[opendtv] Re: 70th Anniversary Blu-ray and standard DVDs of the Wizard of Oz

  • From: Cliff Benham <flyback1@xxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Thu, 01 Oct 2009 16:55:46 -0400

Manfredi, Albert E wrote:

Cliff Benham wrote:


I'm with Bert on this one.

Cliff replies:
And Bert is wrong.


Damn, Cliff. I told you from the start what was happening. I told you that what 
you should be seeing is a postage stamp, undistorted image, on your 4:3 HD 
monitor. Explain why I was wrong, then.



Cliff:
You are wrong because a postage sized image of a 4:3 film on a 4:3 monitor is absolutely useless to anyone. All this does is REALLY piss consumers off. They will return the disks for a refund. This creates no good will for either the 70th anniversary film editions just starting to appear or the BD player manufacturers.
What do you think the reaction will be to a postage stamp sized picture of Gone with the Wind or Snow White?
Not only that but on three different 16:9 displays the Oz film and two other 1.33:1 aspect ratio films do not play with the correct aspect ratio. Check it out: Look at the MGM logo; the ring around Leo should be round but it displays as compressed horizontally. These disks don't play correctly on either 4:3 or 16:9 displays with the correct aspect ratio.
The disk makers went to great lengths to explain how carefully they restored these films to their correct original 1.33:1 aspect ratio and now they won't play correctly on any display at all. 



The problem is that the BD movie is recorded with the pillars as part of the 
data. In a 16:9 set, this is a regular anamorphic picture that fills the screen 
(including the pillars). In a 4:3 set, this becomes a letterboxed wide screen 
image, with built-in pillars as part of the data. So of course, it ends up 
postage stamp.

You cannot zoom in, with the old monitor, so of course postage stamp is all you 
can get.


Cliff:
The disk is authored to *prevent* the zoom control on the player from working. If it were allowed to work the 4:3 screen would be full. 



By the way, back in 1998, I thought the TV dealers were nuts to be selling 4:3 
HD monitors. I even mentioned it on here. Not only were the monitors ugly and 
huge, it made it seem like those dealers didn't know what they were doing. HEY. 
Don't you guys know that HD will be 16:9?

Bert



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