Dracula: Prince Of Darkness Aspect Ratio... (1 Viewer)

[Robert Saccone]

I am seeing something funny with Dracula: Prince Of Darkness on my Panasonic RP91. The cover says 2.35:1 aspect ratio but on my Mits 16x9 (connected via component cables with progressive scan enabled on the player) the black bars are about triple the size I usually see with this apect ratio. The picture looks very squashed. It is almost as if the disc does not have the proper flags set for the player. If I use the zoom function on the RP91 it looks better but it also makes the grain more apparent.

Anyone else experience this?

 

[Peter Apruzzese]

The aspect ratio on the transfer is actually a little less than 2.35 - it's more like 2.1 or so. They did this because supposedly the film has some extreme distortion at the edges due - to the Techniscope lenses used - and they thought it was better to crop it out. Also, the DVD is NOT enhanced for 16x9 televisions, which accounts for why you are getting a "squashed" picture. You need to watch it the same way you watch any non-enhanced letterbox source. That should clear up the problem.