Five are showing Monster House in OAR, looks like with the launch of Five HD, they are showing terrestrial premieres like Channel 4 do.

Well, C4 went for almost everything, replacing all the cropped prints they had. ITV and BBC are still doing it on an occasional basis. BBC1 didn't bother for the premiere of Brooklyn Rules on Friday night, for example.

Anyone know if Brigadoon was shown in 2.55:1 this afternoon on BBC2? It's not on Iplayer, unlike the other recent musicals like South Pacific. Ta.

BTW, Outlaw, with Sean Bean and Danny Dyer, is showing now on Five in 2.35:1. It's a premiere so it's clearly another case of them buying in an HD print.

Brigadoon Was shown on C4, it was shown in 16:9, with the opening credits in 2.55:1.

Whoops, I hadn't even been drinking much, bar one. Got no excuse then


Thanks. Just saw Gigi is in 16:9, instead of 2.35:1. Perhaps they could only get these musicals in 16:9, which is odd given that musical do very well with the full width.

I remember once seeing some of the dreadful Grease 2 in 4:3 (shot in 2.35:1) and a dance scene in a bowling alley had people leaping about all over the place, but in a row of people crossing over each other, you could tell they'd all be facing the same way as the guy in the middle, but on the left you just saw their feet, and on the right just their hands or heads. Just weird.

It's on ITV2 tomorrow night at 11pm. It'll be mildly interesting to see if it's in the correct ratio again.

Ta for the heads-up, will have a look.

The Special Relationship, on BBC2 now, in 2.35:1. I saw a clip on the Andrew Marr show last week so I thought it would be, but I never take anything for granted until its actually broadcast. The trailer was cropped to 16:9 and suffered as a result.

I would've thought the premiere of 300 would be in 2.35:1, on Five tonight, but perhaps the fact it's comparatively old for a premiere (2006, although they showed Hercules earlier, which was 1997!) stopped them from bothering.

I saw a bit of Hannibal Rising when it was repeated on ITV2 (and it was on again last night) and it was again in 2.35:1.

It's odd they showed 300 in 16:9 plus it was HD too but it could have been that Warner Bros didn't have a 2.35.1 master as most of their terrestrial premieres recently have been in 2.35.1. or they bought it before they decided to change to OAR,

Species (1995) on ITV4 last night in 4:3 C'mon chaps, I can't believe the 19:6 or proper widescreen print is hard to source for such a film.

C4's Wedding Planner just fell into 16:9 from 2.35:1 opening credits. They couldn't get a proper master of a 9-year-old film? Or are they slipping into bad habits?

Probably an old copy of the film I'd say.

They did show Die Hard 2 and Phone Booth last night both in 2.35:1.

Thinking about it, I'm sure they've shown it properly before. They could've had an issue with the print when it came to the screening, I guess. When they first showed the LOTR trilogy in 2.35:1, the second film was 16:9. I asked why and they said it was down to not being able to source the correct print, but would sort it for next time, which they did.


Yep, saw those last night. As an aside, I didn't like Phone Booth for two reasons - Kiefer's the hero in 24, so to have him as The Caller just didn't work, and he's meant to sound like he's ringing on a phone, so it doesn't gel when you make him sound like he's using a PA system from across the street.

The Horror Channel are not the type of people one would expect much of but they screened Dario Argentos debut film -The Bird with Crystal Plumage in full and proper widescreen on Friday and hopefully will be doing likewise with the rest of the Argento season.

Not a major film as such, but on BBC2 now, a short 50-min film, The Song of Lunch, in 2.35:1.

Noticed that, Horror Channel screening of The Cook (200,000 dollar DVD number) is in 2.35:1

I'm amazed it was even made in that ratio!

101 Dalmations (live action version from 1996 on BBC1 now) in 2.35:1.

Interesting that they're throwing old films in rather than just some new ones. However, I was going to watch last night's Flashbacks of a Fool premiere and that was cropped to 16:9 instead of 2.35:1, so off it went.

Was it Anamorphic? Although I commend their use of the OAR, I'm not so keen on that channel's pitiful bitrate which would make 2.35:1 letterboxed in a 4:3 frame look utter pants.

ITV have let us down I see. After a promising start they have shown approx. 6 films in the past few months that are 2.35:1 but have croped them to 1.78:1, the majority were HD premieres too so no excuse. Just downright lazy, incompetent broadcasting.

Not necessarily, they may have done it to avoid lowering the broadcast spatial resolution. The better it fits the shape of your screen, the higher the potential end resolution.

2.35 HD broadcast without 1.78 cropping = 818 vertical pixels not 1080;

2.35 SD broadcast without 1.78 cropping = 436 vertical pixels not 576.

In the end it's a matter of personal preference, so there is no "right" or "wrong". Ideally, viewers should have a choice but of course, that would entail bandwidth increases and changes to the broadcast specs.

Anyone know if Star Trek 2 was in 2.35:1 this time? It wasn't on C4, a few weeks back, it was the only one of the series cropped to 16:9.

I'd planned to check but have just woken up from a 4hr 'snooze'. Ta.

On freesat it definitely wasn't 16:9 (as that is full screen on my tv) but I'm not sure if it was 2.35:1,(as I don't quite know my ratios) there were black bars above and below the film.

Was it as wide as the ST films showing since?

It wasn't as thin as the credits on Brigadoon but was thinner than a 16:9 film which wouldn't have had black bars on.

If that makes sense.

It was either 1.85:1 or 2.39:1

It would be nice if one day the TV channels could share with everyone what format/ratio they plan on showing these films in. I've recently launched a website that allows people to see what films are on TV, and one of the things I wanted to do was provide this exact information because I knew it would be useful.

But after trying for months to get the channels to give me any sort of useful information I gave up. Some channels couldn't even provide me details on whether or not a film would be in 16:9 or 4:3! Sad days, but hey, at least I tried