Posted on 12/06/2004 11:15:57 AM PST by ambrose
A plea: Avoid full screen DVDs
THE "Spider-Man 2" people sent me a "full screen" copy of their snazzy blockbuster. Glass half full: It's always nice to be remembered, especially with one of the year's best films and one of the all-time great comic-book adaptations.
Glass completely empty: I hate full screen. It's like watching only part of a movie. If paintings were presented in full screen, a Mona Lisa close-up would lack ears. Or she would appear with only half a smile.
I exaggerate, but that's my job, and you get the idea.
Most DVDs let you choose between full screen or widescreen. Some give you both options of the same disc, one on either side. Others, such as "Spider-Man 2," insist you purchase one or the other. Buyer's remorse gets you no sympathy in this business. Choose widescreen.
On standard TVs, compressed widescreen, aka letterbox, versions play across the middle of the screen. Horizontal black bands appear above and below the picture.
Reportedly, many people find the black bands annoying so they opt for full screen, which is also known as pan and scan. Pan and scan is a crime against nature. Carrying the warning, "Formatted to fit your TV screen," pan and scan fills the entire screen.
But to do so, it must cut out slices of the original images the filmmaker worked so hard to create. Often, so much of the picture is trimmed that the fragmented leftovers look like visual noise.
In "Spider-Man 2," for instance, rather than the Web-slinger swinging gracefully across vast cityscapes, he appears hemmed in by narrow passageways as he swings back and forth like a repressed pendulum. Oh, the inhumanity. When Spidey and evil Doc Ock face each other in the same frame, you sometimes get half of Doc Ock addressing half of Spidey.
This is not a horror film, but it could be. At times the camera pans from one character to the other instead of allowing you to see both at the same time.
That's not the worst sin in the universe but it comes close, especially if you view movies as art.
So let somebody else watch full-screen versions; you deserve better and so do the movies.
Buyer be aware ... If you are hunting for the perfect DVD for a holiday gift, take a peek at the Home Theater compilation of "The top 100 DVDs of all time, with a new attitude." The list was printed in the August 2004 edition of the glossy.
I'll give you the top choice in each category. You can chase down the rest on www.hometheatermag.com
Best music DVD was "The Beatles Anthology." Best TV on DVD, "Freaks and Geeks: The Complete Series Limited Edition."
"The Alien Quadrilogy" was No. 1 under best extras. "Finding Nemo" earned the top slot under best video, meaning clearest image. "Saving Private Ryan DTS" was picked as best audio.
"The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring Special Extended DVD Edition" and "The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers Special Extended DVD Edition" were chosen Nos. 1 and 2, respectively, in best overall DVDs.
Keep in mind that the selections were made prior to the release of "The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King Special Extended DVD Edition." The latter comes out Dec. 14.
Around the Bay ... Five films by San Francisco residents will be screened at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival, which runs Jan. 20-30 in Park City, Utah.
Announced last week, the selections include three features in the documentary competition: "The Fall of Fujimori" by Ellen Perry, "The Devil and Daniel Johnston" by Henry Rosenthal and "Romantico" by Mark Becker.
"Ballets Russes," a documentary by Dan Geller and Dayna Goldfine, will be shown in the noncompetitive "special screenings" division. "The Joy of Life," an experimental film by Jenni Olson, will play in the noncompetitive "frontiers" section.
Name that film ... Don V. wants to know the name of an old "farcical comedy." Here's what he remembers; The scene is a bishop's or priest's residence office. "The featured actor (Woody Allen?) is there to make some kind of request," Don writes. "The bishop's housekeeper, way up in age, is bringing them coffee(?), and it takes forever; she is a very slow walker, and she suffers from an extreme case of flatulence but doesn't know it because she is also deaf. Ring a bell?"
Maybe. Any of you know? Call or write; you know the drill.
DVD spotlight ... The December glut begins with an eclectic array.
"The Bourne Supremacy" should satisfy those in the mood for bloodletting and blurry car chases shot with hand-held cameras. The all-action, no-substance sequel to the superior "The Bourne Identity" plays better on the small screen than on the big. And Matt Damon succeeds for the a second time (eat your heart out, Ben Affleck) as troubled, amnesiac assassin Jason Bourne. Extras include a feature titled "Blowing Things Up."
Its goofiness is the raison d'etre for the Vince Vaughn-Ben Stiller comedy "Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story." Any movie built around adults playing competitive dodgeball can find a spot in my house. The disc includes a blooper reel.
"Matrix" junkies will no doubt drool over the more than 35 hours of extras included in the 10-disc "The Ultimate Matrix Collection." Isolate them from the rest of the people at your party.
Out Tuesday on DVD ... "Anacondas: The Hunt for the Blood Orchid," "Bandit Queen," "The Bourne Supremacy," "The Complete Pluto (Volume One)," "Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story," "The Girl from Paris," "Hermitage Masterpieces," "Hi, Mom!," "How to Steal a Million," "Infernal Affairs," "Julia Child! America's Favorite Chef" and "The Love Machine."
Also: "Maria Full of Grace" (with best-actress possibility Catalina Sandino Moreno), "The Mickey Mouse Club (Week One)," "Mickey Mouse in Black and White (Volume Two)," "The Phantom of the Opera" (with Robert Englund), "Smooth Talk," "Species III," "Transfixed," "The Ultimate Matrix Collection," "Wild at Heart Special Edition" (Nicolas Cage meet David Lynch) and "Young Doctors in Love."
Mail your movie-related questions, answers or insights to The Movie Guy, c/o Bay Area Living, 4770 Willow Road, Pleasanton, CA 94588. Faxes can be sent to (925) 416-4874. E-mail The Movie Guy at bcaine@angnewspapers.com or call him at (925) 416-4806.
