MASH and HD (1 Viewer)

[Mark-P]

Looking at the two shots closer, I'm now wondering what the original negatives could truly provide. The show was shot on 35mm, making the OAR 3:2. Which is close to 4:3 but longer on the sides. But in the HD versions there is significantly more information to the left and right, which leads me to think more information was captured on all four sides than we see in either version. Which, if correct, would mean the original frame was not as cropped as it appears on DVD, even if the show was cropped for 4:3 back in the day and the DVDs accurately reflect this.

If all of this is correct, viewers today would see everything in original 3:2, which large widescreen TVs could accommodate both in terms of aspect ratio as well as anything that might appear smaller without cropping.

Any thoughts on this?

MASH was definitely not shot in VistaVision! The 1.5:1 aspect ratio to which you refer is 8 perfs shot horizontally. MASH was of course shot 4 perfs vertical which has an aspect ratio of 1.33:1 (silent aperture). All four sides are then cropped for release prints or video, which is why you are able to harvest more side image for the widescreen versions. There is also a lot more image on the top and bottom that you don't see even in the 4X3 version.

 

[Harry-N]

I got to have a week's worth of MeTV a couple of weeks ago at a hotel location. We watched M*A*S*H each night at 7 PM, and they are of course airing the 16:9 versions. I was largely OK with the show, but it felt uncomfortably cropped top and bottom at times. Heads moved in and out of frame, and if anyone actually had feet, they were rarely, if ever, seen.

Since returning home, we're back to watching our nightly M*A*S*H on DVD and all feels like it's proper again. The extra room on the side that I witnessed on MeTV doesn't impress me. There was nothing there that was important or even interesting. The show was shot for 4:3 presentation and is best shown that way.

 

[JMasterClaw]

Looks like the show was shot in Super 35, which is a film format designed to be easily adapted to multiple aspect ratios. The intended aspect ratio was 4:3, so sometimes there will be props at the top and bottom of the frame, but all vital information should be centered, so the reframing on Hulu for 16:9 won’t add or remove any vital information.

MeTV, however, don’t have access to the original film, so their version is most likely a 16:9 crop of the 4:3 image, which effectively removes about ⅓ of the frame without adding or compromising anything.

 

[Harry-N]

^So you're telling me that 20th Century Fox remastered M*A*S*H for Hulu or Netflix or whoever for 16:9 and that their remastering shows an "acceptable" framing that neither adds nor removes any vital information?

And you're further telling me that 20th Century Fox ALSO remastered M*A*S*H for 16:9 for MeTV, but that they did a crop of the 4:3 image? And that these two "remasters" are different?

I'm not buying it. If 20th Century Fox did ONE remaster, which I believe they did (and is a small miracle), then anyone who's running M*A*S*H remasters is showing the same images. That includes Hulu or Netflix or MeTV. I know that MeTV is running remasters because the colors are more vibrant than the old prints they were running.

And I still maintain that what I see on MeTV is uncomfortably short on height. Tops and bottoms were chopped to make this a widescreen image. Tops of heads are cut off. Alan Alda, Wayne Rogers, and Mike Farrell were all rather tall individuals, and whenever a bunch of them are in frame, if one is standing, you can count on a scalp being chopped with this widescreen attempt. If anything extra is now in view left or right, it's never more than a salt shaker or a hunk of wall, hardly interesting information.

Face it. The show was composed in a 4:3 world meant for 4:3 televisions. And that's the way it looks best.

 

[Robbie^Blackmon]

The show was composed in a 4:3 world meant for 4:3 televisions. And that's the way it looks best.

Agree. "Requiem For A Lightweight". 10 minutes-ish in, when Mulcahy recommends prayer, you don't see that little gesture where he slips Hawkeye a mini bible in the widescreen version. The scene loses some impact as a result.

Little things like that throughout the series add up to a lot of somethings.

 

[JMasterClaw]

^So you're telling me that 20th Century Fox remastered M*A*S*H for Hulu or Netflix or whoever for 16:9 and that their remastering shows an "acceptable" framing that neither adds nor removes any vital information?

And you're further telling me that 20th Century Fox ALSO remastered M*A*S*H for 16:9 for MeTV, but that they did a crop of the 4:3 image? And that these two "remasters" are different?

Nope. That’s not at all what I’m saying. Reread my comment.

Vital image loss is minimal when a Super35 frame (approximately 2:1) is converted from 4:3 to 16:9. Anytime a film is reframed, some visual information is either lost, gained, or — in this case — both. My point is that because television frames pretty much everything in the center anyway, the conversion is mostly inconsequential. You’re not going to lose anything that the director needed you to see, nor are you gaining anything that will detract from the experience (unlike when widescreen movies were un-matted for 4:3 TVs in the ’80s, and boom mics or effects props were exposed that should’ve been hidden).

Now, if we were discussing the movie MASH, which was filmed in a 7:3 anamorphic aspect ratio, and it were being shown in a non-letterboxed 16:9 or 4:3 frame, then there would be significant image loss of important information. Movies are filmed and framed very meticulously and specifically, because they have weeks to shoot it, and months to edit it. Weekly television series are usually recorded in a very point-and-shoot manner: get the shot you need as quickly as possible and move on to the next one, because you have to shoot the equivalent of about 10-15 movies in just a few months with the same minimal cast and crew. It’s not typically an artistic endeavor, which is why many TV episodes are directed by the actors themselves, and very few ever go on to direct feature films.

I also said of MeTV that they probably “don’t have access to the original film, so their version is most likely a 16:9 crop of the 4:3 image,” which means that about ¼-⅓ of the image is cropped off without adding anything. MeTV is not compromising a loss of vertical with the gain of horizontal, balancing the frame, they’re just cropping the already cropped image (kind of like when Walmart used to showcase their TVs by showing a panned-and-scanned DVD on a widescreen TV and zooming in to remove the black bars).

MeTV is a low-budget cable network that shows old reruns and movies that are cheap to syndicate. The remastered version of M*A*S*H would undoubtedly be more expensive to syndicate because Fox would be recouping the cost of remastering them. Hulu is half owned by Fox — which means Disney now — so not only is there less cost to show it because they own it, it’s also advertising for the quality of the remaster so people will subscribe to the service, and networks will pay the extra money for syndication rights.

I am always an advocate for watching movies in OAR, but the fact is, television shows (particularly sitcoms) aren’t usually made with framing and composition in mind, so as long as there isn’t significant loss of the original image, there shouldn’t be much to complain about.

In my opinion, the fact that most networks and streaming services don’t have a version without the laugh track is more of an issue than the aspect ratio.

 

[Harry-N]

The fact is, MeTV runs the remastered episodes, so I don't get your point.