New Citizen Kane DVD - actually a collector's edition

[Jeff Wilson]

Widescreen films are one thing; films shot in Academy ratio (Kane, Ambersons, etc) possess the same ratio (more or less, 1.37 vs 1.33) as a TV, so there is no squeezing going on. Academy ratio films don't get anamorphic transfers, because they can't be formatted to a 16:9 size TV.

[jaime marzol]

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never mind, i misunderstood completely what that said. they didn't mean squeezing anamorphic into 4x3, they meant squeezing wide screen into 4x3.

but old movies are squeezed any way. there is a turner documentary about the theaters vs television, that is where i first saw the thing about squezzing films to fit tv screens. they do it with panavision, and i'm convinced they do it with older films before 1955 also.

i'm going to do some tinkering with this in the next few days, then comapre images, see what i get.

it's like the great conspiracy, to squeeze, or not to squeeze. are they squeezing behind our backs? are they deforming our favorite actors? are they making welles look thinner? tune in next week for these answers, and more.

[jaime marzol]

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so far the malata and the jeton seem to be the only 2 dvd plaayers that zoom back, but i'm still searching.

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adjusted post:

JVC XV-S60BK DVD Player With "Real" Progressive Scan, CD-R/W And MP3.
$229 at epinions.com, $134 at overstock.com

The zoom allows you to zoom in up to 1024x and zoom out up to 1/8x................. could this mean you can zoom out to 1/8th the picture size?

[Jeff Wilson]

Until I see concrete proof that Academy ratio films are somehow being altered, I simply don't buy it. Standard TVs are 1.33; Academy sound ratio is 1.37, it's as simple as that. There's nothing to squeeze, only that extra .04 to trim off, in addition to TV overscan. Using a video presentation doesn't necessarily prove anything unless you know for absolutely certain that they're transferring the entirety of the original print's frame to the disc.

[jaime marzol]

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no, i wasn't going to get all elaborate with a video presentation. i was just going to put some images side by side.

i guess it comes down to a question of taste. when i uncompress the image, it looks more real, more pleasing to me than before i uncompress it. so the question is like, original flavor, or bar-b-q? thick and chewy, or thin and crispy? choices were easier before all this technology came around, original flovor is all you got.

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[jaime marzol]

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you are probably right.

but if they are squeezing in that .04. .04 is 1/9 of .37

a 1/9 squeeze on an image alters it consideraably. maybe this is what i'm seeing?

who knows.

[Jeff Wilson]

They are likely just cropping the excess off. The .04 is only a 2.9% difference.

[jaime marzol]

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So I haven't yet figured out how academy ratio works. I was beginning to think that 1.37 meant the sideways angle was 1.00, and the height was .37% of the 1.00 that runs sideways. Thus me thinking that the .04 was 1/9 of the .37. But if you are right, then I haven?t figured out how this setup works.

MTEAL and me have been trying to figure this compression thing out. He also has a window boxed tape of AMBERSONS that you sent him. He compared the 'rectangulation' of the AMBERSONS recontruction, to the 'rectangulation' of the tape you sent him, and he said there was no difference at all. Same amount of 'rectangulation' in both. The only difference he said is that there is more image in the reconstruction tape that was made from the Voyager laser disc then there is on the tape you sent him from the French DVD. But that is not a compression issue, that is just how they framed the print when they made the French DVD.

Is it possible that when you made my tape of AMBERSONS that you didn't have some setting right? I was going to use the window boxed VHS tape you sent so I would not have to window box and render the film in the computer, even at the expense of losing a generation, because rendering in the computer is so incredibly time consuming, and it's just one more thing that can glitch-out. But the tape you sent me was unusable. The image was square and long. As I stated in this thread, the first time I noticed 'longness' was in the RKO logo. What I didn't state is that it was in the tape that you sent me. I didn't want you to get flooded with requests for copies of window boxed AMBERSONS.

Before long this thread will have 300 posts.

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[mteal]

There is apparently a new Malata DVD player on the market, the Malata DVP-566, which has everything the Malata DVP-520 has except for the x-y function. It costs about $166 which is nearly $100 less then the DVP-520.

Jaime,
I'll have to look at the tape you are sending before I comment any more about the uncompression issue. One thing you could do however, is measure the uncompressed image and then simply divide the horizontal width by the vertical length. If you come up with a number greater then 1.37, it's too uncompressed.

[jaime marzol]

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so that's how it works! i was wondering how you came up with the measurement you sent me.

no difference in 'rectangulation' from the first AMBERSONS tape to the one you have coming. since AMBERSONS is the film i have been working on most, after seeing the tape jeff sent me i was sure i had discovered something. i knew they compressed wide screen films to get more action in the frame, but was convinced it had been happening to older films also.

thanks for info on that malata deck, will look into that. yahoo shopping scans 12 or 15 stores for the best price around.

[jaime marzol]

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and the measuring/compression controversy continues.

my vhs copy of the Malata window boxed KANE measures in at 28-cm x 39-cm, making the aspect ration 1.11. that's a long way from 1.37. though i can't tell if KANE looks compressed as easy as i could tell in the AMBERSONS tape. when i take the KANE image and stretch it out to 1.37 aspect ratio, it will be easy to tell. maybe it's just the amount of image that ended up on the source that is off.

have not printed the new uncompressed AMBERSONS to tape yet, but will measure that soon as i do. on the computer screen it looks more 'rectangulated' than the window boxed KANE.

[Jeff Wilson]

By the measurements you stated, that comes out to 1.39, which is more or less where it should be.

[jaime marzol]

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mteal said i devide the horizontal lenght by the vertical lenght. that's how i got 1.11

28 goes into 39 one time, leaves 11 cents change. f*CK IT. i can't figure this aspect ratio crap out. i would have been better off had i never heard about aspect ratio, and tv overscan. now i have to buy a third DVD player, and rejoin netflix to recopy my favorite films window boxed.

there is something else that confuses me. in the computer world, video resolution is 640x480. but an image that fills the computer monitor is 720x480. when i watch a DVD on my computer DVD player it fills the whole monitor screen but does not look stretched out. this still has me perplexed.

[Jeff Wilson]

You divide 39 by 28, which results in 1.39.

[jaime marzol]

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oh. i see now.