StarWars.Com - Widescreen Vs. Fullscreen (1 Viewer)

[greg_t]

Why is everyone suddenly thinking that Lucas allowed the Pan and scan only because walmart demanded it? Remember that the original trilogy was released in pan and scan on LD, VHS, and that's all I've ever seen it on tv. Also Episode I was pan and scan, and you had to pay more to get the "special edition" widescreen box set. Star wars in Pan and scan is nothing new.

 

[Garrett Lundy]

I'm beginning to feel like the lone French soldier stationed atop the Arc de Triumph in Paris armed with a machine-gun waiting for the German panzer division.
I see an end to the pan & scan/OAR battle looming and it doesn't look like we'll win.
I guess by the time HD-DVD rolls around, It'll be Criterion titles or nothing for the OAR-crowd.
Star wars Ep2 P&S
But at least I've preordered the widescreen DVD
And I do appreciate George attempting to inform the masses about widescreen, J6P isn't about to read about why widescreen is better on the internet. I therefor must voice my opinion that the article was really only going to be seriously reviewed by OAR-afficianados and thus pointless.

 

[John_Berger]

What they should do without telling Wal-Mart is insert a flyer into the pan-and-scan version explaining why what they just bought isn't what they should have bought. It might seem ludicrous; however, it would (A) educate the people since Wal-Mart and Target won't and (B) piss off Wal-Mart when people start to return the pan-and-scan versions for the widescreen versions.

Although, this still does sort of beg the question of why not just include both in the same case. Then Wal-Mart wouldn't be able to complain.

 

[Sean Moon]

Here is a link that I found, where it says they took the 2:40 image from a 16:9 capture
http://www.starwars.com/episode-ii/n...s20000409.html
Here is a quote
They made sure to compose all scenes for final 2.40:1 aspect ratio which also involved extraction of this widescreen format from the 16:9 digital capture
I am looking for more. I remember seeing an article talking about the lenses and filming extensively. Searching the web for now!

 

[Jeff Kleist]

Sean, it was indeed shot flat, and there are STILL no anamorphic lenses for these cameras. Sigh
Supposedly there is some problem with how the CCDs process the light, why not just make some nice 2.35:1 CCDs?

 

[Sean Moon]

That would require making a whole new batch of cameras to test, and it would be years before that was viable to use for filming. Making an anamorphic lense that would work with the camera is the best option I believe, as it would make the standard 16:9 cameras more versatile, as you could film in both ratios then.

I still cant find the article I was wanting too. I remember a close up of anakin being shown and how they cropped the picture to make the scope image.

 

[Jeff Kleist]

when you watch the web documentaries on the DVDs, there are many shots of the 16:9 monitors with 2.40:1 areas marked off
I can dream about the 2.35:1 CCDs can't I? It's allowed

 

[Sean Moon]

http://www.starwars.com/episode-ii/v...g/making1.html
A making of video talking about the digital cameras. Mccallum says the original lenses couldnt do widescreen, so they made some. But watch the playback monitors while they are filming. The image is 16:9, with the matte lines for scope on the screen, kinda like when filming in Super 35.
This is a lot like what I remember, but there is still another article/video detailing the ratio the camera shoots in.

 

[Hartwig Hanser]

One question I ask myself is: How many people did not buy Ep1 because of its being widescreen?

I guess, we can estimate that number roughly from the number of first week sales of the Ep1 P&S DVD in November. Should be interesting.

 

[Tom Ryan]

Apparently there was one because Ep. 1 is getting a puke-and-scan DVD at the same time as the Ep. II release.

No, there was never a pan-and-scan Episode I DVD until recently, when the AOTC DVD release plans came out. The pan-and-scan Episode I DVD is, I believe, only available in a box set with the pan-and-scan Episode II DVD. Other regions get the box set in widescreen, but not region 1.

 

[James Reader]

You know, I don't really buy into this 'small picture' theory for a number of reasons:

1) On the whole, the average American seems to have a much larger TV than the average European (generalizing I know, please don't flame me!). Yet, even in European countries *before* the release of widescreen televisions OAR was more accepted.

