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Topic: Screen Aspect Ratio
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Michael Schaffer
"Where is the
Boardwalk Hotel?"
Posts: 4143
From: Boston, MA
Registered: Apr 2002
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posted 12-13-2002 02:28 PM
Wasn`t "Crouching Tiger" scope?
In Europe, 1:1,66 becomes rarer and rarer and most multiplex theaters aren`t equipped to show it anymore. Recently, the French film "Huit Femmes (Eight Women)" played here and it presented some problems as it was in 1:1,77 (the same aspect ratio as 16:9 TV), a format which is still in use in France sometimes but is otherwise more or less extinct. During the Berlin Film Festival 2001, I played a lot of Vietnamese films and a lot of them were 1:1,77. Obviously this is an element which has survived from the time Vietnam was a French colony. Interestingly, the leaders were all in French, too.
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Martin Brooks
Jedi Master Film Handler
Posts: 900
From: Forest Hills, NY, USA
Registered: May 2002
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posted 12-13-2002 06:00 PM
I think what some of the above posts were trying to express was that there is a difference between negative specs and projected specs.
I believe that the current SMPTE standard is as follows, based on the RP40 alignment film:
Anamorphic: .825 x .690 x 2:1 unsqueeze = 2.391:1.
Widescreen:.825 x .448 = 1.842:1 (called 1.85)
HDTV Compatible: .825 x .464 = 1.778:1
European: .825 x .497 = 1.66: 1
Classic: .825 x .602 = 1.37:1 (commonly called 1.35)
There was also an aperture in use in the 1960s of .825 x .472 = 1.748:1 (called 1.75). I believe a lot of Disney releases were intended to be shown at this aperture.
You should note that all standards are voluntary. And due to architectural and lens limitations, most theatres never show the exactly correct aspect ratio anyway. And there are other standards, although they are generally very similar. For example, NATO maintains its own standard, which I believe uses slightly different dimensions than the SMPTE standard, although I don't have the exact specs handy.
The other factor is that standards have changed over time. For example, if you go back to the 1969 edition of the American Cinematographers Manual, they quote the projected widescreen spec as .825 x .446 and the "Academy" spec as .825 x .600. The old anamorphic spec was .839 x .715 x 2.0 = 2.347:1, but it was discovered that if theatres actually projected the full .715 height, splices were visible, so this was changed a few years later to .839 x .700, then sometime before 1986 to .838 x .7 and has since been reduced to .825 x .690. This might make a bit of a difference if you played old prints, but when you do the math you discover that on a 40 foot wide screen, you would only lose 4 inches of width on each side of the screen if you played a print made for an .839 aperture at .825.
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John Pytlak
Film God
Posts: 9987
From: Rochester, NY 14650-1922
Registered: Jan 2000
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posted 12-17-2002 09:01 AM
Standard SMPTE 195 specifies projectable image area for 35mm prints:
http://www.smpte.org/smpte_store/standards/
Here is the evolution of the "scope" image area:
http://www.widescreenmuseum.com/widescreen/apertures.htm
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From 1957 through today, there have been a number of small changes to the anamorphic projector aperture recommended standards. John P. Pytlak of Eastman Kodak dug through countless back issues of the SMPTE Journal in order to provide the following chronology of the changes to the standards:
The March 1957 SMPTE Journal has PH22.104-1957, the standard for 2.55:1 anamorphic (no optical track), with an aperture size of 0.912 X 0.715 inches. Notice of withdrawal of this standard was in the January 1964 Journal.
The December 1957 SMPTE Journal has PH22.106-1957 for 2.35:1 anamorphic, with an aperture of 0.839 X 0.715 inches. It was unchanged in the September 1964 Journal. The November 1965 SMPTE Journal published PH22.106-1965 still with the 0.839 X 0.715 aperture size.
In the September 1970 SMPTE Journal, a new draft of PH22.106 was proposed, with an aperture size of 0.838 X 0.700 inches, to minimize the flashes at splices. This was republished as standard PH22.106-1971 in the October 1971 issue.
In the June 1976 SMPTE Journal, the two (flat and scope) projectable image area standards (PH22.58 and PH22.106) were consolidated into one standard and renamed PH22.195. The publication of PH22.195-1984 in the October 1984 Journal still had the scope area as 0.700 X 0.838 inches.
The June 1992 SMPTE Journal published a proposed revision, with a scope area of 0.690 X 0.825 inches. In August 1993, the standard was published as SMPTE 195-1993, with the current area of 0.690 X 0.825 inches. So August 1993 is when the two formats became the same width of 0.825 inches.
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