Films on the TV - (mis)use of ratios

mike65

I just flicked on Godfather Part 11, RTE are showing it in 4:3 ratio. Why??????
Coppola and Gordon Willis went to great effort to creat those widescreen compositions and they get blown away as RTE can't be arsed to get a correct 1.85:1 version.

Does this sort of thing bother you, cos it drives me nuts. I won't watch a film which I know was made for "epic" viewing where half the image is missing.

Mike.

grimloch

It really annoys me when there's feckin black lines taking up half of the bloody screen. Laziness on behalf on RTE.

Pigman II

grimloch wrote:

It really annoys me when there's feckin black lines taking up half of the bloody screen.

Sorry if this sounds sexist (and I'll be happy if I'm incorrect) but are you by any chance female? It's just that I've heard plenty of people complain about those 'black lines' but to date not one of them has been male.

The Lopper

It really annoys me when the feck up the Sergio Leone films, because the widescreen shot is very important in these films, and they are so much better that way.

Of course i have them all on dvd now, so its not so bad.

Kazaanova

Pigman II wrote:

Sorry if this sounds sexist (and I'll be happy if I'm incorrect) but are you by any chance female? It's just that I've heard plenty of people complain about those 'black lines' but to date not one of them has been male.

Thats actually excactly correct.

grimloch

Pigman II wrote:

Sorry if this sounds sexist (and I'll be happy if I'm incorrect) but are you by any chance female? It's just that I've heard plenty of people complain about those 'black lines' but to date not one of them has been male.

No, I'm all man, the black lines do annoy me, I'll still watch the film but tbh they're something I could do without.

Although I prefer widescreen to things actually being chopped off. Especially when its just RTE/other stations being lazy.

mike65

er I sense some confusion here - when I said half the image is missing I meant half the film image, not that half the telly screen is black. Thats how widescreen should be shown on a 4:3 ratio tv, not by simply using a cropped ratio or "pan and scan" print.


Mike.

grimloch

Yeah, just copped that a few minutes ago. That's much worse than any black lines.

My last post I was actually talking about the chopping bits off although it doesn't at all look that way, me accidentally put the second sentence before the third whereas it should have been put after it.

I'll just edit that.

Karl Hungus

That's why I don't watch TV. It's all about the DVD now.

The Lopper

Thats what i meant too, they chop off either side of the film, which is very important in Leone films.

Quinnsey

Interestingly the 4:3 versions shown on RTE (which appear to be the new restorations) open up the vertical space a little, while still cropping a little off the sides. It looks to me like the films might have been framed with a hard matte to 1.66, perhaps with European projection in mind.

There seems to be no logic to RTE’s letterboxing choices (I don’t think logic and RTE go together). They show a film like The Terminator, which was shot with a hard matte panned and scanned into 4:3, but then letterbox a film like Sleepy Hollow, which is open matte and would have shown more information in 4:3.

TG4 are better although still far from perfect. When the doubled For a Few Dollars More with The Good the Bad and the Ugly early on this year, they showed Dollars in it’s proper 2.35:1 techniscope ratio but then showed a 4:3 P&S version of Ugly. Worse than that is their penchant for showing afternoon classics in a colourized version that looks like it was done by a kid with crayons… bleh, haven’t seen that since the early 90’s. Thankfully their “Le Film”s are presented properly with L’amour L’apreis Midi in it’s proper 4:3, Maitresse letterboxed in 1.66 and last Friday La Vallee in 2.35:1.

Quinnsey

Here’s a comparison for anyone who cares:




Widescreen DVD




4:3 RTE Broadcast


Both are quite acceptable IMHO.

mike65

The worst thing above is the fecking DOG!

Mike.

Quinnsey

You’re right. How do we petition RTE to kill the DOG?

vox

it looks to me that the RTE broadcast has nothing chopped off on the sides as i can see everything in both pics there, its just the pic i slightly more squashed and there is more of the pic vertically in the RTE one aswell. it looks more like the widescreen dvd is cropped at the top and bottom or am i wrong?

Quinnsey

There is actually more information on the sides of the DVD, even if it’s not instantly obvious from the above pic you will notice it on direct comparison. Look a little closer.

It seems it was filmed in 1.66 meaning you lose a little, gain a little on both versions. The DVD is how it would have been projected in American theatres. Robocop is another example of a movie filmed in this way.

None of them squished BTW

mike65

It was filmed in 1.85:1 so nearly 2:1, many DVDs come with more than one aspect ratio, and some transfers change. In the Godfather collection is ratio is 1.78:1 not that you'd notice the diff really. Anyways 1.85:1 is almost 16:9 the widescreen TV standard. So thats what RTE should use.

4:3 v 16:9


1.85:1


Mike.

Quinnsey

Here's one that shows the loss/gain better:




Widescreen DVD



4:3 RTE Broadcast

mike65 wrote:

It was filmed in 1.85:1 so nearly 2:1

Just to be pedantic, it wasn't filmed in 1.85, rather that was the intended US projection ratio.

I agree though that ideally it should be presented in 16:9 to preserve the theatrical exhibition and be widescreen telly compatible. But it's not quite 4:3 Ben Hur on bank holiday :eek:

Peteee

What about 2.35:1 aspect ratio's?

Quinnsey

Meh? What about them?