9 framing for Angel Season 2. There are very few errors visible on the sides, unlike the Buffy R2 sets.
I counted just one error, but then again, I wasn't intensely scrutinizing each shot as some here might. ;)

Angel s2 looks fabulous in w/s. I've seen both versions. I know which I prefer. If the directors had 4:3 OARs in mind then either a) they were very confused, or b) serendipity made the w/s version better to my eyes.
 

PhilipG

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It was an editing error, where Angel was flat against the wall on the very left hand side of the screen, moments before he should have been. Sorry, can't remember which episode that was.
 

Jari

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I only noticed one mistake in Angel season 2 (16:9). One outdoor shot of the city had black bars on the sides. Other than that it looks fine. However I've also seen the season in 4:3 and think they both are valid ratios.

What amazes me most is the fact that no one complained when The X-Files season 5 was released as 16:9. It clearly is framed for 4:3 and there's at least one mistake that I noticed. In the episode "Kill Switch" around 18:50, take a look at the left edge of the frame. You can see woman moving her lips but you can't hear her. This is clearly a similar mistake seen in so many 16:9 tv show transfers. Also there are lots of empty space at the sides and all the action happens in the center of the frame. So it seems XF S5 was relesed in wrong AR. When do we start campaigning Fox to release it 4:3? ;)
 

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