Seeing Movies In Their OAR

[Geekazoid]

Hi guys,

You can probably guess from title of this thread what this thread will be about <— Stating the obvious?(probably).

Okay, let me get straight to the point (and yes, this is a bit of a rant).

Ever noticed when you're watching a movie on Free-To-Air or cable TV that they all seem to be shown in 16:9 or 1.78:1 aspect ratio? At least here in Australia they do. And it gets you wondering whether or not the movie was actually originally shot in 16:9 or wider (like 2.35:1 or 21:9). I often find myself looking up the movie on IMDB and will often find that, in fact, the movie wasn't filmed in 1.78:1 but rather 2.35:1 and this gets me kind of annoyed and frustrated.

We all know why these TV and cable networks do it, don't we? It's because many people have often complained that the picture wasn't filling their whole 16:9 TV screen and that there were black bars at the top and bottom. So, to solve this problem these networks started to crop every movie that was wider than 16:9 to 16:9 and as a result you lost 35% of the picture.

To this day they still do this and it really is quite ridiculous. I remember watching a movie the other month where their was a scene where the the picture was quite clearly framed for 2.35:1 but was shown in (yep, you guessed it 16:9) and the actors faces were pretty much cut quite a fair bit off and you couldn't really see the actors reactions to what each one was talking to each other about. This just got me thinking, really? They really thought it looked good to crop such a scene to 16:9. This just had me shaking my head out of pure ridiculousness of such a stupid thing they chose to do.

I just don't understand why we, as the viewers and customers of such cable companies, have to put up with this. What they should do at the start of every movie is show a title card explaining to the viewer that the following movie is presented in a wider aspect ratio than their TV and as such there will be black bars top and bottom on their TV. That way the OAR (Original Aspect Ratio) of the movie could shown and every viewer would know why they're seeing black bars top and bottom on their TV. I think it would then make all viewers happy because they would know that they're seeing the whole picture as original shot by the producer or director and there would be no need for cropping each 2.35:1 movie to 16:9.

I'd be interested to know your thoughts on this guys. Do you find the same thing annoying?

Let me know what you think down below.

[Guest]

Oh wow, that sucks. I've actually never heard of that happening and I'm 100% certain that it doesn't happen over here. I can totally understand why you're pissed off about this, because it's just bs. Give them hell and/or simply cut the wire and go without television, they don't have the right to alter the original experience, especially not in such a ridiculous way. That reminds me of germany in the 80s and 90s when they would simply cut scenes from movies that were too violent (they cut commando and Terminator to ~60 minutes, I think).

[Volbet]

Couldn't you set your TV to show the movie in 21:9? Usually the cropping is done by your own TV, and not by the cable company/TV station. 

[Geekazoid]

Couldn't you set your TV to show the movie in 21:9? Usually the cropping is done by your own TV, and not by the cable company/TV station.

No, in this case it is most definitely the TV/Cable networks doing it. I'm quite technically minded about this stuff and I know it is the networks doing it.

[Geekazoid]

Oh wow, that sucks. I've actually never heard of that happening and I'm 100% certain that it doesn't happen over here.

You're lucky.

I can totally understand why you're POed about this, because it's just BS.

Yeah, it is, definitely. If a movie is filmed in 2.35:1 then I want to see it in 2.35:1 not 16:9.

Give them hell and/or simply cut the wire and go without television, they don't have the right to alter the original experience, especially not in such a ridiculous way.

Hmm...well since I'm not the one paying I can't really do much. Plus most people don't really understand anyway.

That reminds me of germany in the 80s and 90s when they would simply cut scenes from movies that were too violent (they cut commando and Terminator to ~60 minutes, I think).

Heck! That's a good 30 minute cut on Commando and a good 47 minute cut on The Terminator. That's ridiculous. Did the movies seem disjointed at all?

[aliendejoe]

The cropping actually comes (stupidly) from the studio, this 16:9 video transfers are the ones actually used by cable/tv stations, minor studios from emergent markets, even netflix, actually most of them are 1080i instead of 1080p.

Sadly, this is what the 80% of the people want, they don't care if the director filmed it in 2.35:1, 1.78:1 or 1.33:1. The only thing they care about is viewing the picture without black bars, you can explain to them that it losses image and all but, again sadly, some people won't understand and some won't even care.

And then there's 16:9 Open Matte, where it doesn't looses image, but actually gains it. They (the studio again) just reframe the film, if a director chooses to film in 2.35:1 they film the entire 16:9 picture and then later frame the 2.35:1 giving a more cinematic feeling to the film. In Open Matte they just don't frame the picture en wide mode, they let the film stay with more information on screen. This is not the director theatrical choice of his film, but they undestand that the studio needs this 16:9 transfers for home television.

One of the reasons I don't watch movies on tv.