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This topic comprises 2 pages: 1 2
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Author
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Topic: Watching films on HD video.
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Paul Mayer
Oh get out of it Melvin, before it pulls you under!
Posts: 3836
From: Albuquerque, NM
Registered: Feb 2000
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posted 07-24-2014 01:14 PM
Native AR for 2K or 4K video is 16:9 or 1.78. If the source is intended to be matted or protected for 1.85, and the distributor wants to show the complete 1.85 picture area, there will be a small amount of "matte" showing at the top and bottom. Some distributors opt for filling the 1.78 HD frame, sacrificing a bit of print picture area at the sides.
For 'scope or 70mm sources the situation is much more visible - the widescreen source is usually sized to display the entire width of the image within the 1.78 HD frame, resulting in quite noticeable blank display area at the top and bottom (and corresponding loss of vertical resolution). Or, some distributors will opt instead to fill the height of the HD frame with the wide source image, severely cropping off the sides of the source. Of course if the source is 1.78 it can be distributed in HD straight away.
Some studios have opted for slight undersizing of their 1.85 source images, resulting in blank display areas on all four sides of the display. This was done to deal with the overscan common in CRT displays - some studios continue to do this even though most home consumers have now converted to flat panel displays.
In digital origination (especially 4K and 7K), 21:9 imagers are now commonplace, resulting in an AR 2.33. Also, 21:9 flat panel 2K and 4K displays are becoming more common. Again, the distributor decides how to handle this for HD or UHD - go with 2.33 as is, or with slight letterboxing at the top and bottom of the display, or with cropping off the sides of these legacy source formats.
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Frank Angel
Film God
Posts: 5305
From: Brooklyn NY USA
Registered: Dec 1999
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posted 07-26-2014 02:44 AM
There was a proposal many years back on how to deal with the mis-match of format aspect ratios when converting film to TV. A now defunct production house in NY which made transfers for cable outlets used a method that I thought worked very well. I had watched a number of their transfers on u-Matic tape and I must say, it solved the big problem with scope pictures and the dreaded letterbox bars.
What was done was, they tweaked all the variables. On a scope title, they zoomed in slightly, thus loosing a small portion of the sides of the image, not much more than you would find happening in many of the theatres of the day that were multiplexed from singles. Then they did something that they don't do today but I think could very-well satisfy the comsumer's silly aversion to seeing black bars -- they added a very small amount of vertical compression by not fully stretching out the scope image. The result was an image that lost a only a bit on the sides, had a bit of anamorphic compression still left in the image and had a small amount of back on top and bottom, much smaller than a fully letterboxed scope image. With this method you were seem nearly all of the scope image, had to tolerate a small amount of letterboxing and a very tolerable amount of unstretch distortion.
What is amazing about this is that the compression that was left in was easily tolerated to the point that most laymen didn't even notice it. Surprisingly the eye/brain seems to compensate for that distortion quite effectively; in fact, any time you look at object from an angle, some distortion is created, but your eye/brian accept that as fine. This seems to happen with these transfers as well. In fact, after watching a whole movie like this, when we'd switch back to a regular movie, everything looked unnaturally stretched until the brain readjusted.
Using this system, yes, you lost a small amount of side information, and only had to endure small bands of black on top and bottom, but not as much you normally would if you didn't introduce that compression, and you had to endure the compression, which, as I said, actually was not a problem at all.
I though it was an interesting approach and one which stopped my lady at the time from constantly complained throughout a movie that the image was "cut off on the top and bottom." That alone made me give it thumbs up!
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John French
Film Handler
Posts: 11
From: Worcester, MA, USA
Registered: Jul 2014
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posted 08-30-2014 11:31 AM
quote: Frank Angel
What was done was, they tweaked all the variables. On a scope title, they zoomed in slightly, thus loosing a small portion of the sides of the image, not much more than you would find happening in many of the theatres of the day that were multiplexed from singles. Then they did something that they don't do today but I think could very-well satisfy the comsumer's silly aversion to seeing black bars -- they added a very small amount of vertical compression by not fully stretching out the scope image. The result was an image that lost a only a bit on the sides, had a bit of anamorphic compression still left in the image and had a small amount of back on top and bottom, much smaller than a fully letterboxed scope image. With this method you were seem nearly all of the scope image, had to tolerate a small amount of letterboxing and a very tolerable amount of unstretch distortion.
