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Channels Showing Full Widescreen Films


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Old 04-07-2010, 18:00
Face Of Jack
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I've got a widescreen, and everything looks ok to me. On the odd occasion I adjust the 'wotzit' button to change its size. If I watch a film black lines above and below, I usually get used to it and don't notice after a few minutes anyway (well until the ads come on!).
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Old 04-07-2010, 18:05
Aaron_Scotland
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I'd rather have black lines on movies too than miss some of the picture, The film makers make each visual shot to also tell part of the story and if your cutting off a good portion of the composition you are missing part of the film.
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Old 04-07-2010, 18:15
BrianWescombe
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I'd rather have black lines on movies too than miss some of the picture, The film makers make each visual shot to also tell part of the story and if your cutting off a good portion of the composition you are missing part of the film.

I totally agree, but sadly even today, there are people who simply MUST have every inch of their massive screens covered with picture and no black bars, no matter what it does to the film's composition. Back in the mid-late 90s, I was watching 2.35:1 ratio films from Laserdisc on a 24" 4:3 screen!
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Old 04-07-2010, 18:17
DVDfever
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I totally agree, but sadly even today, there are people who simply MUST have every inch of their massive screens covered with picture and no black bars, no matter what it does to the film's composition. Back in the mid-late 90s, I was watching 2.35:1 ratio films from Laserdisc on a 24" 4:3 screen!
When I was at Uni in the early 90s I was watching 2.35:1 films on widescreen video on a 14" 4:3 screen
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Old 04-07-2010, 18:30
davidweller
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Where I once lived, I had a 'blackout' blind over the window of the room where I had my TV so that even in the brightest sunlight the room was in total darkness.

When watching the TV, whatever the ratio, you couldn't make out the TV; you just saw the image.
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Old 04-07-2010, 22:52
mike65
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I only recently was forced into buying a new telly so for years I was watching 16:9 on a 4:3 set, funnily the bars top and bottom did not freak me out at any point. However the bars left and right when watching a 4:3 image on a 16:9 screen do!
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Old 04-07-2010, 22:59
mattyb
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Which films have Five shown in 2.35:1? I don't know of any. They're the most clueless out of all the broadcasters.
The recent one they've shown was JCVD. I was amazed at them too.
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Old 04-07-2010, 23:21
DVDfever
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The recent one they've shown was JCVD. I was amazed at them too.
Thanks. I missed that before. It's a surprisingly recent film for Five to show it (Digiguide shows me it was on Five USA which might've been why I didn't see it as it wasn't highlighted in the mainstream channels). I've set a reminder as it's meant to be really good.
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Old 05-07-2010, 15:43
mike65
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Mutant X is on Horror Channel and I grabbed these images.

No1 is as Horror Channel is showing image in its "native" transmission format (stretched)
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/09...magenative.jpg

no 2 is when I alter tv setting to 4:3 ratio (framed within the frame)
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/09...4-3setting.jpg

no3 is zoom setting so it appears as the programme should be transmitted
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/09...magezoomed.jpg

Is it so hard to get right?
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Old 05-07-2010, 15:59
Paul89
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Philips now make a 21:9 TV so that films can be shown full screen in their correct ratio.
I'm quite sure this has been answered many times before, but I'm relatively new here so I was just wondering ...
why isn't that 7:3?

(Saw one in Best Buy yesterday and it looked fantastic)
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Old 05-07-2010, 16:05
Mimizuku no Lew
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I'm quite sure this has been answered many times before, but I'm relatively new here so I was just wondering ...
why isn't that 7:3?
Because it's easier to compare to 16:9 that way.
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Old 05-07-2010, 16:07
Spiderpig
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What are the correct ratios then? I ask this as my son would often tell us that some (not all) cinemas would put blocks on their projectors to show films in a more wider aspect ratio so when the tv show it even with bars on a widescreen tv the ratio could still be wrong. Dvds go out with cropt pictures and some of my dvds have the look of a widescreen presentation that is not in the ratio they were filmed in. It is a mine field. But my choice is the ratio that the film was made in not a showing that looks like a full 16:9 picture.
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Old 05-07-2010, 16:14
mike65
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I wonder when the Abel Gance Napolean screen size TV is coming out.
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Old 05-07-2010, 18:44
Bspks
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Because it's easier to compare to 16:9 that way.
I agree it's down to marketing.
21:9 is immediately obvious as being a larger size than 16:9.
7:3 on first glance seems larger than 4:3 but smaller than 16:9 unless you're mathematically inclined.
Of course it's all a moot point on actually seeing the screen.
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Old 05-07-2010, 20:18
DVDfever
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What are the correct ratios then? I ask this as my son would often tell us that some (not all) cinemas would put blocks on their projectors to show films in a more wider aspect ratio so when the tv show it even with bars on a widescreen tv the ratio could still be wrong. Dvds go out with cropt pictures and some of my dvds have the look of a widescreen presentation that is not in the ratio they were filmed in. It is a mine field. But my choice is the ratio that the film was made in not a showing that looks like a full 16:9 picture.
Which DVDs do you have that aren't in the right ratio? There's very few of those. I remember a few early Jackie Chan releases that suffered this, such as the 2000 release of Snake In The Eagle's Shadow: http://dvdfever.co.uk/reviews/snakein.shtml

The reason was that at the time, Medusa hired a very clueless man as their Head DVD producer, named Brian White:

"The reason we decided to re-master this movie into 16:9 format was to cater for the widest possible commercial audience. The hard-core collectors may all prefer 2:35:1, but we have found that many kids with 14, 17 and 21" television sets are amongst the most regular buyers of Jackie Chan movies.

