Back To The Future W/S Framing Issues Here- (1 Viewer)

[Andrew Bunk]

Vince,

I can definitely understand your logic, and agree with you that things are probably in motion.

However, the mere fact that an error this big has happened once again on a major catalog release for Universal pretty much guarantees I'll never pre-order a Universal title again. I'll just wait until I hear if it actually works or not. With BTTF, I had this pre-ordered in September, as it's my most anticipated release to date. But Universal has shown themselves to have a subpar record at best. One could argue "they get it right 90% of the time", but to that I would say "Why not make 100%"?

Honestly, on a title this big, how could they miss this, unless they simply have unskilled staff, or lack of desire to get it right, or both.

 

[John Alderson]

I think we may be freaking out over nothing. Look at the screenshots in Ron's review. In particular, look at the shot of Marty holding the paper that says "George McFly murdered" and the one below that of Biff talking to Old Biff. If those shots were misframed in the way suggested on page 1 of this thread, heads would be very unpleasantly chopped off. I think that either the R1 is free of defect, or the original LD is the one that is misframed.
That's my theory, and I'm sticking to it

 

[Dave Moritz]

I also will not assume that Universal is rushing to fix this problem behind the scenes. The atitude that oh well yes Universal made a mistake so why should they recall every disc at there exspense? I am slitely troubled by this attitude. The fact is that Universal is about to knowingly sell a defective product! They also know that many people have been waiting and waiting for this movie to be released. I am like many out there that love this movie but am disapointed that it will be fubar right out of the box. I will not buy a faulty dvd set and sit back and hope that Universal will make good on there blunder. It is aparant to many of us here that Universal is planning on sweeping this problem under the rug. That they will say nothing at first then after the fact weeks later. Universal may or may not offer a replacement disc? Why would I not be supprised if Universal makes everyone pay for shipping the faulty dvds to them and then offer a replacement for the cost of shipping. I run a HT consulting business from my home on the side. I will be contacting many of my clients and letting them know about the faulty BTTF dvd's. I will also recomend that they do not buy them until Universal ether fixes the dvd's. And for myself, I will not be purchasing BTTF on its release date. And I will not purchase this movie until Universal gets this problem taken care of and the updated dvd's are on the store shelf. I also will wait to see on Indiana Jones when that is released. IMHO Universal can not be trusted to put out a good product. This is yet another example of Universal acting incompatant!

 

[Steve Phillips]

My head hurts!

I think I will just wait to see if this ever gets corrected. Then, I'll pick a set up for a loved one. Me, I can live without these flicks. Too bad, it would have made a nice present, though.

Too many other DVDs coming out to worry about these flicks anymore.

 

[Lane F.]

Dave,

Why would you feel the need to wait and see on the Indiana Jones Trilogy, because of Universal's screw up with BTTF? Indiana Jones will be distributed by Paramount, not Universal...

 

[Emil Stoica]

I also will wait to see on Indiana Jones when that is released.

Dave,

Universal had nothing to do with the Indiana Jones movies. That is Paramount.

 

[Peter Mazur]

John,

I agree with you. The scenes that Ron uses look to be correct. He also never said anything at all about them looking bad or mis-framed.

 

[John Simon]

Okay, I've been reading all these posts and I finally have to comment. While I agree with all of you that it's amazing that Universal messed this up, I think you're all a bit out of line in claiming for Universal's head. The simple fact of the matter is none of us know the full issue yet.
It is possible that this framing was approved by Bob Gale. While I doubt that to be the truth, we should all remember we don't know yet. Furthermore, to those of you claiming it's dishonest for Universal to knowingly sell a defective product, I think I speak for the majority of consumers when I say that we've waited long enough for these movies, and I'd rather own defective copies than not own them for another six months.
If it's really defective, Universal's past indicates they will offer some sort of replacement discs for current owners. I will want these replacements when they become available, but I'll be happy to watch the current discs when I buy them tomorrow.
Finally, to those of you who are shocked that Ron and others didn't mention this in their reviews, I'm guessing that most people would not notice the misframing had they not known about this. Personally, I haven't seen these films in widescreen since I saw them in the theater, and I would never have noticed the slight misframing. So how in the world do you expect reviewers to notice the error?
I'm sorry if I offended anyone, but I really think everyone should back off a bit. Let's wait for Universal or Bob Gale to make a comment, and then take things from there. If you want to wait for some recall to take place, then more power to you. But I'll be buying these classics tomorrow, finally having the chance to own the Back to the Future trilogy on DVD.

