A Christmas Story SE DVD - anyone buy it?

[dlemond]

I've been reading mixed things on the widescreen transfer- some say it is just the full screen cut to look widescreen so you are losing something on the top and bottom.

Others just say that it is in widescreen and you get the whole original picture.

Anyone know what the deal is?

[Mijada]

I bought it. It looks like the widescreen to me. I've seen that movie so many times in standard format and when I watched the new widescreen DVD I definitely noticed more things in the picture. Anyways the DVD is really cool. There are a bunch of interviews with the cast reflecting on what it was like making the picture.

[AKA]

I have the DVD, but I haven't done a comparison between the fullscreen and the widescreen (frankly, I don't want to touch the fullscreen with a 10-foot pole). "A Christmas Story" might have been filmed in an open matte, or "matted widescreen," aspect. I'll explore this with screen shots when I get a chance.

[AKA]

It looks like it was shot in Super 35, so in widescreen, you have a little more information on the sides of the screen, while in fullscreen, you have a little bit more information on the top and bottom of the screen. Here are some two screenshots I made. First, the widescreen:

[AKA]

And here's the fullscreen.

[AKA]

Before some of you think you've been lied to all these years about the benefits of widescreen, please read about open matte. Here's an excellent review from Amazon.com that about sums it up:

Matted? Cropped? Confused? Screen Aspect Ratios Explained!

I see that readers are steadily panning the Christmas Story special edition DVD because they feel that the matted film version is somehow cutting them short on their movie, but I have learned plenty on spherical (matted) films, widescreen, letterboxing and even the dreadful "Super 35."

Many of the movies filmed now are being shot with film that is actually in NTSC television aspect ratio (1.33- 1.37:1), even though the movie in the theatrical release is either "widescreen" 1.85:1 and even letterboxed (2.35:1).

Christmas Story was filmed in the spherical format by using matting. The theatrical presentation is identical to the presentation on the DVD @ 1.85:1 when matted. But the reason the producers enjoy this deceptive format is so that the transfer to the old TV format won't lose vital subject content since the movie isn't cropped but expanded when the mat is removed to allow the film to fill your TV screen.

The same deception is evident with films like Kill Bill and many of the movies filmed by directors who swear by the format like James Cameron. Terminator 2 for instance was filmed in Super 35, which uses a matting process that is a hybrid format; this allows the director to frame in letterbox using matting process to maintain the widescreen, and the matting process is removed so that the actual film (shot in TV format) will be transferred to TV without the need of cropping, which streamlines the film to video transfer as a money- and time- saving option.

Spherical process is used in such titles as Bull Durham, Terminator, American Pie, Caddyshack I and II, and Glory.

Super 35 is used in titles like American Beauty, 8 Mile, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, The Matrix and the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

True letterbox movies use an anamorphic process that compresses the image by using a special lens on the camera to compress the image as it strikes the unexposed film. As the processed film is shown, a special projection lens is needed to draw the image back out, extending the image into widescreen. But if the decision is made to make a film transfer to fill the TV format, over 1/3 of the image would need to be cropped, and the transfer generally would mean using a "pan and scan" process to allow the image to be seen.

Examples of the process: Star Wars Episode IV (A New Hope), the Die Hard trilogy, Jaws, and Hunt for Red October.

Because the anamorphic process used in filming yields true wide screen, you'll see plenty of pan & scan whenever the movie is transferred to full frame; however, with matted and Super 35, you'll actually see more of the top and bottom of a movie filmed with this process. There are sometimes things like microphones that can be seen in the full screen presentation since matting makes it difficult for the director to see such things during filming. Any DVD that has both "widescreen" and "full screen" videos will give you a great comparison. For those who want to see more detail on the film process and tech specs, try imdb.com, which gives great information on probably any title you are curious about.

The film industry has no standardized format, which leads to this unnecessary confusion. And with the new digital medium in home video and movie production, I'm sure the screen aspect ratio information will get even more confusing. But don't send back your DVDs.

[Mijada]

Thanks for that info AKA. Something I've always wanted to know is with these newer widescreen digital tvs, If you watch a VHS tape or DVD that is not widescreen, how would the picture appear on the tv? Would there be black bars on the sides or would the picture be somewhat distorted?

[AKA]

Originally posted by Mijada
Thanks for that info AKA. Something I've always wanted to know is with these newer widescreen digital tvs, If you watch a VHS tape or DVD that is not widescreen, how would the picture appear on the tv? Would there be black bars on the sides or would the picture be somewhat distorted?

Well, most widescreen sets give you a choice. You can either watch a non-widescreen presentation in its intended aspect ratio with unused space on both the left and right sides of the screen, or you can "zoom" the image and lose information from the top and bottom of the image.