Perfect Storm HD! But pan&scan... (1 Viewer)

[Steve Tannehill]

Dammit. It looked and sounded great, but the scanning and cropping really ticked me off. Come on HBO, try OAR on your HD channel!
- Steve
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[PerryD]

I agree. I couldn't finish watching the movie, it was just too cramped and blown up, I can't imagine what the 4x3 channel looked like.
Amazingly, this is only the second movie since getting my Dish setup last fall where the cropping ruined my viewing experience (The Haunting was the first). I would guess that most of the other 2.35 movies were open matte Super 35 films, thus the framing looked okay when presented unmatted.

 

[MaxY]

Steve,
Are you sure it was Pan & Scan?
I have often gotten the feeling while watching some 2:35 movie on HBO HD like The Matrix and such that they do not Pan & Scan them.
I really think they do nothing more then crop them or zoom it in until them black bars are gone.
I do not think they even put the effort in to do the Pan & Scan part which might actually make them feel less claustrophobic.
As it is it really bugs me when watching 2:35 movie on HBO In HD.
BTW I do notice that every now and then they show some in 2:35 but I have yet to figure out why or when they chose to go OAR.
Max
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[Steve Tannehill]

Yes, it was pan&scan not open matte. There were a couple of scenes that stood out: one in the bar, where Marky Mark's girlfriend rounds the bar to verbally attack the boat owner (panning to the side since she effectively walked out of the frame). Then in the funeral, look at the three-shot of the mom with the two kids...the two kids are partially cut off.
It's not much, but it caught my eye. The DD 5.1 sound was good, though.
- Steve
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[MaxY]

Steve,
I was not suggesting it was open matte, I was suggesting that it just simply had the sides crops and there was no actual pans involved. In other words they just cut off engough of the sides to make 16x9 but they do not bother to pan from side to side in any attempt to keep the action in the frame.
With 4x3 to fill the frame you must actually pan for the action to fall into the frame when compsing a 2:35 movie for a 4x3 frame.
I have gotten the impression several times now that HBO is no Pan & Scaning but just Cropping the sides. I don't believe they are using Open Matte and opening the frame and I don't believe that they pan back and forth with their 16x9 frame, they just friggen crop it and leave it at that.
I especially felt this way when they showed Anna & the King and Gladiator.
Max
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[Michael St. Clair]

quote: BTW I do notice that every now and then they show some in 2:35 but I have yet to figure out why or when they chose to go OAR[/quote]
Max,
The general rule is that all new HBO 'aquisitions' are cropped to 16:9. If it's 2.35:1, they made their transfer before the policy went to 16:9.
The future is bleak.
I'll never understand it. The type of person with a $2,000-$10,000 TV is likely to understand/accept OAR. HBO should at least show some of the showings of each film in OAR.
[Edited last by Michael St. Clair on July 18, 2001 at 09:45 AM]

 

[Frank]

Bob Zitter of HBO made it very clear that he and the execs of HBO couldn't care less about their viewers.
He stated that the reason they were going to pan and scan was because that's what the dealers wanted and their own employees seemed to prefer it.
Frank