The problem with this is that you're still losing some of the original picture, precluding people from ever playing it back at its original aspect ratio if they prefer it that way (black bars and all!)
There's no reason modern players couldn't do this sort of processing themselves, leaving the user free to switch it on or off as they prefer.
In any case, the vast majority of Blu-Ray releases these days seem to be at their original aspect ratio (with black bars), so I'm happy.
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Terry Lynn-Stevens
Phenomenal Film Handler
Posts: 1081
From: Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Registered: Dec 2012
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posted 08-30-2014 05:53 PM
quote:
The problem with this is that you're still losing some of the original picture, precluding people from ever playing it back at its original aspect ratio if they prefer it that way (black bars and all!)
99% of viewers really do not care, especially if a 1:85 movie has been moved to 1.78
We used to have dual inventory DVDs as well as both P&S/WS on each side of the same disc, all we really see now is just WS as pan and scan is pretty much pointless.
quote: Marcel Birgelen
I'm not sure if the Blu-Ray specification allows for this, I highly doubt it actually. But if it would, you could put the "pan, scan, zoom, stretch" into a metadata track. The problem though, is that this would require quite some image processing being done inside the actual player.
What exactly would this achieve? Its a stupid idea that will only confuse people more.
The stetch/zoom function is only there on the TV for legacy discs/content that were made before 16x9 anamorphic.
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Frank Angel
Film God
Posts: 5305
From: Brooklyn NY USA
Registered: Dec 1999
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posted 09-02-2014 09:30 AM
Funny thing is, this obsession with filling the whole screen no matter what, seems to be a pecularly American thing. My understanding is that in Europe and Japan, from the very early days of 'scope, broadcasting letterboxed movies was a very common thing and they had no problem with it. If any of our European brothers can verify this, please do. Seems the Europeans would rather see the whole picture instead of only half of it, whereas their American neighbors would rather distroy composition in favor of eliminating those "pesky black bars" that bother us so much. Differnce of perspective, I suppose, if not brain capacity.
quote: Bobby Henderson
Unfortunately restoring that extra image detail is not as simple as it seems. First, there is the matter of image composition. Shots, such as dramatic close-ups, will appear more loose and not quite so dramatic with that extra image detail restored. Then there is the matter of how the digital intermediate just about all movie productions use was rendered.
Problem is with any of those formats that record visual information above and beyone what is the intended composed image, and which can then later be restored, as in any film shot 35mm full-frame or VistaVision, the problem is, the cinematographer and director have COMPOSED for the scope aspect ratio. It matters not that in the camera they have 1.85ar and I suppose they have 1.77ar marked off with a reticle, bottom line is, they were composing for ONE aspect ratio -- 2.35. Sure, it just so happens that because of the medium, other aspect ratios can be extracted for different display types, but that HARDWARE, not aesthetics. The hard fact is, there is only ONE aspect ratio that the filmmaker composes for when he's looking thru the viewfinder and that's what the audience should see. It is the only ONE is the correct. I say, all the rest are only approximations for the convenience of the hardware and in the end have to be seen as detrimental to the aesthetic of the work itself.
I always thought the whole VistaVision concept was a joke with people saying, "Oh, it's terrific that from the VV negative you "extract" 1.33 for TV and 1.85 for theatres that don't have scope and 1.66 for Europe -- it's all there in the negative." And I am thinking, that's supposed to be a GOOD thing that people can see the film that was COMPOSED for a scope aspect ratio other than in that aspect ratio? A scope film came be seen in 1.33ar on a TV set? This is a positive?
Just because it can be done doesn't mean it should be.
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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."
Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001
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posted 09-02-2014 01:17 PM
quote: Frank Angel
Problem is with any of those formats that record visual information above and beyone what is the intended composed image, and which can then later be restored, as in any film shot 35mm full-frame or VistaVision, the problem is, the cinematographer and director have COMPOSED for the scope aspect ratio.
