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Posted by Steve Roberts on 03/23/06 17:56
On Thu, 23 Mar 2006 11:08:50 -0600, Jack <jack@jack.com> wrote:
>I just rented "2010: The Year We Make Contact," which was billed as a 2-
>sided DVD with 4:3 (pan & scan) or widescreen options.
>I have seen "mini widescreen" on a few other cheap-label DVDs that I didn't
>expect to be high quality. I have also seen it used for intro titles,
>whereafter the movie switched to either true widescreen or 4:3. Is this a
>known scam of sorts?
I take it by 'mini-widescreen' you mean a 4:3 picture with a deep
letterbox, as opposed to a 16:9 anamorphic picture with a shallow
letterbox.
A lot of these films came out in the early days of DVD, with
distributors using older transfers of films that had originally been
mastered for laserdisc. There's also a video compression argument, as
the big black bars make the picture easier to compress than an
anamorphic picture - I seem to remember this being used as an argument
for 'The Abyss' also being 4:3 letterbox, as it's a very long film.
I'd definitely re-buy 2010 if it was available in anamorphic with a
decent new transfer!
Steve
The Doctor Who Restoration Team Website
http://www.restoration-team.co.uk
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