Seven Samurai - 3 Disc Edition - 5/9/2006

romerojpg · Post by **romerojpg** » 26 Jun 2006, 19:22

So its an overscan fix? not exactly sure still what the film will look like? Will it have black borders on all 4 sides then?

My TV gets hidious amounts of Overscan

it should never happen ever! but hey most people seem to get it, it sucks badly.

bradavon · Post by **bradavon** » 26 Jun 2006, 20:17

Tom2681 wrote:I'm glad I bought the korean edition.

And that makes sense.

The Korean DVD has Yellow subs right, on a black and white film :twisted:

Kurgan wrote:What happened to you man? You used to be much funnier...

Did he?

romerojpg wrote:My TV gets hidious amounts of Overscan it should never happen ever! but hey most people seem to get it, it sucks badly.

Well it be a blessing for you then. Yes it's sounding like borders on all sides but because of overscan you shouldn't actually see them (if you have a standard TV).

All TVs suffer from overscan which doesn't affect projectors as they have no plastic around the edge.

Some are far worse than others. The TV in our kitchen (15" Matsui) suffers so badly from overscan text is often completely cut off. My Dad being the doofus he is can't even spot it or care.

tom2681 · Post by **tom2681** » 26 Jun 2006, 20:46

Tom & Brad wrote:-I'm glad I bought the korean edition.
-And that makes sense.

Perfect sense. I didn't spend so much on a projector just to have black bars on all four sides of the picture.

romerojpg · Post by **romerojpg** » 26 Jun 2006, 21:12

Has anyone got an example of this borders on all sides thing? Surkey this has to be a 1st? as I havent heard of it before, or is it called something else?

bradavon · Post by **bradavon** » 26 Jun 2006, 21:12

Fair point but I seriously doubt the Korean DVD will beat this Criterion.

thelostdragon · Post by **thelostdragon** » 26 Jun 2006, 21:14

romerojpg wrote:Has anyone got an example of this borders on all sides thing? Surkey this has to be a 1st? as I havent heard of it before, or is it called something else?

Definitely not a first. This technique has been used quite often in the US. The most recent example I encountered was "Mobsters' Confessions". Check out the screenshots in my review:
http://www.asia-on-dvd.com/index.php?na ... cle&sid=60

romerojpg · Post by **romerojpg** » 26 Jun 2006, 21:36

It looks very odd to see it like that, it sort of reminds me of a strange non anamorphic wrongly presented widescreen edition of a film

as long as the borders are not really big I dont think I would mind too much, but if they are noticable then it could be a bit of an irratation thats for sure.

I just got rid of my Criterion Seven Samurai today as well, so no going back now. If I dont like this kind of framing then I guess I will think about what to do when that time comes

EvaUnit02 · Post by **EvaUnit02** » 26 Jun 2006, 21:52

The majority of Ghibli films use windowboxing, that's why they have odd aspect ratios like 2.00:1. Their proper AR is usually ~1.85:1.

bradavon · Post by **bradavon** » 27 Jun 2006, 17:28

thelostdragon wrote:The most recent example I encountered was "Mobsters' Confessions". Check out the screenshots in my review:
http://www.asia-on-dvd.com/index.php?na ... cle&sid=60

That does indeed look awful but it won't be that bad for most of us.

I'm sure Metropolis or M from Eureka are also window boxed to preserve the original aspect ratio which is something like 1.17:1 .

grim_tales · Post by **grim_tales** » 27 Jun 2006, 17:55

Yeah, M is like a "pillarbox" ratio, I find that fine.

romerojpg · Post by **romerojpg** » 27 Jun 2006, 18:10

I honesty cannot see why they bother doing this, barley no other dvds do it so obviously its not needed for 99% of films thats for sure.

But you have to remember this is Criterion we are talking about.
They were the fools who said about Armageddon's Non anamprhic dvd release

"People just dont understand the whole anamorphic techical side, so we did not enhance it for widescreen TV's"

I guess I cannot talk about this letterboxing thing until I get the film, but so far I think it sound silly.

bradavon · Post by **bradavon** » 27 Jun 2006, 18:40

Then why use anamorphic now

, what a stupid thing to say. I guess that was when virtually no one has WS sets so it was "less" important.

HungFist · Post by **HungFist** » 27 Jun 2006, 18:45

romerojpg wrote:I honesty cannot see why they bother doing this, barley no other dvds do it so obviously its not needed for 99% of films thats for sure.

Why not? Like Brad already explained, you are losing a lot of image because every normal TV zooms in.

Standard TV

The full frame

http://www.mastersofcinema.org/reviews/ ... beyond.htm

romerojpg · Post by **romerojpg** » 27 Jun 2006, 18:57

That pics real? I thought overscan was one side only? it is on mine thats for sure.

Yes but its going to be off on one side still surley, it wont be symetrical thats for sure. I guess I need pics of what it looks like playing on someones equipment

It shouldnt be down to a dvd maker to recify the ignorant TV problems of the world, overscan is senseless shit to me and a joke. There is no need for any equipment to not display all of the image you feed it.

gojensen · Post by **gojensen** » 28 Jun 2006, 12:58

bradavon wrote:
romerojpg wrote:My TV gets hidious amounts of Overscan it should never happen ever! but hey most people seem to get it, it sucks badly.
Well it be a blessing for you then. Yes it's sounding like borders on all sides but because of overscan you shouldn't actually see them (if you have a standard TV).

All TVs suffer from overscan which doesn't affect projectors as they have no plastic around the edge.

Not true. There are several projectors that ship with overscan. Simply because "bad" video (tv, pre-dvd etc.) often has junk in the overscan area (since nobody sees it anyways).

