Posts from Jay J. Foraker in thread „Full Vs. Wide“

Hi Bill -
I totally agree with you - seeing the movies as they were originally intended on the big screen would be manna from heaven. But, as we are not likely to have that, the DVDs will have to serve as a mediocre substitute (comparitively).
Cheers - Jay

Quote

Originally posted by Jay J. Foraker@Nov 1 2005, 02:29 PM
Movies made before 1953 were photographed with an aspect ratio (length to depth) of 1.33:1 to 1.37:1 (meaning the width of the picture was 1.33 to 1.37 times its depth. These can only be presented in full screen format, since there is no widescreen available.

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Now I am becoming a blithering idiot - I'm quoting myself!! As a postscript to my batherings, both "Hondo" and "Island in the Sky" were photographed in 1.37:1, so they wouldn't be available in a widescreen format.
Cheers - Jay

I'm a widescreen fanatic myself! If the movie was photographed in a widescreen format, then it should be seen in the same way, otherwise you lose a portion of the picture. Before 1953, no movies were shot in widescreen, except for "The Big Trail," which was an experimental attempt that lost out in the box office. Movies made before 1953 were photographed with an aspect ratio (length to depth) of 1.33:1 to 1.37:1 (meaning the width of the picture was 1.33 to 1.37 times its depth. These can only be presented in full screen format, since there is no widescreen available.
Widescreen formats come in several forms. VistaVision and its offshoots were shot generally in a 1.85:1 aspect ratio. Cinemascope, Panavision and their ilk come generally in a 2.35:1 format. These are the screen sizes of most movies nowadays. The wider format requires deeper bands at the top and bottom of the TV screen. (The DVD of "Ben Hur" in my collection is shown at a 2.40:1 ratio, which means the black bands take up a little more space than the norm). For someone new to these formats, the black bands can be disconcerting, but if you keep watching, soon you won't notice they're there. When these formats started showing up on some channels some years back, my wife didn't like them, but after viewing a few, she feels she is missing something if a widescreen movie is presented in full screen.
As for Keith's puzzle, I can only guess since I am not an expert by any means, but I think the new widescreen TVs accommodate the 1.85:1 ratio - when you have a 2.35:1 ratio movie, there will still be black bands at the top and bottom.
Cheers - Jay