Question about widescreen editions? (1 Viewer)

[Brent Joye]

I'm new to DVD so please forgive me. I was at the store the other day and saw 2 versions of Oceans 11. One said Widescreen Edition. Is one the Pan and scan version and the other is a 16:9 version? Because I didn't think they were even making many of the P&S versions anymore? Every time I rent something from Blockbuster, it's widescreen only. I thought maybe one was the 1:78 and the other was the REALLY widescreen version, the 2:38? I know I don't really know what I'm talking about, can someone give me the idiot's guide to DVD's?

 

[Andrew_Sch]

Brent, whenever you see the words "fullframe, fullscreen, pan and scan, standard", etc., it means 4:3. Unfortunately they are still making pan and scan editions, but many studios are offering separate releases, like Warner on Ocean's Eleven and Harry Potter, and Universal on most of their big releases. The widescreen version of Ocean's Eleven is in its OAR of about 2.4:1 and is anamorphic.

 

[Chris M]

The only studios that are making P&S ONLY releases right now are Disney and Columbia Tristar. The rest of the studios release mostly widescreen, but if there is a P&S version, there will always be a widescreen version.

Chris.

 

[Brent Joye]

Andrew, Thanks for the info. That helped a lot.

 

[Esten]

www.widescreen.org might help you with the whole aspect ratio part.

 

[Randy A Salas]

The only studios that are making P&S ONLY releases right now are Disney and Columbia Tristar.

And Artisan, which has been reissuing previously available widescreen DVDs (now out of print) as pan-and-scan-only titles.

 

[Patrick McCart]

Most P&S-only discs are unmatted versions of 1.85:1 films (giving a 1.33:1 aspect ratio without matting)

WB's P&S and P&S-only discs are entirely of open matte productions or Super-35 films. Even a speculated 2.35:1 Panavision film, The Witches, has been proven to be an 1.85:1 film.

Disney seems to care less about making new transfers to allow the correct aspect ratio to be seen.

The Columbia-Tristar fullframe only titles are also 1.85:1 productions unmatted.

Artisian...I don't know.

MGM's discs are a mix of true pan & scan (Chitty Chitty Bang Bang...MGM should be sacked for putting out a P&S-only DVD of a 70mm film!) and unmatted films. MGM is better at it now.

Fox is pretty good about OAR, even with many titles out with alternate P&S versions. I think they just have one title in P&S-only, but it's not really a demanded film.

Paramount has no P&S-only titles on the market. They have 2 cinematographer-approved 2:1 from 2.35:1 (Super-35) DVDs, which don't count.

Dreamworks has none either.

Universal is pretty good, but they have a couple of P&S-only titles from The Early Days. They do a bunch of P&S or Widescreen versions for the JP trilogy, American Pie, and The Mummy movies.