GENERAL DISCUSSIONS

DVD Widescreen vs Full Screen

POSTED BY: RHUTTNER
UPDATED: Monday, September 22, 2003 18:39
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Monday, September 22, 2003 10:05 AM

RHUTTNER


Hey Browncoats,

I wrote to Amazon asking about why they are saying Full Screen when it was said it would be Widescreen. After going back and forth I got this:

Quote:


I have researched your question regarding the formatting of "Firefly - The Complete Series (2002)", and the information that I was able to
obtain, corresponds to the information on our web site.

According to our distributor, the version of this DVD that we have available is the full screen version.



I then called Fox Consumer. The person I spoke with said that the only information she has is a release date. All other details have not been released yet. When I mentioned that Amazon and other places have more detailed information she said that they have inside sources and really shouldn't have said anything. I asked if this could explain why they are saying wide when it was announced as full, she said yes.

In addition, she said that if it was filmed wide Fox would release it wide. Of course this is not true since Buffy was filmed wide starting in season 4 but Fox is releasing it full for region 1.


She said that the official press release will be at the end of October. I guess we will have to wait until then to get the final word on this.

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Monday, September 22, 2003 10:10 AM

BRTICK


I could have sworn Joss posted somewhere that is was going to be widescreen.

Keep Flying!

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Monday, September 22, 2003 10:19 AM

RHUTTNER


Quote:

Originally posted by BRTick:
I could have sworn Joss posted somewhere that is was going to be widescreen.

Keep Flying!



I think he said it at Comic-con and someone posted what he said. This is why I questioned Amazon and Fox.

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Monday, September 22, 2003 10:24 AM

MOOSE


Amazon is the only place I've seen it listed as Full-frame. I would be very, very disappointed if it's true.

Still ordered it though.

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Monday, September 22, 2003 10:55 AM

HAKEN

Likes to mess with stuffs.


For those having trouble visualizing, here are a couple of examples. The left is the 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen, which means that it's 1.78 times wider than it is tall. On the right is a pan and scan of the same screen on a standard TV.

On your $3000 widescreen TV:



On your standard TV:




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Monday, September 22, 2003 11:21 AM

HIPPYDOG


Affable Chap AKA Chris Buchanan (I hope)
Posted this on the Fox Forum.

http://forums.prospero.com/foxshows/messages?msg=7036.165

Quote:

To give you a quick response to a complicated subject...
The Firefly DVD will be in the 16:9 format (1.78:1).

I know that there are a multitude of issues surrounding the definitions of "letterbox" "widescreen" & "anamorphic" etc, but I'll be real practical here:

We shot the show on 35mm film in an aspect ration of 1.78:1 with a 1.33:1 (or 4:3) box to enable us to deliver both a "regular" TV version and a "widescreen" TV version to Fox Broadcasting. (Firefly was always conceived as a 16:9 show, but Fox, as a policy, does not broadcast any letterboxed shows. That being said, their HDTV broadcasts do go out widescreen.)

As for any differences in what you've already seen, we might have rendered some of the title work in 1.85:1 (anamorphic) but I really can't remember.

The bottom line is: What you are getting on DVD is what Joss intended: 16:9. No fake letterbox bars on a 4:3 show, no "panned and scanned" anything, just Serenity and her crew in glorious widescreen!

Hope that clarifies things.

Best,
Buchanan



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Monday, September 22, 2003 11:31 AM

MOOSE


Quote:


The bottom line is: What you are getting on DVD is what Joss intended: 16:9. No fake letterbox bars on a 4:3 show, no "panned and scanned" anything, just Serenity and her crew in glorious widescreen!

Hope that clarifies things.




I think my blood pressure is back to normal now.
Thanks for posting that.

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Monday, September 22, 2003 6:39 PM

GOATUS


the anamorphic thing kinda threw me off.. but if its 16:9 all is well ;)

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