VERY odd. TV movie on TNT MAR'd from it's OAR (1 Viewer)

[Dave Mack]

Hi All!

Watching "A christmas carol" with Patrick Stewart on TNT and it's letterboxed! Now this was a 4X3 TV film done for TNT years ago. My DVD is 4x3 FS, suppossed OAR. Now TNT is doing MAR on it's own programs and showing them WS to boot? Strange...

Happy holidays!

 

[Chris]

They've made it 16:9 so that it "fills the screen" on their TNT-HD. Prepare for a lot more of this treatment of material that was originally 4:3.

 

[David Deeb]

Worst thing I've seen yet is TBS "stretching" 4x3 material on their HD channel.

I'm flipping trough the HD channels the other night and there is "Saved By the Bell" in stretched HD. It looked like horse----.

If they want to broadcast an HD channel, then they should broadcast OAR in HD.

 

[TravisR]

I always say it but after decades of not playing the OAR, why is anyone surprised that the same channels still don't play stuff in its OAR? They only care about filling the screen whether it's SD or HD and that ain't changing.

 

[Dave Mack]

gotcha, but isn't that just going to piss off all of the non-hdtv owners, many of whom still hate black bars?
I would think that most people who watch TNT are still doing so in sd.
It definitely wasn't stretched or distorted, just cropped.
I've heard ANGEL in HD, (save for S5) looks dreadful. When we lived in Berkeley, we didn't have TNT-HD on our "tier" and from what I had heard, we weren't missing much.

 

[Chris]

Angel S5 was natively HD; I think S4 was also (Buffy S6/7 were, so I would think same rule apply).

 

[Jon Martin]

TNT and TBS shouldn't be allowed to have an HD channel.

Have you seen THE OFFICE reruns they show? It is letterboxed in all formats, yet on the HD station, they leave the letterboxing and STILL stretch it out.

 

[Mary_P]

"Angel" seasons 2-5 were filmed for a 16:9 frame; for "Buffy," only the musical episode was framed for 16:9. Everything else -- the entire run of "Buffy" except the musical, and "Angel" season 1 -- were composed for 4:3, although they were supposedly filmed with the 16:9 area protected for widescreen broadcast in other countries.

I've heard that TNT-HD really butchers its "Angel" showings, taking a 4:3 chunk out of the 16:9 frame -- and then *stretching* it to fill the 16:9 frame. Madness.

So what did they do on "Christmas Carol" -- lop off the top and bottom of the frame? Or stretch the 4:3 to fill 16:9? Either way, it's crazy. Glad I have the DVD, and thank you for reminding me it's time to dig it out!

 

[TonyD]

tnt hd has wizard of oz on right now in oar.
bars on the sides.

 

[Dave Mack]

Actually all Seasons prior to S5 were not HD. S5 was the first season were they mastered in HD, (although from S3 on (on air, on DVDs, starting at S2) ANGEL was WS. All previous seasons and all seasons of Buffy were mastered in SD with all the FX work done in SD.
For the european market, Buffy S4-S7 had seperate WS transfers done with more pic. info on the sides, (and the FX work, vampire dustings etc... extend to the edges of the 16x9 frame) I have both the PAL WS and NTSC FS sets. Although Joss has gone on record as preferring the 4x3 versions, in some eps. the director, 2nd unit director, FX guys were placing things in the edges of the frame, (Xander and Anya's aborted wedding, the big ubervamp attack at the end of Chosen for example) and I prefer them in WS, (I know, I know, I'm bad)
And like alot of shows in the 90's, (like The X-Files)
although shot on film, (and S1 and S2 of Buffy was shot on 16mm!) with the exception of S5 of Angel, all the Buffy and Angel eps. were edited and all the FX done on SD video. The masters only exist on SD video. Would require a TON of work to get these ready for HD. Finding all the original unedited film footage, rescanning in HD, re-editing, then re-doing all the FX in HD the way CBS digital for TREK:TOS just spent 2 years doing for only 3 seasons. Will take years to do if they ever bother.

But would be worth it. My 2 fave shows.

But yes, the Stewart Xmas Carol was cropped I believe, noticed no distortion or stretching whatsoever. Also my father-in-law has a 4x3 TV, no HD.

 

[Mary_P]

Just wanted to mention that this was re-run over the past few days, and I was able to watch part of the TNT "widescreen" presentation (on TNT's SD channel) side-by-side with the 4:3 DVD. The TNT version did appear to have some of the top and bottom cropped off, and was not stretched, but at least in the parts I spot-checked, the framing didn't look bad. There seemed to be enough headroom in the original composition to allow for cropping without cutting through people's foreheads.

Just odd, as Dave said, to present it that way when it was originally 4:3.

 

[SD_Brian]

MAR II: The Sequel

After finally educating a large portion of the viewing public about the evils of "pan & scan" we now have to educate them about the idiocy of "tilt & scan" and "stretch-to-fill?"

Same war, new battle. This time it's personal. The sequel taglines just write themselves.