 

[Chris Shelly]

I just finished watching the 2nd film.....

I hate to open a can of worms here but I don't think the framing is off. Most of the action was dead center along with head shots. I did see some head cropping but I believe it just part of how it is. This is confirmed by the binocular shots both in the beginning of the film and in the end. The binocular shots are dead center in framing.

BTTF2 is not hard matted on film. The aperture plate in the projector crops the picture. You then adjust the framing using the frame knob on the projector. In my 10 years of experience it is always dead center that is correct. You can usually always double check this by using certain shots like the binocular shots.

If anything is wrong it might be a little over zoomed compared to the laser disk version. But being framed high or low I don't think it is.

When the laser disk version first came out I thought something was a little different then the theatrical version I remember seeing. In my opinion the DVD version captured what I remember seeing in the theater more then the DVD version.

Like I mentioned in a previous post above about the audio not sounding correct in the first film is not a problem in the 2nd film. The audio on the second film sounds a lot better.

This is just my opinion backed by 10 years of experience in film projection. I will ultimately agree with what ever Universal has to say. It is very debatable what is actually correct.

Chris

 

[Vince Maskeeper]

I have been in contact with a few friends who are familiar with the films- and have spoken with a pal that does Film to video transfers and found some interesting information:

As I suggested above- the friend that was doing a/b comparisons on the LD vs DVD shows that certain shots or misframed worse than others and the theory is that it would be shots that were involving digital effects (which tend to be rendered prematted...). So it's possible that the stuff you pointed out above would be framed close to correct and still have gross misframing in other parts of the film.

Secondly, my other friend told me that often directors or whoever will not approve individual framing versions of films- but will rather approve a master full open transfer from which the other versions will be prepared. I think he said it's called a "full aperture" transfer, and it's very common to see the directors approval come from the color and whatnot on this transfer- and them never see the final framing until the disc is released.

Again- while I don't know for sure it sounds reasonable for both of the above to true.

The various shots I've seen from the LD vs DVD comparison seem to be misframed-- and it does seem to be a degree of misframing that varies a bit throughout the film... so it might be different processed used for VFX shots and normal elements.

It's possible that those involved in the production did approve a master transfer but never saw the framing until it was finished and released.

I'm still optimistic that a fix will come. [fingers crossed]

-Vince

 

[PaulP]

I think all films should be made in 2.35:1 spherical process to avoid these matte, Super35, etc. problems.

 

[Brett Miles]

Does anyone remember for sure how long it was after the release of "Jurassic Park" that Universal made available the "alternate" (they never said the original was faulty, if I recall) DTS version? It seems to me like it took quite awhile. If in fact Universal corrects these BTTF issues (or rather makes some "alternately framed versions preferred by some customers" ), I'm just wondering how long we can expect it to take.
Edit: Never mind. I decided to take the initiative myself . According to Amazon, the release date for JP was Oct. 10, 2000 (confirmed by my shipping date and archived press release on dvdfile). The corrected version came in August 2001. The first report I could find on the Digital Bits was 8/2 regarding the stealth release of the new version. I had forgotten that people were reporting finding this before Universal would even announce it (8/16 on the 'Bits). If you'd like to refresh your memory see here . That's a good 10 months folks.

 

[pitchman]

I too am taking a "wait and see" approach to this release. These films have been delayed for so long (since BTTF was first announced a couple of years back) and at the time, supposedly for quality concerns, I simply cannot believe that Universal could get all the way to the mass duplication process and not notice that TWO out of three films had substantial framing problems. No thanks. I'll patiently wait for corrected copies...