That is what's supposed to happen with formats like Super35 on 35mm film and people extracting 'scope images out of high priced video cameras.
Most of the Super35 movies I've seen over the years look more like 1.85:1 movies that had been cropped down a little farther. They've all used varying degrees of playing it safe image composition, basically just using a rule of thirds principal in the vertical, but not across. They just make sure the actors' faces are in the safe action area. Who cares what gets cropped off at the top or bottom of the frame. In the end you get an unremarkable 'scope ratio image.
I'll go so far as to say Super35 movies whose image was deliberately composed for 2.39:1 are in the minority.
When a production is really going to compose 'scope correctly they have to do more than just frame it a certain way. It affects the production design, how sets are built and decorated. It's a fact of life if you're using a 35mm motion picture camera with anamorphic lenses. The Super35 process allows a crew to get around some of those difficulties. But in avoiding some of those difficulties they also end up with blah quality compositions. It's playing it safe widescreen.
Anamorphic 'scope hasn't been perfect either in how directors, DP's and producers have used it. In the 1980's and on into the 1990's plenty of anamorphic 'scope movies were made with the needs of panning & scanning for VHS home video release in mind. We all have seen plenty of shots of an actor's mug positioned at the far left or far right end of the screen and a whole lot of nothing on the rest of the frame. Some of those shots end up making more visual sense when they are cropped to 1.33:1. They would be locked into a 2.35:1 or 2.39:1 frame, but tried to keep all the important stuff in a 1.33:1 zone within that rectangle.
To see 'scope composed consistently well throughout the entire movie a viewer will typically need to watch movies made before the home video revolution got underway in the early 1980's. There are exceptions in the 80's and 90's era.
In more recent years panning and scanning hasn't been needed to such an extreme since most people have rectangular HDTV sets now. However, there's still a fairly big difference between 1.77:1 and 2.4:1. Playing it safe practices of image composition are still very common.
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Marcel Birgelen
Film God
Posts: 3357
From: Maastricht, Limburg, Netherlands
Registered: Feb 2012
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posted 09-03-2014 06:25 PM
quote: Frank Angel
Funny thing is, this obsession with filling the whole screen no matter what, seems to be a pecularly American thing. My understanding is that in Europe and Japan, from the very early days of 'scope, broadcasting letterboxed movies was a very common thing and they had no problem with it. If any of our European brothers can verify this, please do. Seems the Europeans would rather see the whole picture instead of only half of it, whereas their American neighbors would rather distroy composition in favor of eliminating those "pesky black bars" that bother us so much. Differnce of perspective, I suppose, if not brain capacity.
That's not an easy question to answer, at least not objectively. For example, if I look at my parents: Before the remote got replaced with something more akin of a Nintendo Wii controller after the last upgrade to a "Smart TV", this remote featured a prominent "Zoom" button (actually, the TV in my living room still features a similar button obviously ![[Wink]](wink.gif) ). It didn't call itself "Zoom", but it had that symbol featuring some rectangles and arrows on it. As you would expect: It cycled trough a whole bunch of "smart" deform-to-fit modes. My mother would quite commonly hit that button until all black bars where gone... My mother is the role example of the average, non-tech-savvy user. I guess there are millions of people like that in Europe, too.
But... In Europe, we've still got something like large, state-owned TV stations. You know, those huge broadcasting organizations like the BBC. Most countries in Europe have their version of the BBC in one form or another, often even multiple versions. Those same organizations actually broadcast full feature length movies without ANY commercial break and even more shocking, they often even play the credits, sometimes even in their full glory!! Most Americans would call it a waste of tax money and many Europeans would probably most happily agree. But what most of those organizations have in common is that they still do care a bit about quality. So they tend to broadcast movies in their original aspect ratio.
Personally, I got used to "black bars" even as a kid. They were an integral part of the movie experience on TV. Also, once 4:3 died away, and 16:9 became common at the end of the 90s, those black bars for scope movies became a whole lot more bearable.
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