Unfortunately, due to the tiny viewing area offered with the 2:35:1 format on smaller TV sets, we often get asked by this target audience to provide 'pan & scan' versions of our movies. As the hard-core collectors detest 'p & s' with a passion, I thought the 16:9 anamorphic/1:85:1 widescreen ratio, would be a good compromise that would appeal to both markets.

In addition, had we conformed the feature to 2:35:1 anamorphic standard, most of the nation's DVD players, are currently not equiped to handle this ratio correctly, and therefore the image would be stretched."

Clearly he was proved wrong because it never caught on, thankfully.

As for what is the correct ratio, IMDB.com should always confirm this. And with C4 showing films properly now, they even showed "The Greatest Story Ever Told" at Easter in its original 2.76:1 ratio, which is more than twice as wide as a 4:3 set!
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Old 05-07-2010, 22:07
Flyer 10
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Mutant X is on Horror Channel and I grabbed these images.

Is it so hard to get right?
That does my head in to, transmitting a 16:9 film in a 4:3 container means its impossible to watch on a 16:9 TV (which the vast majority have) unless you use the stretch button and that worsens the (already bad) image quality.

btw, Film 4 are showing Eragon right now in 235:1. When you have a big TV, its much better having the correct aspect than having it cropped.
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Old 06-07-2010, 13:17
davidweller
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There is also the problem of Super35. This has, AIUI, an aspect ration of 4:3 and the director and cinematographer will prepare masters of various ratios for different distribution channels: 2.35 for cinema. 16:9 for DVD/TV and 4:3 for others.

I believe James Cameron did this with Terminator 2.
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Old 07-07-2010, 00:26
DVDfever
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There is also the problem of Super35. This has, AIUI, an aspect ration of 4:3 and the director and cinematographer will prepare masters of various ratios for different distribution channels: 2.35 for cinema. 16:9 for DVD/TV and 4:3 for others.

I believe James Cameron did this with Terminator 2.
That's right, but the SFX are often only composed for the cinema ratio, 2.35:1 in T2's case, so anything less wide is cropped.

Independence Day had its SFX composed for around 16:9 so that has a decent 16:9 print.

Also, Reservoir Dogs was shot in Super 35 and there's a really good 4:3 print of it, but when C4 showed it a few years ago, they just cropped the 2.35:1 print to 16:9 (or rather, bought in such a version - this was before they went 2.35:1 for most films in that ratio, in December 2007), and when Five showed it recently, their 4:3 print was a crop of the 2.35:1 original and looked bloody appalling. But then it was Five, so what do you expect?
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Old 07-08-2010, 22:56
DVDfever
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ITV are currently showing the Gone in 60 Seconds remake in 2.35:1.

Conversely, BBC2 went with a 16:9 print of There Will Be Blood. Dimwits.

Tonight will be the first time since I can remember where I actually email ITV to COMPLIMENT them. I presume dutyoffice@itv.com is still the address or do they have a silly webform now like most other stations?
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Old 08-08-2010, 01:05
gamersxchange
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ITV are currently showing the Gone in 60 Seconds remake in 2.35:1.

Conversely, BBC2 went with a 16:9 print of There Will Be Blood. Dimwits.

Tonight will be the first time since I can remember where I actually email ITV to COMPLIMENT them. I presume dutyoffice@itv.com is still the address or do they have a silly webform now like most other stations?
No such joy for me , my dvr must have corrupted around 23.05 as that's all of the film that was recorded , i knew something was up as i couldn't watch itv1 despite every other channel working fine.
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Old 08-08-2010, 10:01
ney
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16:9 croped films are ok as the hole TV screen gets filled.
Most bluray films I have notice have black borders at the top and bottom of the screen and some films that are on CH4 are the same.

Darren
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Old 08-08-2010, 10:05
Kevin1960
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I know they do this a lot with films. They showed the Indy films in 2.35:1 while BBC1 got 4:3.
The Indy films were last shown on BBC1 about 2 or 3 years ago in 4:3. However, a few months earlier they were on BBC3 in 2.35:1; I recall they removed the DOG for the second and third films but I believe it remained on screen during the first film.
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Old 08-08-2010, 10:45
PhilH36
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Try looking up the reason for them then. Start with this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aspect_ratio_(image)

Also, every TV aimed at a living room setting is widescreen now. Only some small kitchen-destined TVs are 4:3.
But not everyone has a widescreen tv in their living room. I know plenty of people whose main set in their living room is still a 4:3.
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Old 08-08-2010, 11:10
BrianWescombe
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Even The Horror Channel are showing 2.35:1 ratio films correctly now!
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Old 08-08-2010, 12:12
DVDfever
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16:9 croped films are ok as the hole TV screen gets filled.
Most bluray films I have notice have black borders at the top and bottom of the screen and some films that are on CH4 are the same.

Darren
You've bought a Blu-ray player yet don't mind films getting cropped? Does not compute.

Blu-ray is meant to be for people who have a love of films, not who don't mind them being screwed about by TV stations.
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