2) Getting a widescreen TV will not automatically make the picture bigger. A large Widescreen TV costs a fortune in both America and Europe so most of the widescreen TV sold over here tend to be of average size - resulting in a picture no bigger than on the largest of 4:3 televisions.

3) Over here we keep getting shown a rather annoying advert for mobile phones which keeps promising the Earth in the near future and one of the applications they promise is watching movies on a phone. How small will this screen be? And yet movies on a mobile phone seems to be the 'Holy Grail' of telecommunications.

4) How small can the image on an average sized 28-34 inch television be? Come to that how small is it on the average portable television? Not small enough to be unviewable. Unless this hints at a deeper problem. How is eye-care in America in general? Are there lots of people in America who should be getting eye-tests but don't? Britain probably comes under this category too since free eye-tests were abolished. I know I should have gone for an eye-test about a year ago but didn't.

I think the main reason is that people 'see' the black bars and think that they are missing something. It's as simple as that. "Black empty space = missing image"

Introduction demonstrations (as long as short) would not have an immediate effect, but repeated exposure would have a positive effect over a number of months/years.

 

[Garry Cowell]

The best WS promo I've seen is Link Removed (3mb wmv) taken from the Pearl Harbor SE DVD.

 

[Gordon McMurphy]

Are the Star Wars 2.40:1 vs. 1.33:1 comparisons really the best examples? Does anyone know of a shot in a movie that, when panned and scanned to 1.33:1 actually ruins the plot of the film - it leaves out an essential detail? I'm sure there must be such an example! I hate pan and scan. The Ultra Panavision movies suffer badly.
Cheers,
Gordy

 

[Lee L]

There is the shot in A Fish Called Wanda (which was open matte BTW) where in a sub plot we are led to believe that John Clese is caught naked in a compromising position and one of the shots clearly shows him with pants on because more of the film is shown than what was intended.

 

[BrettisMckinney]

Can someone please tell me a bit about how widescreen is actually not as high in resolution as Full-frame? I always thought it was higher in resolution coz it damn well looks more detailed and better to me than Full frame

 

[Jeff Kleist]

Well, frankly there is enough resolution in the master for BOTH, but a "fullscreen" transfer will magnify any flaws that exists

 

[Christopher Cheadle]

Correct me if I am wrong, but aren't Fullscreen and P&S transfers also blown up to fill the space? I seem to remember a brief comment on this on the Die Hard Why Widescreen piece. If that is true, you would be losing some resolution like when a low rez jpeg is blown up. Of course I could be completely wrong.

 

[Brian Kidd]

Nope. You're dealing with a set number of scanlines on a television. Hence, a fullscreen pictures uses all the lines of resolution, whereas a widescreen image uses fewer lines because of the black bars. This isn't a problem with 1.78:1 anamorphically encoded films shown on a widescreen set, as all of the lines are used. However, if that same film is watched on a typical 4:3 set, every other line of resolution is removed by the player, in order to compensate for the differences in screen geometry. Ergo, a fullscreen disc watched on a 4:3 set will have higher resolution than an anamorphic disc shown on that same set.

 

[Richard Kim]

Are the Star Wars 2.40:1 vs. 1.33:1 comparisons really the best examples? Does anyone know of a shot in a movie that, when panned and scanned to 1.33:1 actually ruins the plot of the film - it leaves out an essential detail?

There is just such an example in ANH, when Luke is spying on the Tusken Raiders with his binoculars. He says "I see 2 banthas, but no Sand People... wait, I see one of them now" but the Tusken is cropped completely out of view in the pan 'n' scan version you have no idea what Luke's talking about.

 

[Christopher Cheadle]

Brian, I understand the lines of resolution issue in that the image as displayed on a 4:3 TV will use the full resolution of the set. However, I seem to remember (and will watch it again when I get home from work) a comment in the Die Hard set about them having to zoom in on the "master" image when creating the P&S transfer. And, since you are enlarging something above its original size, there is going to be some resolution loss during the transfer phase. Like I said,it has been a while since I watched this and could be making things up. But, if memory serves, this seems like it makes sense.