The Classic Sci-FI Ultimate Collection (1 Viewer)

[Eric Huffstutler]

Joe... I am sure Universal wouldn't have put DVD-18 out if the technology (players) wasn't out there to accomodate them. The problem is that not everyone has a player equal to one another and so the disc don't play on some while play perfect on others.

For me, I have had zero problems with my Monster Legacy sets nor Mae West collection. On the other hand I have had problems with the Hammer set. The only difference I can see is that everything else was in b/w while most of these are in color so maybe the compression or authoring for it is different?

In any case Universal apparently abandoned them which is a good thing but just wish they would offer replacements for those that don't work for us. Kind of like when Disney replaced the "Dinosaur" DVD years ago where some players would play the gold color disc and others wouldn't so they repressed in silver and did an exchange for those that asked for it.

Eric

 

[Randy Korstick]

Sorry but a recent film festival proves nothing as to how they were shown theatrically. There were more than likely cropped prints made to be used at old theaters and drive-ins that were not yet capable of widescreen. That could also be where our TV Prints and these DVD's are coming from.

 

[Steve Christou]

Cropped prints? I think you have your ratios mixed. Shouldn't that be beautifully framed 1.33 prints cropped to 1.85 for some theaters? Better, hmmm?

 

[Eric Huffstutler]

I think Jack is the brain here with the most background and experience so his opinion counts. I have to agree that it is what "you" are accustomed to watching and/or remeber that counts.

No one person should shove their beliefs down someone else's throat to say their way is right and your's is wrong. OAR is only a term of reference, not a lifestyle and sure the world won't end if a movie comes out in 1:85 as was shown at the Roxy or open matte as the negative may be. I do understand the point about not seeing some thing like microphones and missing ceilings but if the movie doesn't loose any content by being that way, I am not against it.

I am against P&S which is why I won't watch movies on HBO or AMC. I will only watch the TCM channel.

 

[Jack Theakston]

Wow, you mean they ran the film with 1.33 aperture plate so that you could see the soundtrack and everything? Impressive.

Frankly, if you don't know any better, it's quite easy to show these films full frame because at glancing at them on the bench, they're no different than regular full-ap prints. Unless they're marked on the leaders or the projectionist has done some research, it's quite easy for someone to make that mistake. In 1955, you had memos, pressbooks, and trade mags to tell you how to show them. And trust me, in '55 there still was a variety of ratios, so they were quite specific as to how to show these films. If a film was 1.37, they'd tell you.

For the record, I never saw these on their original release and never said I did. I've seen original release prints. Big difference.

 

[Jack Theakston]

Agreed. I'm not jamming my opinion down anyone's throats, just defending it. I think Universal has done wrong here, but if you don't, that's fine, I've got nothing against you. If you like it just cuz, that's fine, but Universal is making up crappy reasoning, which I don't like.

 

[WadeM]

I understand.

Well, onto a different re-hashed subject here, I thought the artwork looked much better in person. Not as cheap looking as the internet pictures. I think it looks very nice.

And that's my final word on the subject!

 

[Eric Huffstutler]

Jack... if Universal owns the negatives and prints, isn't there specification sheets in their posession for the negatives and/or processing lab that would say how the first copies were developed - in 1:37 or 1:85? How about when they registered with the MPAA, anything there in their records? I have seen books that contain MPAA listings at our state library many years ago and wonder.

Eric

 

[Johnny Angell]

Just changing to daily email notification. You guys are clogging up my inbox

 

[Jack Theakston]

Universal does indeed have a set of books in their library that contain all of the technical information as it was filed when the film was shot. Whether or not they know it's there is another situation.

 

[MichaelEl]

I asked before, but no one responded, so I'll ask again...

What would have been the difficulty in presenting these films in their OAR? Once they had a transfer, all they needed to do was mask off the tops and bottoms of the image, right? Why would that have cost Universal any money? You can crop movies with software on your PC, fer cryin' out loud. In fact, if anyone wants to see these at 1.85:1, all they have to do is simply produce a copy on their harddrive, crop it to that ratio, and then burn a DVD-R.

 

[Bill Burns]

After eight pages, a few new points, and old points revisited, may be in order. Allow me to try and pull together a few facts, as best my casual research and reading reveals them, and a few opinions. This is all from memory, not fresh reference, so if my facts are in any error, please correct me:

1. To "shoot a movie in widescreen" should be understood as shooting it in an anamorphic format. 35mm anamorphic has two essential ratios, the 2.55:1 of early CinemaScope and the 2.39:1 of later CinemaScope and modern anamorphic Panavision. The apertures may have changed once or twice more (I'm not sure offhand), but the ratios are right around one of those for most Hollywood anamorphic productions in 35mm.. 70mm anamorphic, on the other hand (Ultra Panavision, for instance), can get you to 2.76:1, and I believe there's an anamorphic large format (Technirama, or a version of it, perhaps Super Technirama? I'm not sure) that's closer to 2.2:1. Spherical Super Panavision 70 (not Ultra, which is anamorphic, but Super, which is not) is also 2.2:1. An example of an Ultra Panavision picture in William Wyler's Ben-Hur. An example of a Super Panavision film is Kenneth Branagh's Hamlet.

