Spider-Man 2 UMD Aspect Ratio!

gasteropod · Post by **gasteropod** » 14 Oct 2005, 00:56

I received Spider-Man 2 this morning for free for my PSP because I registered, and I noticed that the aspect ratio is 1.85:1 as opposed to the DVD which is 2.35:1. I was annoyed at first - until I compared the two. The UMD version has more picture information! It must be 'open matte' or something. I don't know why the DVD (and theatrical version) are in 2.35:1 anyway, since the first film is 1.85:1.

thelostdragon · Post by **thelostdragon** » 14 Oct 2005, 01:54

Didn't get mine, yet.

How can there be more picture information if it is in 1.85:1?

Markgway · Post by **Markgway** » 14 Oct 2005, 02:19

Spidey 2 was shot Super 35. So basically the UMD has less matting. However, the theatrical/DVD ratio is clearly director intended. Sounds like a fuck-up of sorts.

gojensen · Post by **gojensen** » 14 Oct 2005, 07:13

Nah, I don't think they'll be doing scope films on the psp - thinking that people won't want even smaller pictures. As for Super 35 and open matte... I DOUBT they did the effects shots for full frame. They usually do those only for the intended theatrical aspect ratio as doing otherwise would increase CGI and SFX cost by 30-40% or something (? at least take more time

)

I got mine aswell, and I only need an excuse to watch it now... at home I won't as I have my home theatre... and I seldom travel for 2 hours... Guess I'll be saving it for a vacation or something (though then I guess my kid will be constantly be grabbing for the PSP

)

tom2681 · Post by **tom2681** » 14 Oct 2005, 09:44

As for Super 35 and open matte... I DOUBT they did the effects shots for full frame.

Actually I can confirm that they did it for The Lord of The Rings.
Most effects shots were done for full frame and then cropped to 2:35.

gasteropod · Post by **gasteropod** » 14 Oct 2005, 21:11

thelostdragon wrote:Didn't get mine, yet.

How can there be more picture information if it is in 1.85:1?

As I said, it may be open matte. Imagine a 1.85:1 image. Now put black bars at the top and bottom of it. Voila, you have 2.35:1.

EvaUnit02 · Post by **EvaUnit02** » 16 Oct 2005, 00:56

Some distributors are doing uncropped 2.35:1 films on UMD. Eg Di$ney released Hero in it's full OAR.

gasteropod · Post by **gasteropod** » 16 Oct 2005, 14:46

EvaUnit02 wrote:Some distributors are doing uncropped 2.35:1 films on UMD. Eg Di$ney released Hero in it's full OAR.

Yeah there are 2.35:1 ones, but Spider-Man 2 isn't cropped at all.

gojensen · Post by **gojensen** » 17 Oct 2005, 09:52

As for Lord of the Rings... I think they pulled an ANTS on that one... I.e. reframing somestuff for fullscreen instead of simply cropping the original for the theaters... I still don't like no matter if I see more... (though I can barely tolerate an opening to allow for 16:9 frames from scope films... but I simply loathe watching movies in the squared box of tellys 4:3).

To see this in effect visit http://www.widescreen.org/examples.shtml

There are a few shots from FoTR where you gain some slight info on top/bottom of the frame, but for the most part it's just another cramped up p&s crop job...

gasteropod · Post by **gasteropod** » 17 Oct 2005, 14:27

I know they did that for A Bug's Life on the fullscreen version.

EvaUnit02 · Post by **EvaUnit02** » 17 Oct 2005, 20:25

Yeah, Sony is cropping all their scope films for UMD. Reportedly the UMD version of Ghostbusters is completely rooted and Ivan Reitman would probably disapprove of the release, judging by how much he went on about how the film was framed for scope in the DVD commentary.

UMD is the biggest crock-of-shit Home entertainment medium since video tape. For one the obvious cropping of scope films (and probably stuff with 4:3 OAR too) to fit the PSP's 1.78:1 screen. UMD only hold like 1.8GB, imagine how bad the quality is since they have trouble with DVD transfers where they have like 8-9GB to play with. Also who the fuck wants to watch a movie on such a tiny screen?

gasteropod · Post by **gasteropod** » 17 Oct 2005, 20:51

The picture quality on Spider-Man 2 is great, actually. But on night time scenes you can see pixellation in the black, but you can on a lot of DVDs.

thelostdragon · Post by **thelostdragon** » 17 Oct 2005, 22:35

I've watched lots of stuff on the PSP by now and it was mostly converted DVDs (DVD -> avi -> to mp4). The videos get about 500 - 700 MBs and they all looked very acceptable. The advantage of putting films on the memory stick is that you avoid the cropping, which UMDs supposedly have.

Also who the fuck wants to watch a movie on such a tiny screen?

It's not that I watch movies on it when I'm at home, but I'm not carrying my home cinema with me in the train on my way to work, lol.

bradavon · Post by **bradavon** » 28 Oct 2005, 18:55

The thing is for such a small screen 2.35:1 would look pretty dire! IMO

IronMonkey · Post by **IronMonkey** » 28 Oct 2005, 20:38

EvaUnit02 wrote:UMD is the biggest crock-of-shit Home entertainment medium since video tape. For one the obvious cropping of scope films (and probably stuff with 4:3 OAR too) to fit the PSP's 1.78:1 screen. UMD only hold like 1.8GB, imagine how bad the quality is since they have trouble with DVD transfers where they have like 8-9GB to play with. Also who the fuck wants to watch a movie on such a tiny screen?

I'm not defending Sony's new UMD invention (in fact I hate the company!), but think about what you just said regarding disc capacity.

The PSP display native resolution is 480x272. Compare this to a PAL DVD which is 720x576, or an NTSC DVD which is 720x480. Each frame of video on a UMD disc is much smaller than on a DVD, so therefore the video bitrate does not need to be as high.

This means the same film can fit onto a much smaller data footprint, hence the smaller capacity of the UMD disc.

I hope that makes sense to you.

Markgway · Post by **Markgway** » 28 Oct 2005, 20:40

PSP = The Emperor's New Clothes?

IronMonkey · Post by **IronMonkey** » 28 Oct 2005, 20:49

Eh? No!

PSP = PlayStation Portable!