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

Christian Preischl

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PhilipG,

yeah, I noticed a couple of those, too. The 4:3 outdoor shot Jari mentions is the most obvious one to me (it occurs during the episode "Dead End").
However I noticed that almost all of the other outdoor shots are actually stretched sideways to fill the (wide) screen whereas they were unstretched in the 4:3 version. In some cases, this even applies to mid-scene footage, e.g. there's a shot of the moon where the moon looks like a half deflated football. Then the camera slowly pans down to reveal Drusilla and Darla, but they're "unstretched" again.

And then, of course, there's various lip-synch issues of characters outside of the 4:3 frame I noticed. And you need to know that at the time I was convinced that 16:9 was the way to go, so I didn't keep an eye out for this stuff at first. Only when watched it I realized, "Whoah, something's wrong here".

Jari:
nobody's complaining about X-Files because it was released in WS by request of the creators/producer or whoever it was. I'm quite surprised that there's WS goofs in there.

Chris
 

PhilipG

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e.g. there's a shot of the moon where the moon looks like a half deflated football
Indeed, but a lot of shows tend to stretch these little scene-linking videos just to be "arty". Since I suppose that whole "speeded-up" look is meant to look arty too, I'm fine with it.

As for lip-synch problems, I didn't notice, but then again, with current QA on DVDs, I've trained myself to not noticing such faults. ;)
 

Robert Ringwald

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After hearing some of the mistakes in ANGEL SEASON 2, I don't really want 16:9 versions...

I'm perfectly happy with 4:3 until season 3. :)

It's clear when WB said "No widescreen" for season 2, they composed it for 4:3 mostly.
 

Scott_F_S

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I'm perfectly happy with 4:3 until season 3. It's clear when WB said "No widescreen" for season 2, they composed it for 4:3 mostly.
Agreed.


I keep holding my breath, though, waiting for that long, arduous debate on the Buffy S4 thread to break out here again.

Hope it doesn't.
 

Adam Tyner

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I got the first and sixth discs of the second season of "Angel" in the mail today, and I can confirm that it's presented in anamorphic widescreen at 1.78:1, not full-frame as some of the specs floating around had previously noted.

Very unexpected. I can post some screenshots later if anyone's curious.
 

Robert Ringwald

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I'd like to see some screenshots. :)

How's the quality of the video BTW? Any improvement from season 1? Not that it was that bad or anything.

I was so sure this was going to be Full-Frame, and I wasn't upset. It seems Joss has say on what is released in Region 1. If it's widescreen, it must be mostly framed for it.
 

Mark Zimmer

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As I understand it there are no crossovers between Angel season 2 and Buffy season 5, right? So I can go ahead & get AS2 and watch it without waiting for BS5 to come out? Or are there spoilers between the two that make that inadvisable? Paging Mr Kleist...
 

Adam_ME

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As I understand it there are no crossovers between Angel season 2 and Buffy season 5, right? So I can go ahead & get AS2 and watch it without waiting for BS5 to come out? Or are there spoilers between the two that make that inadvisable? Paging Mr Kleist...
is a bit of a spoiler too. Her appearance at the end of that episode is supposed to be a surprise.
 

Adam Tyner

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Well, the last shot of the last episode of the season ties in heavily with the finale of Buffy's fifth season...

The episode "Darla" also follows Buffy's "Fool for Love", though the individual stories are different...flashbacks are the connective thread between the two.

Neither are 'heavy' enough to recommend steering clear for a while or anything.
 

PhilipG

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Ah, I remember well the Fox claims: "R2 (UK) Angel season 2 will be the only widescreen version". More sucker me for believing them. Now I may have to get the R1 so Cordy sounds right again (her voice in particular is very noticably changed by the PAL speedup).
 

Adam_ME

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Now I may have to get the R1 so Cordy sounds right again (her voice in particular is very noticably changed by the PAL speedup).
I was gonna replace the R2 set until I found out the "Previously on Angel" intros are once again missing on the R1 DVDs. Call me picky, but I gotta have those.

This doesn't bode well for Buffy Season 5 and "The Gift", BTW.
 

Ken_McAlinden

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Is it just me, or would every one of those shots look better cropped to 4:3? I'll assume the ME folks know what they are doing, but those three particular screen shots are not especially great examples of widescreen framing.

Regards,
 

Bleddyn Williams

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Bugger! I specifically picked up the R2 version from CD Wow because of the advance news of the R1 being 4:3. I probably would have waited for the domestic release otherwise.:thumbsdown:
 

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