2. Any 35mm movie shot with spherical lenses exposes a 1.37:1 frame (1.33:1 for Super35 and in the silent era, when the aperture was larger, in part due to the lack of need for a soundtrack in creating prints), silent experiments, such as by Sergei Eisenstein, notwithstanding (he preferred a 1:1 ratio). Large format productions have differing negative apertures and thus differing ratios (and I don't know what standards have been adopted by overseas studios), but in standardized 35mm from Hollywood studios in the sound era, the story is 1.37:1 (I'll forego further comments on large format, silent film, foreign film, etc.: the subject at hand with these new DVDs from Universal is 35mm sound productions in Hollywood from 1953 forward). One shoots for widescreen in 35mm spherical, but they don't shoot in it. All (I believe all?) 1.85:1 pictures, today and in yesteryear, are spherical. If these pictures have difficult or complicated FX that will need to be accomplished in post, those FX shots may be hard matted so that money is not wasted creating FX for portions of the frame not intended for exhibition. The Incredible Shrinking Man reportedly hard matted its FX work (some or all). If the FX are in-camera work (like matte shots, the use of background plates, etc.), this may not be done, depending on the shot and its requirements. I do not know if there are camera systems that allow for hard matting while one actually films. If they exist, most spherical pictures do not appear to use them, so far as I can determine.

Allow me an anecdote to illustrate this process. Once upon a time (in 1998, which seems like half a century ago), I went to see Steven Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan with a relative who had served in WWII. I had already seen the film once myself. At this second showing (in a different cinema), the projectionist apparently lost his or her mind. In setting up the projector and film, he or she misaligned top to bottom by at least thirty percent. Thirty percent. This was obviously someone who had little training or experience as a projectionist. I could see the trouble very clearly on the trailers, but I trusted it would be repaired before the film itself began. It was not. While the entire screen was filled with image (it was still firing through its proper 1.85:1 projection aperture), there was seemingly endless headroom above the actors, along with a jagged top to the image where the exposed portion of the emulsion clearly ended, and the bottom seemed framed perhaps just above the waist in medium shots, maybe somewhere between shoulder and waist. It looked terrible.

Well, once the Normandy invasion began, a very interesting thing happened. Whenever we would see tracer rounds on the screen, a big black matte bar would block out the top thirty percent of the image (thirty percent is my best estimate, but if someone told me it was thirty five or even forty, I wouldn't dispute it). A big section of the projection screen would go black, with the remaining seventy percent or so still misaligned and looking terrible compositionally. Once the shot with the tracer rounds cut to a shot without them, the black bar or mask would go away.

Amazingly, no one seemed disturbed by this. I immediately went out to the lobby and found a manager. Bringing her back to the theatre, I tried to explain what was happening, but the digital FX shots (the tracer round fire) had finished, and it looked to her like the screen was full. I tried to explain how bad the composition looked, but without the big black bar to make my point crystal clear, I made little headway. She told me what I wanted to hear and left, but they didn't finally fix the projection for perhaps another five or ten minutes.

Eight years later, that remains the single worst experience I've had in a movie theatre. But it was an educational experience: release prints of Saving Private Ryan were clearly open matte in all but their digital FX shots, where, to avoid animating portions of the frame the DP and the director did not want the audience to see in the first place, they hard matted those shots before processing them.

This is in 1998. If 1957's The Incredible Shrinking Man did the same thing, I think it's very difficult to argue that films made at the time, or films made in Hollywood since, are designed for whatever ratio people desire. Hard mattes are used to save dollars: they do not hard matte the entire film, because they assume it will be exhibited in the correct frame, or a frame very near it, one compatible with the hard mattes used on FX shots. Occasionally, a director like Jim Cameron will express great satisfaction with an open matte presentation of a picture like The Abyss on laserdisc (I believe, but after all these years I'm not certain, his reasons focused on the additional resolution available to the image for the video transfer, an excuse no longer so valid with 16x9 master formatting {unfortunately, in Region 1, though I don't follow other regions, The Abyss remains available in widescreen in only a 4x3 letterboxed edition, and, while I believe there is still a resolution gain for 4X3 letterboxed mastering on DVD over what was available to laserdisc, and naturally there's quite a gain over VHS, the difference, of course, is not so great as it should and would be with a new HD 16X9 transfer: perhaps one will come in the near future}), but that remains rare. I've given a few other like examples in an earlier post.