Oh, lamp costs are between $20 and $35 for lamps that last 20,000 hours instead of $295 - $500 for lamps that last 1000 to 2000 hours. More expensive lamps can go for 4000 hours... but that still translates as only 2.5 years or so before you gotta buy a lamp (If you ignore the steady reduction in lumen output!)
Incidentally, the keystone controls on most projectors are digital... they make the changes in screen dimensions digitally. The Lumenlab design does it optically.
The ones I have been looking at use three separate monochrome LCD's and one panasonic unit has almost no screendoor effect. I am getting the feeling these homemade ones use full color lcd's designed for laptops and hand-held devices. Is that correct? And if so, is there not a resolution hit?
I can't say. Defective pressing plants (and there were numerous companies that used them) have been identifed in the lore of LD.
Even Criterions Plus $100 releases (retail) were prone to laser rot. Not all discs were, some plants were bad. Don't know if it was glue, loading docks, etc.
It is real. Some have already claimed to witness laser rot in CDs and DVDs (visible holes that impair playback). I believe that would be different because a laserdisc is essentially an LP sized CD glued to another LP sized CD. I have seen a few bootleg CDs that were "double sided" but have not seen this as any sort of industry standard. Some believe that poor sealant, etc. led to laser rot at some companies.
That doesn't sound right... at 11 feet for a 65" screen, it covered pretty much my entire field of vision (and I have good peripheral vision). The THX standard would recommend 8 2/3 feet by that formula -- the screen would literally seem too large to be completely seen at that distance from my empirical experience.
That looks way cool. What skill level would be required to actually do one of those projects?
I scare...EVERYONE, bay-bee! It's just....MY scary talent. It...SCARES...a lot of folks.
(Walken exits thread to peppy song and dance number.)
If you're a Star Trek fan, get a copy of the director's version of ST 4. It has a special feature where Leonard Nimoy (the director) demonstrates the difference between the two formats, using the scene where Kirk, Spock and the whale biologist (played by Catherine Hicks) are in her pickup truck.
I love the widescreen format and buy all my movies in it, but my parents can't stand it - they hate the bars on the TV screen. It's just a matter of preference.
I am a budding electronics geek! I shop for electronics goodies constantly even if I am not buying I still go to electronics stores to look at the latest stuff.
I have noticed that the selections of TVs in these stores is starting to edge more and more to widescreen. In fact many of the Electronics stores I go to have MORE widescreen TVs than regular 4:3 screens. Yes they are still expensive mostly (Though you can find many for around 700-800 bucks) but consider that the prices are dropping rapidly it figures that in the next 5 years the 4:3 screen will be the exception rather than the rule.
BTW if anyone is looking for a new widescreen TV I suggest forgoing Plasma and taking a look at DLP or LED. I Purchased a JVC HD-52Z585 that has a stunning picture and unlike Plasma when the picture starts to fade you can replace a bulb rather than buy a whole new TV again.
Oh, and if widesceen TVs become the norm then FULL Screen DVDs will show black bars on the sides of your screen unless you use the STRETCH setting (Usually called Panorama) I hate FULL SCREEN it sucks to the MAX!
Hey... thanks.
Depends on the content. El Mariachi I'd much rather see full-frame than letterboxed, since it was shot on 16mm with video transfer in mind. The letterboxed DVD often crops the top and bottom quite inappropriately.
Actually, they use 13"-15" (some are using up to 19" 16:9 with aspect ratio) desk top LCD screens with full resolution - SVGA - XVGA. We use extremely high quality fresnel lenses, and a high quality triplet projection lens. The LCD screens are stripped of the backlights. Some project makers are building miniature projectors using 7" SVGA screens with. Most commercial home projectors are VGA 800 X 600 rez. Laptops can be used but they have Flat Flexible Cable issues that make them less than ideal.
The images project excellently, and are slightly defocused internally (not noticeable) to eliminate any possible screen-door effect. The 400W lamps produce 32,000 to 40,000 Lumen, which results in a projected image between 1100 - 1600 lumen depending on the number of elements used in the projector (the LCD screen and its polarized filters absorbs 80%).
Never-the-less, that is the formula... Your 11 feet is still within the acceptable range. At 65" diagonally, your screen is only 52" wide horizontally. Your peripheral vision should be a lot more than that.
Some of the builders have never built anything before in their lives. One very successful projector was built by a 13 year old boy.
My personal preference is to get the movie/show in the aspect ratio it was originally shot in, whether that means 4:3, 16:9, 2.35:1, or anything else that may be out there.
Films are shot with a certain amount of tolerance on framing; directors' viewfinders are marked with a rectangle giving the minimum amount a theater can show and be considered "properly" set up. There's a fair range of latitude on how a DVD can be framed and conform to that. Within that range, do you prefer tighter or looser scaling and cropping? In particular, if the film records an image which extends vertically beyond what some theater screens will show, is it better to show the extra (since it's there and the screen real estate is there) or crop it?
Also, btw, one feature I've wished my otherwise-well-featured DVD player had: a 95% out-zoom. I think my TV has a fair amount of overscan, and some DVDs of older movies (which were shot with an Academy ratio frame) have 'meaningful content' extend beyond the edges of the screen (another feature would be able to pan the zoom--I don't know why they put in zooming in 1% increments and didn't allow panning; weird). OTOH, the ability to have audio on the 2x fast-forward is very handy, and I do like the player in a lot of other ways. So I'll just live with the fact I can't have everything.
I would imagine the correct answer is "whichever way the director framed the shot".
Given that most director viewfinders are now marked with inner and outer rectangles for "what's guaranteed to appear in a properly-adjusted theater" and "what might appear in a properly-adjusted theater", whereabouts do you prefer things wihthin that tolerance?
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