As for 7S... the original aspect ratio should be 1.37:1 (Academy ratio) and while this is pretty freekin' close to 1.33:1 the window boxing MAY allow Critertion to present the entire image...

("ALL" Academy ratio films are cropped to 1.33:1 for DVD/TV, since the difference is slim...)

As for overscan... if you look at folks shooting films, you'll see a "square"/borders in their viewfinders/cameras. This is to show them what may be "unsafe" areas. Even theatres have overscan issues. And for video/tv there's a "standard" 5% overscan area on ALL sides (yes top, bottom, left, right).

Which makes it all the more depressing that dvd authoring studios have been CROPPING movies instead of making them windowboxed... since MOST folks have tv's with overscan that ADDs to the existing cropping on DVDs. (Which may explain why some folks are so very anti-HKL for their cropping... I think HKL crops about 2-3% to get rid of soft corners and what not on the "cheap" asian film stocks - and if you have a TV with "bad" overscan you are quickly talking around 10% cropping on all sides.)

Another example, most US 1.85:1 movies look like they fill the entire 16:9 frame on regular widescreen tellys... but 16:9 equals 1.78:1 ratio. But the overscan "fills it out".

bradavon · Post by **bradavon** » 28 Jun 2006, 18:40

gojensen wrote:Another example, most US 1.85:1 movies look like they fill the entire 16:9 frame on regular widescreen tellys... but 16:9 equals 1.78:1 ratio. But the overscan "fills it out".

That's the same for PAL media too I believe.

romerojpg wrote:overscan is senseless shit to me and a joke. There is no need for any equipment to not display all of the image you feed it.

I always thought overscan was an issue because of the plastic around the edge of a TV (i.e - the glass fitting inside the plastic). You can't exactly remove that now can you.

Luckily for me I couldn't really give a shit about over scan.

romerojpg · Post by **romerojpg** » 28 Jun 2006, 18:52

You dont give a shit? and you call your self a film fan

People moan about aspect rations that are slightly wrong etc (including you at times).. when overscan does more damage than some dvd reframing ever could, I cannot even read subtitles and credits on some films! and on screen captions can be hell when the words are missing of the side.

bradavon · Post by **bradavon** » 28 Jun 2006, 21:05

Of course if the subs/credits are cut off that's bad.

including you at times

Have I? Any examples you can think of?

I don't give a cats meow about 1.85:1 down to 1.78:1. I have moaned about 2.35:1 don't to 2.00:1 (Apocalypse Now) but that's not remotely minor.

I remember all that talk about Police Story and Police Story 2 that seemed to go on forever.

Killer Meteor · Post by **Killer Meteor** » 28 Jun 2006, 21:45

Police Story was squished to 2.45:1 and Police Story 2 was massively cropped from 2.35:1 to around 2.00:1 and then squished and matted to 2.27:1.

I don't mind windowboxing on films at all because it preserves the image better without it being compromised by overscan, so no chopped off credits or anything. One bizzare case of windowboxing that I do not like was on Tartan's Hard Boiled Collector's Edition, where the opening credits are windowboxed to the ludicrous extent that they look like a non-anamorphic widescreen picture being viewed in 4:3 mode on a 16:9 TV

gojensen · Post by **gojensen** » 29 Jun 2006, 07:45

bradavon wrote:
gojensen wrote:Another example, most US 1.85:1 movies look like they fill the entire 16:9 frame on regular widescreen tellys... but 16:9 equals 1.78:1 ratio. But the overscan "fills it out".
That's the same for PAL media too I believe.

Ah, but I said US movies. Not NTSC media. Thing is, historically, Europeans have used film stock that resulted in approx 1.66:1 ratios wereas Da Amerikans have used stock/cropping that would result in 1.85:1 ratios. So for a European film to fill the 16:9 PAL/NTSC full frame you'd have to do some hard cropping.

The above is the reason that, for instance, Criterion released RoboCop as 4:3 letterboxed at 1.66. Paul Verhoeven shot the film on 1.66 film stock and Criterion and Verhoeven wanted to present as much picture as possible. And while they could have opened/closed the mattes to fit a 16:9/1.85:1 ratio (as MGM did) it's my understanding that the special effects shots were HARDCROPPED (i.e. the cropping was done on the camera and negatives) and would have resulted in the SFX shots all being "overly" cropped...

Which all reminds me... I need to rewatch that

bradavon · Post by **bradavon** » 29 Jun 2006, 19:18

You can get 1.66:1 anamorphic though.

Ivan Drago wrote:Police Story 2 was massively cropped from 2.35:1 to around 2.00:1 and then squished and matted to 2.27:1.

That doesn't sound good. I didn't know it was cropped that much. I've only seen the Deltamac DVD and thought the film was "mostly" dull so it doesn't bother me.

gojensen · Post by **gojensen** » 07 Jul 2006, 09:06

bradavon wrote:You can get 1.66:1 anamorphic though.

Yeah if you "window box" it (ie. add borders to the left and right of the image...).

Killer Meteor · Post by **Killer Meteor** » 07 Jul 2006, 09:32

bradavon wrote:You can get 1.66:1 anamorphic though.

Ivan Drago wrote:Police Story 2 was massively cropped from 2.35:1 to around 2.00:1 and then squished and matted to 2.27:1.
That doesn't sound good. I didn't know it was cropped that much. I've only seen the Deltamac DVD and thought the film was "mostly" dull so it doesn't bother me.

http://web12.dvd2web.de/police/police.htm

Yeah, it's that bad

bradavon · Post by **bradavon** » 07 Jul 2006, 18:26

Thanks. That's some cropping for PS2.

HungFist · Post by **HungFist** » 21 Aug 2006, 14:04

The new Criterion in comparison:
http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film/DVDCompar ... amurai.htm