Refusal to buy non-anamorphic titles (1 Viewer)

[TheBat]

I felt the same way about the non-enhanced dvds, until of course I had gotten a widescreen tv.. then that all changed.. I had gotten rid of some dvds that were not enhanced.. I am careful about getting enhanced dvds.. I don't have that many. the unrated version of natural born killers is not enhanced.. I heard the rated is.

it all changes once you get a widescreen tv..

there is not much you can do when the extras are not enhanced.. a least the movie is.

JACOB

 

[Kevin M]

Wow, this an old thread......so.....who's this "Frank" person I keep reading about?
His name keep's getting brought up in the 2001 portion of the thread yet none of his posts are there....Hmmmmm.....

 

[Jeff D Han]

Hey David-

The receltly released Ransom SE has a letterboxed

transfer. Talk about clueless. I think I would have

purchased the SE if it was a 16x9 remaster. I think

the Judgement At Nuremberg SE is another non-anamorphic

title that was released within the past year.

I tried to watch my letterboxed Carlito's Way DVD

yesterday to see if I liked the film enough to upgrade

to the 16x9 Ultimate Edition version. The video on the

letterboxed version was fucking horrible! I immediately

threw the thing in the trash and got the Ultimate Edition.

I bought my 16x9 TV eight months ago, and I'll never buy

another letterboxed DVD again. I guess I'm lucky that more

than 90 percent of my DVD library is anamorphic, but there

are some titles that I'll immediately upgrade from letterbox if the remasters get released.

 

[DaViD Boulet]

4x3 lbx titles still sneak in from time to time with major studios (and all of WB and MGM 1.66:1 titles are 4x3 lbx...which is a real shame...they just don't get it) and many smaller companies still do 4x3 lbx quite often.

BTW, I keep hearing about how many 4x3 lbx transfers are "great" and many 16x9 transfer are not...and while it's true that with any given transfer, the 16x9 does not gaurantee a great picture (the studio can muck up anything they want to)...ALL THINGS EQUAL the SAME transfer done 16x9 will be 33% better than the SAME transfer done 4x3 lbx. That's the point.

BTW, even the "best" 4x3 lbx transfers still have 'issues' when viewed on large/wide-angle system. Transfers like the Abyss, which were once regarded as "reference" look BAD on my 106 inch screen. Really. I mean *bad*.

There are some 4x3 lbx transfers that don't look "bad" but I have yet to see a 4x3 lbx transfer on the 106 inch screen that fooled me into thinking that I wasn't losing resolution...and certainly none of them approach the "film like" detail level of the best 16x9 images WS images.

Curiously however, because DVD uses the same 720 x 480 pixels for both 4x3 and 16x9 aspect ratios...on my 16x9 screen 4x3 1.33:1 material still looks sharpest of all. That's because there is 33% more horizontal information in the 4x3 window in my 106" screen when viewing native 1.33:1...all those 720 horizontal pixels are used for that 1.33:1 width...versus having to spread them out to cover the entire 16x9 screen. But I don't want to confuse folks and side-track the conversation here...

bottom line...WS material 1.66:1 and above should be 16x9. If a new film-tape transfer is struck, there's no excuse not to do so.

 

[Tino]

All other things being equal, an anamorphic transfer will be a significant improvement over a non-anamorphic transfer.

Not true.
For example, the new 16x9 Black Hole looks significantly worse than the previous non-anamorphic transfer.

 

[DaViD Boulet]

Tino,
That's not all-other-things-being-equal.
All things equal means the same film-tape transfer (using the same print or negative), and the same quality and process of subsequent mastering applied.
In the case of the new 16x9 Black Hole...Disney likely used a different print of the film (was much grainer than the previous...what's that about???), it's a different film-tape transfer for sure, and they applied all sorts of strange DNR and HF filtering to the image.
if all things had been equal...(such as the original transfer having been done 16x9 at the time rather than 4x3 lbx) it WOULD have been better. Similarly, if the new transfer had been 4x3 lbx instead of 16x9, it would be 33% WORSE than it is already!
dave

 

[Tino]

Dave
Ahh...gotcha.

 

[DaViD Boulet]

But you certainly do prove the point that the mere fact of "16x9" does not mean that the image is automatically better than the 4x3 lbxed version when DVD shopping...so good point on that front.

I think that Heathers is another example of a DVD that was better before they tried to redo it in 16x9...the newer 16x9 "THX" version (there's you're tip-off that something's wrong right there ) was DNR'ed to death and looked like a big blurry air-brushed mess next to the realtively "sharper" and more-detailed-looking 4x3 lbxed version release previously.

 

[Ed St. Clair]

"THX" version (there's you're tip-off that something's wrong right there}

That quote made my day!

And thanks for all the recent reviews.