Any news on widescreen?

POSTED BY: Shuggie
UPDATED: Wednesday, September 18, 2002 16:34
VIEWED: 5796
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MOJOECA

Friday, September 13, 2002 7:30 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by malcolm:

Interestingly enough, ME shoots all of their shows in widescreen and then output to 4:3 -- it's not panned and scanned like they do when they edit widescreen films for television.

While Angel is the only one that gets shown in 16:9 on the regular broadcast, you can get Buffy in 16:9 on DVD (& see it broadcast that way in some countries outside the US).

"Output to 4:3" sounds like the footage is resized, distorting the picture, which is why "pan and scan" is the chosen method of re-formatting. I was preparing a longer post, but I see Shuggie stole my thunder. What she said.

I'm puzzled as to why R2 BtVS DVDs are letterboxed (for the reasons Shug mentioned). There isn't any "information" on periphery of the frame that was intended to be seen. Isn't that a waste of memory? Do Region 2 fans prefer widescreen format over more extras?

What's more confusing is that R2 AtS season 1 sets are standard, but season 2 are letterboxed. And the WB (in the US) started airing it in 16:9 in season 3.

--- Joe

MALCOLM

Friday, September 13, 2002 8:05 PM

Quote:
"Output to 4:3" sounds like the footage is resized, distorting the picture, which is why "pan and scan" is the chosen method of re-formatting. I was preparing a longer post, but I see Shuggie stole my thunder. What she said.

Not to get overly technical (and confuse myself) but, the way I heard it is that they shoot it with a 16:9 mat on the camera and on the monitor they set up a 4:3 "box" to know what is inside or outside the 4:3 frame. Any of the main action or necessary visual information has to be "in the box" for the 4:3 version, but they keep the full 16:9 frame clear for widescreen purposes - e.g. DVD.

Quote:
I'm puzzled as to why R2 BtVS DVDs are letterboxed (for the reasons Shug mentioned). There isn't any "information" on periphery of the frame that was intended to be seen. Isn't that a waste of memory? Do Region 2 fans prefer widescreen format over more extras? What's more confusing is that R2 AtS season 1 sets are standard, but season 2 are letterboxed.

I've read a million different places that Buffy was never meant to be widescreen, but I guess it's what the DVD fans wanted.
- MBS

SNOWKING

Friday, September 13, 2002 8:27 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by mojoeca:
"Output to 4:3" sounds like the footage is resized, distorting the picture, which is why "pan and scan" is the chosen method of re-formatting. I was preparing a longer post, but I see Shuggie stole my thunder. What she said.

I'm puzzled as to why R2 BtVS DVDs are letterboxed (for the reasons Shug mentioned). There isn't any "information" on periphery of the frame that was intended to be seen. Isn't that a waste of memory? Do Region 2 fans prefer widescreen format over more extras?

Yeah. Like they consult us over that.

Quote:
Originally posted by mojoeca:
"
What's more confusing is that R2 AtS season 1 sets are standard, but season 2 are letterboxed. And the WB (in the US) started airing it in 16:9 in season 3.
--- Joe

That's only the UK Angel S2 boxset in 16:9 by the way. All the other region 2 sets are 4:3. Are You Now Or Have You Ever Been looks fucking gorgeous.

SHUGGIE

Friday, September 13, 2002 8:43 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by mojoeca:
I was preparing a longer post, but I see Shuggie stole my thunder. What she said.

Ahem! I think you mean "what he said"!

Quote:
I'm puzzled as to why R2 BtVS DVDs are letterboxed (for the reasons Shug mentioned). There isn't any "information" on periphery of the frame that was intended to be seen. Isn't that a waste of memory? Do Region 2 fans prefer widescreen format over more extras?

Actually they're not letterboxed, they're anamorphic. If they were letterboxed they'd actually take less memory. Quick recap:

Letterboxed - a 4:3 frame with 'black bars' at the top and bottom - where the black part is actually part of the picture. So since a fair proportion of the picture is black it'll compress more. (DVDs use MPEG2 compression)

Anamorphic - a 16:9 picture is distorted proportionally into a 4:3 frame. Your DVD player/TV distorts it back. This is better than letterboxing because you're using the full available frame for picture resolution.