3. I haven't seen the new discs yet (time, time), but per Steve's earlier screenshots, I do not (I'll repeat and further emphasize that: I do not) believe that they are old masters. First of all, The Incredible Shrinking Man is 16x9 formatted ("anamorphic"): it uses DVD's 16x9 specification. It is not (it is NOT) 4x3 letterboxed. That is not proof positive that it's a new master, but if it looks good, as comments have already suggested, then it most likely is. And a new master would almost surely (again, certainty is difficult, but almost surely) be made to 2" master tape, and thus HD. I'd classify that as a "reasonable expectation," but not a guarantee. I reasonably expect that these are new HD masters (more reasons for this follow).

4. Damage and grain that are mirrored between an old VHS copy and a new DVD copy may very likely be damage and grain found in the film element used for the master. Whether the master is new or old, the film element is the constant. Grain is not a function of mastering. If there is damage and grain in a film element, both may look fuzzy and ghostly on a lower definition master, and, when that same element is remastered to HD, the damage and grain should look sharp, and thus "film-like."

Conclusion: It is my presumption, based on evidence thusfar presented in this thread and in other reviews, that these transfers are from new masters (new HD masters at 4x3 for four of the pictures, a new HD master at 16x9 for The Incredible Shrinking Man). This is not a certainty, because I had nothing to do with the production of the set, nor have I spoken with anyone who did: but based on evidence and experience, I see no reason not to assume that Universal has met their usual high standard of remastering. Those screen shots (Steve's earlier and those presented by others below) look great. I would suggest that folks watch a picture like The Invisible Man on Universal's "The Invisible Man: The Legacy Collection" DVD release (the version that also offers its sequels). If you have the old "Universal Studios Classic Monster Collection" DVD version on hand (which presents The Invisible Man without its sequels), A/B 'em, as I did. The comparison is remarkable. The older edition is blurry, washed out, and looks pretty terrible. The Legacy edition has heavy grain, but is "sharp as a tack," as they say, absolutely gorgeous, with deep and beautiful black levels and that indefinable quality that bespeaks nitrate. It's a gorgeous transfer. Absolutely gorgeous. Damage and grain are a part of the best available source element: they are not, in themselves, indications that a film has not been remastered.

(Michael, I mentioned some of the following in my earlier post -- I hope this answers the question you've posed in your post above): It's a pity these movies were not remastered at 16x9 (what's usually called "anamorphic" mastering). Doing so would not only present the films matted (and thus compositionally most likely true to their design, per studio records presented earlier by others and experiences such as the one I've relayed above), but, as a particular benefit over using a zoom feature on a wide display or a video projector, 16x9 mastering would have afforded the portion of the image contained within that matted frame (the 16x9 frame that, as I understand it, should describe the master) greater resolution, resolution herein used in a 4x3 master to define portions of the image at top and bottom that would not have been shown in premiere engagements, were not meant to be seen (it's not that the world ends if we see the film that way, to repeat a turn of phrase favored by Eric in an earlier post, and it's not that there may not have been theatres that did show them that way: it's that it's ideal presentation has been documented, by studio records and widescreen history timelines, by the experience of projectionists such as Jack, to be wide, and why would we argue that something less than an achievable ideal is a-okay?), and rob us, as indicated, of the sharpest possible image (the sharpest possible image being the wide version of the film mastered at 16x9).

I think that addresses everything I was hoping to clarify from my vantage. We all hold our opinions dear: no one likes to express an opinion only to be told that the facts demand it be rethought. We're all thoughtful people. The folks at Universal who decided to master these films at 4x3 (excepting The Incredible Shrinking Man) are also thoughtful people. I respect them, and I respect their product. But I'd love to engage them in a dialogue that presents to them these facts, the studio documents heretofore addressed, the history of widescreen presentation as detailed by others who claim express personal experience with it, and perhaps all of us, no one excepted, would, after such a dialogue, find it valuable to rethink a few of our opinions.

I do hope that everyone enjoys this new DVD set. It's important to document error such that it can be corrected in the future, but it's also important to identify and acknowledge success, that which is done right even when something may have been done wrong. Thus I expect (I'll have a better sense of it after I see the discs myself) that these are brand new HD masters at 4x3 (The Incredible Shrinking Man a brand new HD master at 16x9), and, if that's true, that we won't be seeing them matted on video for quite some time.

Corrections are always welcome.

