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"Nightmare Before Christmas" SE (1 Viewer)

MarkHastings

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I too didn't realize the last SE wasn't anamorphic.Ah, that was before my 16x9 tv. I guess I haven't watched it since the new tv.

Oh, and add me to the list of quad-dipping (i.e. I have the 2 DVD's plus the VHS).
 

Jon Smith

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The UK R2 is cropped to 1.85:1

But the Scandinavian release is both anamorphic and 1.66:1, but also loses the DTS track.

how is the DD5.1 on the DVD ? cant decide whether i want DTS or not.
 

Brian McHale

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It doesn't matter how good the current ransfer looks, there are a lot of us with 16x9 TVs that don't have any good way to watch a non-anamorphic 1.66:1 disc. My set has a zoom mode that works well for 1.78:1 (and higher) non-anamorphic, but it cuts off too much of the top and bottom to be useful for 1.66:1.

I don't know if I would double-dip on this title, but all 1.66:1 and wider movies should be released in anamorphic widescreen
 

Ken_McAlinden

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Nightmare Before Christmas and most of the nominally 1.66:1 Disney DVDs of films from the last 20 or so years were shot to be exhibited theatrically at 1.85:1 and should be able to withstand a 1.78:1 zoom mode presentation without much trouble. While an anamorphic reissue would be most welcome, it's probably not fair to include "Nightmare..." with the list of other 1.66:1 films on DVD for which there is no good way to watch on a 16:9 set.

Regards,
 

Ken_McAlinden

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They haven't, but I think you know that already. Per the post you quoted, it "seems" that they are slated to get to it within the next year or two whereas there does not seem to be any similar noise out of the Disney camp about revisiting "Nightmare...".

Hope that helps.

Regards,
 

Dave Mack

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I checked AmazonUK and it says that the R2 disc is 1:66-1 WS. No mention of anamorphic. Is this wrong? And where could I order the scandinavian version..?>

Thanx! D
 

Wyatt_Y

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By Brian:


Sorry, but Ken have you tried watching this on a 16x9???

[rant]There IS NO ACCEPTABLE way to watch this wonderful movie on a 16x9 display. This is one of my favorite movies and I cannot watch it even after (stupidly) purchasing two versions of it.[/rant]

....and now back to our regular programming.... Please excuse my rant, but in my book, this is the #1 DVD travesty...(my #2 travesty being the grotesque transfer quality of "The Last Emperor"...)
 

Paul Hillenbrand

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Ken:
Ken is basically correct. Although there would be no substitute for an "anamorphic" Nightmare Before Christmas, there are a couple of DVD players that have excellent "digital" zoom qualities for a very good 16:9 picture of the movie. The "Bravo D1" does a great job using its 720P DVI output on a 110" home theater screen. For those with analog HDTV progressive component connections, the "light-ON 2001" performs a 1080i digital to analog conversion, bypassing macrovision problems and outputting a zoomed 1080i component signal for extremely good detail on 16:9 direct view HDTV's. Where there's a will, there's a way.:)

Some of us pleaded with "Touchstone Pictures", before Nightmare was first released, to make it an anamorphic disc, but the argument lost a lot of steam here when many members, at the time, who only had 4:3 sets, didn't think it was fair for them to see the film in a less than stellar 4:3 picture. All the 1st and 2nd generation DVD players had downconverters that were "technically challenged", causing video noise garbage.

The second release of T.N.B.C. was also disappointing for us early adopters, having the same transfer, but a lot of us bought it anyway for the added DTS tracks.;).

Paul
 

Ernest Rister

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"The SE was the second DVD release of the film and came out around the Fall of 2000, almost three years after the first DVD, but with essentially the same transfer. Disney had already released some very nice "pillarboxed" 16:9 1.66:1 DVDs such as Tarzan by then."

The infamous Disney "LE's" premiered in the Fall/Winter of 1999. Disney's first disc of an animated feature with a 16x9 enancement was A Bug's Life in early 2000, followed by Tarzan in the Spring and the awful-looking Rescuers Down Under in the summer of 2000. In the span of little more than a year, a great many Disney classics had all come to DVD lacking a 16x9 enhancement. For some, like Pinocchio, this was not necessary or even appropriate but for others, like Lady and the Tramp, the lack of the enhancement was a deep disappointment. Disney suffered a steep learning curve when approaching DVD, but learn they did. By early 2001, titles like Pete's Dragon and Bedknobs and Broomsticks were being given the 16x9 treatment. While they remain hit and miss (like the Happiest Millionaire debacle), I've been pleasantly surprised by the work on Those Calloways, Three Lives of Thomasina, Escape to Witch Mountain, The Black Hole, etc.

The real issue (for me anyway) are the Limited Edition and Gold Collection discs from late-1999 through 2000, all of which are screaming for reissues to correct one issue or another. DaViD correctly mentions that the LE titles used existing laserdisc masters for the most part. Although there is one title in particular that should be of note to all serious Disney animation collectors:

Lady and the Tramp: Limited Edition

Though often unheralded, this non-16x9 release is notable for one thing...it is the only time Lady and the Tramp has been released on home video in America in OAR and not missing lines of dialogue and song lyrics. The 1998 laserdisc and VHS release were OAR, but they also featured an audio error causing certain lines of dialogue and the closing lyrics to "Peace on Earth" to go completely missing. After some bad press (but no recall), Disney quitely fixed the audio errors for this 1999 DVD release. For me, that makes the LE DVD of Lady and the Tramp a highly-valued commodity among my animation collection. It's the only time the complete film has been released on home video in R1 (in OAR and without the audio errors).
 

DaViD Boulet

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That's not really the issue he was addressing. The issue with zooming this 4x3 encoded 1.66:1 image for a 16x9 display is the sacrificed vertical picture information that is lost/cropped in the process.

Despite the arguments that it "should be ok" given comparisons with cropping during film projection etc., the real-world effect with NBF is damaging...it really looks like the image is unacceptably cropped when I zoom on my Momitsu for my 16x9 display. A native 16x9 1.66:1 image...besdies providing better resolution (well, maybe if they don't over filter the new transfer ;)) is that it would be properly framed for 16x9-display viewers.
 

Ken_McAlinden

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The DVD looked pretty good zoomed to 16:9 to me. It wasn't my TV, so I can't provide the exact brand and model. If they were able to adjust the vertical centering, I wouldn't know. I'm fairly confident I was watching it in the real world, though.

It looked fine theatrically exhibited at 1.85:1 to me as well. It looked awful at a certain multiplex where I saw it improperly matted to something like 2.0:1.

Regards
 

Keith Paynter

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Don't expect Jeffrey Ketzenberg's comments to show up in a Disney DVD any time soon.

P.S. Ernest - cool Sig!
 

Marc_Sulinski

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But you are still cropping a good bit of the top and bottom of the image. This is in addition to the overscan you would normally have. This is because 16:9 zoom is meant for 1.78:1, not 1.66:1.
 

Ernest Rister

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It should be noted that - until the re-releases of Fantasia, Pinocchio, and Snow White in 1990, 1992, and 1993 respectively - modern theaters in the 70's and 80's cropped the tops and bottoms of classic "full frame" Disney films in exactly the same fashion you are all describing.

For the Fantasia re-release, they printed the image in a windoxed 35mm frame, literally forcing theaters to show it in the original aspect ratio. I suspect that - in the HD days ahead - windowboxed HD-DVDs of classic films will become common.
 

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