Widescreen TVs are very common in the UK. 40% of all TVs and 70% of all new TVs are widescreen. There's an increasing amount of broadcast programming available in widescreen - including Buffy when it's shown on BBC.

The extras on the DVDs are about the same as the other sets.

Quote:
What's more confusing is that R2 AtS season 1 sets are standard, but season 2 are letterboxed. And the WB (in the US) started airing it in 16:9 in season 3.

All I can tell you is that when it was discovered that S1 was not going to be in widescreen - about 2 months before release. There was a big campaign to get them in widescreen. We finally got a response from the head of Fox UK saying that there were no widescreen masters and promising S2 in widescreen. A promise they kept.

Is it better? Well it's not worse. There's a little extra scenery, the occasional blooper as I described above. Mostly I think the reason UK fans like widescreen is the same reason a lot US TV viewers don't - black bars. A 4:3 image on a 16:9 screen has black bars at the left and right.

So I'm pretty happy with my Buffy S4 and Angel S2 DVDs being in widescreen.

As for Angel S3 - so far I've only seen those in 4:3 - not letterboxed. Not even pan and scan - they just sliced the middle section out of the image. You wanna see what that does to the picture see here -

http://website.lineone.net/~angelcuts/wide/index.html

Shug

MOJOECA

Saturday, September 14, 2002 3:07 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Shuggie:
Ahem! I think you mean "what he said"!

Whoops! My apologies.

--- Joe

RINGWRAITH

Tuesday, September 17, 2002 11:24 PM

I agree with Malcolm:

Quote:
Maybe if we're lucky, Fox will put FF Season One out as quickly as they are with "24" and "The Shield" so that my widescreen desires can be satisfied.

I don't know if Fox would do this but it's a great idea, and like "24" would offset the cost of the show.

To quote that really cool (bad) dude from "Robocop"

"I LIKE IT!"

************************************************
"How will this end?"
"In fire."
--Babylon 5, 'The Coming of Shadows'
************************************************

SADGEEZER

Wednesday, September 18, 2002 11:34 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Shuggie:
Actually they're not letterboxed, they're anamorphic. If they were letterboxed they'd actually take less memory. Quick recap....

Great post shuggie! That explained a lot. Yep, in the UK (terrestrial channels are predominantly widescreen format and SOOO COOOL to watch. Sky TV however (owned by fox) hardly ever (if ever) shows widescreed (dispite being on a digital satellite!)

Buffy on the BBC is exponentially better than watching it on Sky (plus, no adverts!).

WIth all the hype about the show being graphically stunning, I really hope (when they show it in the UK) that the Beeb gets it before Sky (though I doubt it).

SadGeezer.

The SadGeezers Guide to Firefly
http://www.sadgeezer.com/firefly/index.htm

SHUGGIE

Wednesday, September 18, 2002 4:34 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SadGeezer:
Great post shuggie! That explained a lot.

Thanks.

A lot of Americans use letterboxed and widescreen interchangeably. An understandable habit to slip into because the vast majority of US widescreen broadcasts are letterboxed, because the vast majority of US TVs are 4:3. Buy a widescreen TV in the US means buying a HD (High Definition) which means a lot more money and there isn't much HD broadcasting going on yet. At least that's what I've heard.

Quote:
Yep, in the UK (terrestrial channels are predominantly widescreen format and SOOO COOOL to watch. Sky TV however (owned by fox) hardly ever (if ever) shows widescreed (dispite being on a digital satellite!)

Hmmph I can't get digital cable (or broadband for that matter) and my landlord won't let me have a dish.

Quote:
Buffy on the BBC is exponentially better than watching it on Sky (plus, no adverts!).

WIth all the hype about the show being graphically stunning, I really hope (when they show it in the UK) that the Beeb gets it before Sky (though I doubt it).

The Beeb get a bad rap in some quarters but they are as far as I know still the only broadcaster on the planet showing Buffy in widescreen. Also no DOGs, no ads and they tend to have better technical standards for image quality.

The downsides are they don't have first run rights so we have to wait. Also even though the BBC Buffy audience is about twice that of Sky's - at about 2M it's not a top-rated show even for BBC2 - so it tends to get bumped every time there's an international bog-snorkeling tournament. 1M viewers for Sky One otoh will be their top-rated show for whatever evening it's shown.

Do you get the feeling I know waaay too much about this stuff?

Shug

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