P.S. Glenn Erickson's review for DVDTalk of This Island Earth is very much in sympathy with what Jack Theakston has said here. Glenn, to my understanding, is a professional in the film industry as well (you may have heard his commentaries on a couple of Film Noir releases from Warner; I don't know his biography, but I believe he works as an editor -- "cutter," as he usually puts it -- and also has other experience in film):

http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=23432

The final five paragraphs tell the widescreen tale.

 

[Michael Warner]

While I'm hesitant to raise my head above the trenches in this discussion I was intrigued enough by the debate to sit down and watch "Tarantula" this afternoon. I used the zoom feature on my DVD player to fill the 16:9 screen and I have to say that it certainly appears that this film was shot with a widescreen presentation in mind. There were no instances of heads being chopped off and the framing in many scenes was spot on for a widescreen format. Head-on scenes in the car were perfectly balanced, the scene outside the sheriff's office had the two globe light fixtures perfectly set just below the top of the frame, scenes with people entering and exiting rooms always had the top of the door frames just within the widescreen frame, etc. I watched it in 1.33:1 as well and there was certainly ample space above and below.

All of this leads me to the conclusion that "Tarantula" at least is an open matte transfer and not zoomed in the least. It looked great in widescreen and that is certainly the format I would choose when watching. Fortunately my DVD player does an excellent job zooming without introducing any additional digital noise.

Would I have been happier with 16:9 transfers across the board? You betcha. But in my case I'm able to watch these movies in widescreen with very little loss of quality so at the end of the day I'm happy. I realize that those with 3:4 sets or poor zooming capability on their 16:9 sets are out of luck and are stuck with the open matte transfers as is which is a shame. But like I said much earlier in this thread I would have bought this set for TISM alone so the rest is gravy.

 

[seanOhara]

I just watched The Mole People, and it was definitely meant for widescreen. Almost any shot in the film could serve as an example, but below are some of the ones that really jumped out at me while watching.



On a 4:3 TV, it's hard to tell this shot doesn't have black bars.



Here's a matte painting that just disappears into shadows where it would've been cropped for widescreen.



Another image where the top and bottom of the frame are nothing but black.



This shot would look a lot less cheap if it were cropped so you can't see the top of the fog.

 

[RickER]

I have to say, this is just as fascinating as can be to me. Am i a geek or what. Thanks for the information Bill. It was a long but interesting post!

 

[Joe Lugoff]

When the New York Times reviewed the DVD of "This Island Earth" a few weeks ago, the critic said the movie obviously was meant to be seen at 1.33:1, and said why (mainly that it looked better that way, and many shots were obviously composed for that aspect ratio.) Or has someone already pointed that out? I haven't read all the posts here, for the same reason I've never finished reading "War and Peace."

 

[Jack Theakston]

If the New York Times said it, it must be so! :-D

 

[Joe Karlosi]

If DVD-18 discs won't play well on some players, but will play fine on others, or any inconsistent variant thereof, then for all intents and purposes, it's as good as the technology itself being faulty. On the back of Univeral's DVD-18 packaging it says quite clearly: "THESE DISCS ARE COMPATIBLE WITH ALL DVD PLAYERS DISPLAYING THESE SYMBOLS".

That just turned out not to be true, but at this point at least the studio has wisely stopped issuing their current genre movies on that format.

 

[Joe Karlosi]

I think you misunderstood my point of using BEN HUR seen on television as my example... it's not that BEN HUR was a big budget classic; it's that it was filmed in the OAR of 2.75:1, and so that would be unacceptable to me at 1.33.

And yes, believe it or not, I'm still Pro-OAR!
I'm just not being as particular with these films and don't want to deny myself the pleasure of enjoying them when there's nothing missing.

 

[Joe Karlosi]

By the way, a friend of mine (big DVD fan, staunch advocate of OAR too) came over the house last evening and we watched our first film from the new set together -- we chose MONSTER ON THE CAMPUS. We had a GREAT time watching this cheesy '50s flick, and it looked great! We shared laughs between us, sarcastically saying things like: "I want my money back -- there aren't any black bars covering up the tops of the doors and people's hair! I want those neanderthal masks on the top shelf in the laboratory cropped out of this sparkling image! That's it -- I don't care how gorgeous this looks, Universal ain't gettin' my dollar anymore! I'm gonna wait 15 or 20 years to see if the studio decides to reissue these things with the bars on the top and bottom! Ha!! So what if I'm denied the pleasure of enjoying these films right here and now, looking great, for the mere price of a sandwich? I'm gonna spend my whopping 4 dollars per film on a Big Mac next time!"

"Shoddy" work? Not a chance. Nice going, Universal! Keep up the good work and we look forward to the rest of these '50s horror/sci-fi favorites! We love it!