Bill Cosby: Himself - 8/10 (1 Viewer)

[DaViD Boulet]

Great review!

Had no idea there was a 16x9 WS option...was it filmed for the theater?

-dave

 

[Zachary Cohen]

Matt: your review incorrectly states that the widescreen version is the original aspect ratio. It is not. It was filmed in the 1.37 aspect ratio so the widescreen version is cropped.

http://www.tvshowsondvd.com/newsitem.cfm?NewsID=1564

 

[DaViD Boulet]

which is the 'original'? Was it intended purely for television or dual-venu like TV and film/theater?

It was WAAAY before HD so I know it couldn't have anticipate that...

 

[Matt_P]

I compared the widescreen and fullscreen transfers during my review. The 1.85:1 anamorphic image clearly contains more picture information on the sides and is not a vertically cropped 1.37:1. This may have been a dual venue title, but I'm not certain. It seems clear the camera operators were composing for the 1.85:1 ratio.

Thanks for the compliment, DaViD!

 

[Zachary Cohen]

I'm sorry, I did not mean to say that the widescreen version was cropped but that it simply was not the correct aspect ratio. It probably does have more information on the sides which means that although it was shot in widescreen it was intended for 1.37:1, similar to how 1.85 films will be shot in open matte but are intended for 1.85. Head over to the TV Shows on DVD forum here and read the Wonderfalls thread in which the OAR is 1.33:1 but Fox is releasing it in widescreen by simply using the extended sides.

 

[Adam Tyner]

Zachary: Do you have anything to substantiate the fact that the OAR for Bill Cosby: Himself is the cropped 1.37:1?

Wonderfalls is a different situation.

 

[Matt_P]

Good question, Adam. I see what you're saying Zachary, but what determines the true OAR in this case? It was clearly shot 1.85:1, so should this be considered the OAR, or the modified TV ratio, for which you say it was "intended" for?

 

[Joshua Clinard]

If there is more picture information on the sides, that clearly demonstrates that the wider ratio is the Original Aspect Ratio.

 

[DaViD Boulet]

It would seem to make sense, but it's not a 100% certainty...

after all, open-matte film presentaions show more vertical picture information than than the WS...but that doesn't mean they are OAR...

 

[MarkHastings]

But again, it depends on what it was intended for.

This is another case of "What does OAR REALLY mean?"

When you talk about "original", what does that entail? If it was shot for the movies, but never made it to the movies and was cropped for TV, does that make the 1.33:1 the OAR? In this case, the 16x9 version would be the "Intended Aspect Ratio", but is it still considered the "Original"???

AHHHH!!!!?????

 

[Matt_P]

That's what we call a conundrum.

 

[Joshua Clinard]

Well it's pretty improbable! I have never heard of a case where a hard-matted widescreen transfer is incorrect, and a pan & scan transfer is correct. It's just not logical.

Were they thinking, "Well maybe one day this movie will be shown at theaters, but we will sacrifce the OAR and let theaters show a little more info on the sides? Or were they forward thinking enough that they would think to protect for future widescreen TV's?

 

[Adam Tyner]

You'd take a resolution hit doing that too -- matting to 1.85:1 and then cropping to 1.37:1.

 

[Dan Rudolph]

I could give you a bunch of TV-show examples.

 

[Adam Tyner]

We're not talking about a TV show shot in the past few years because a studio wants to future-proof their library for when 16x9 displays become dominant. It's a 1983 stand-up comedy film.

 

[Rob Gardiner]

Tvshowsondvd indicates it was given a theatrical release. IMDB agrees (although they can be unreliable).

 

[Zachary Cohen]

What you dont mention is that TvShowsOnDvd also says that it was shot for 1.37:1.

 

[Adam Tyner]

TV Shows on DVD is an excellent resource, but it's not a definitive one, and they may have been fed bad information or be making an inaccurate assumption.

 

[Bryan Tuck]

After looking at the disc, it seems that this was probably shot with both ratios in mind. You don't really miss that much in the full-frame version, but the widescreen version clearly reveals more picture information on the sides. It was indeed given a theatrical release. IMDB also lists the OAR as 1.37:1, but that would seem to indicate open-matte (and as others have stated, IMDB is not always reliable on this kind of thing). If the panned-and-scanned version is the "intended ratio," then OAR should be listed as 1.33:1; a slight difference, to be sure, but there is that slight difference between a full open-matte ratio, and the standard TV ratio.

If this thing was hard-matted and intended for theatrical release, I think it's a good bet that the intended ratio is 1.85:1. Did anyone happen to catch this on its initial release, or maybe at a theatrical showing since?

 

[Scott Weinberg]

I saw Bill Cosby: Himself during its original theatrical release. So while I know next to nothing about its original aspect ratio, I can confirm that it was indeed a theatrical release.