I only hope that when Universal ships corrected copies, they're labeled as such, so we don't have to go through the same gyrations we did with Jurassic Park DTS!

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

I think all films should be made in 2.35:1 spherical process to avoid these matte, Super35, etc. problems.

All the glaringly horrific implications to the artistic future of cinema in that statement aside, Super35 is spherical. So are the BTTF films, for that matter. 2.40:1 anamorphic is what you were looking for.

 

[BrianShort]

I already know I'm getting this for Christmas, and after reading this entire thread, I guess I still don't know what to think. From the framing examples that were shown, I'd say something isnt right. It wont stop me from watching any of them the weekend after Christmas though... hopefully Universal offers a quick replacement if indeed the transfers aren't correct.
Re: the E.T. thing... I wasn't aware there was a problem with it, but I did a search... was the screwup the fact that the Gift set didnt include the DTS track on the 1982 version? I bought the 2 disc set, so I guess that's why I didn't notice anything
Brian

 

[Mark Bendiksen]

The various shots I've seen from the LD vs DVD comparison seem to be misframed-- and it does seem to be a degree of misframing that varies a bit throughout the film... so it might be different processed used for VFX shots and normal elements.

I agree 100% with Vince. Judging from the evidence thus far, it appears that certain scenes are framed correctly (or near correctly) and others are off...WAY off.
It's still not entirely clear to me whether the misframed shots are only ones that contain VFX. Given what we know about matting and VFX shots, that would make a certain amount of sense. However, I'm just not completely convinced that's the case here.
I think I'll wait and hear the reports in the coming days about just how widespread this problem is throughout Parts II and III before plunking down my forty dollars at Best Buy. If it's fairly minimal then I'll go ahead and buy the discs while they're still on sale and join the bandwagon to pressure Universal for replacement discs. If it's not minimal, then I'm not purchasing them until I've heard official word that they're going to be redone. If that's ten months, as was the case with Jurassic Park, so be it. It is still pretty disappointing, though.
Link Removed

 

[Chris Shelly]

I am now doing an A-B comparison between the LD and DVD versions of BTTF2. The first thing I notice is the laser disk is not 1.85:1. It looks more like 1.66:1. Because the film is not hard matted this will reveal more information.

Since a full frame flat movie is cropped using the projectors aperture plate that is cut at 1.85:1 the DVD transfer is indeed the correct version. At this time I don't see any other differences in the transfer.

Chris

 

[Thomas H G]

You would think that Universal would check over their work and not let it get this far. I check over my papers before they are turned in. There's got to be somebody "proofreading" shouldn't there?

 

[Mike_Richardson]

I am now doing an A-B comparison between the LD and DVD versions of BTTF2. The first thing I notice is the laser disk is not 1.85:1. It looks more like 1.66:1. Because the film is not hard matted this will reveal more information.

Here's something I noticed in doing my comparison of the LD vs. DVD:

After the opening credits of BTTF II on the DVD there was a GLARINGLY mis-framed (on the DVD) shot after Marty and Doc get out of the DeLorean (right when they land in the future Hill Valley, and before Marty leaves to go into the town).

The DVD transfer -- towards the end of that particular scene -- shifts the action TOO FAR towards the bottom of the frame, while it's being cropped on the edge as well.

There's no question the DVD is mis-framed and I cannot believe that was the original intention of the filmmakers whatsoever. You can just tell it's WRONG -- had I been in a theater, I would have asked the projectionist to crop the frame UP because it looked so unbalanced.

Again, not EVERY shot is that obvious, but there are far too many instances of that for me to live with it. I'm just happy I kept my LD until Universal (and if they do) issues a recall.

What I still don't understand is why BBTF I isn't prone to these issues but II and III are filled with them. I watched the first 15 mins. of my BTTF I LD and DVD, and not only are the transfers comparable (with the DVD being sharper and more colorful, obviously), but the framing is EXACTLY the same.

 

[Josh Dial]

You would think this would be an easy thing for quality control to catch eh?

cheers!

Josh