MovieChat Forums > Screamers (1996) Discussion > Aspect ratio

Aspect ratio

posted 16 years ago by Spifflock_Holmes
7 replies | jump to latest

I finally found the answer to a question I asked on these boards a while back, and it was right under my nose the whole time.

This movie's main page lists its aspect ratio as 1.37:1. I had noticed that my US-release full-screen DVD contains more visual information than the UK-release anamorphic widescreen DVD -- in other words, the full-screen image isn't a panned-and-scanned version of the widescreen, but the widescreen image appears to be created from the full-screen by cropping at the top and bottom.

Now, I know that many films are shot at aspect ratios of 4:3 and then cropped to make the widescreen version for theatrical release (Cameron does this regularly, for instance), and full-screen DVD releases sometimes use that original footage rather than pan-and-scan. (Cyborg and Terminator 3 are two examples that come to mind -- the latter primarily because the full-screen DVD shows more of Kristanna Loken than the widescreen one does.)

But ordinarily IMDb lists the final theatrical aspect ratios for those films. So I was confused by the fact that IMDb lists this film's aspect ratio as 1.37:1 and I wondered if somehow the full-screen version had been the intended version.

Turns out if you click on more (duhh), you get the full story:

Aspect ratio
1.37 : 1 (negative ratio)
1.85 : 1 (intended ratio)

So the main page is simply displaying the first aspect ratio listed in its database record for the film.

Which means my original suspicion was right: the US full-screen version is a transfer of the original footage, and the UK widescreen version is the one the director intended us to see (and therefore the one I want to see).

I'll probably keep the full-screen version anyway, just in case I ever again watch it on a 4:3 TV; if I'm going to have extra space at the top and bottom of the screen image, I may as well have it filled with additional image information rather than black bars. But I'm glad to know the anamorphic widescreen version is the one Dugai meant us to watch.

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The early bird gets the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.

[–] Spifflock_Holmes 16 years ago

And a slight correction, as I did a much more careful shot-by-shot comparison last night by playing both DVDs simultaneously on separate players:

The aspect ratio on the full-screen Region 1 DVD is of course 4:3, and it appears that IMDb is correct that the aspect ratio in which the movie was originally shot is slightly higher than this (1.37:1). As compared with the widescreen (Region 2) version, the images are slightly cropped on the left and right.

So I wasn't quite correct that the full-screen DVD just is a transfer of the original footage. It seems to have been made from the original footage, all right, but it was cropped a bit to take the aspect ratio down to 4:3.

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The early bird gets the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.

[–] J_Weezy 16 years ago

So, there is a higher aspect ratio version floating around out there?

[–] Spifflock_Holmes 16 years ago

Well, the only two releases I know about are the Region 2 one (widescreen, same as the theatrical release and apparently the one Duguay intended us to see), and the Region 1 (full-screen, very slightly cropped from the original footage).

I suppose there could be one with just the original footage in its 1.37:1 aspect ratio, but I'd be surprised. It would be almost full-screen but with very slim black bars at the top and bottom of the screen, and I don't see anybody going to the trouble of releasing such a thing, particularly since the theatrical release is the one the director intended.

But yes, it looks like the originally shot footage itself has a slightly higher aspect ratio than the full-screen DVD. I don't care too much myself because I want to see what the director intended us to see, and that's the 1.85:1 version.

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The early bird gets the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.

[–] J_Weezy 16 years ago

Dang, 1.85:1? So is that higher than 16:9 then? That's really wide, but good for a movie like Screamers, especially in those scenes outdoors with open expanses. For the fast action scenes as well.

[–] Spifflock_Holmes 16 years ago

Dang, 1.85:1? So is that higher than 16:9 then?

Technically yes, it's slightly higher, but that's because 1.85:1 is an aspect ratio for theatrical movies and 16:9 is for TVs. Any movie originally shown in 1.85:1 (which is a typical aspect ratio for modern movies) is going to appear in 16:9 on an anamorphic DVD release.

I believe that, depending on the TV, the left and right edges of the image may be clipped off slightly or the image may be unnoticeably squeezed to fit the screen.

With a Blu-Ray disc you'll probably get very thin black bars at the top and bottom of the screen. Current Blu-Rays aren't anamorphic because their native aspect ratio is 16:9 anyway (although there could in principle be anamorphic Blu-Ray in the future if we ever have super-widescreen TVs), which means that the original 1.85:1 image has to have a little bit of dead space added above and below it in order to make an image that precisely fills a 16:9 screen. (2.35:1 images work the same way but of course have bigger black bars.)

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The early bird gets the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.

[–] J_Weezy 16 years ago

Ah. ANd IDK if it pertains here, but have you heard of the format, Super HiVision?

[–] Spifflock_Holmes 16 years ago

Heard of it but don't know much about it. Isn't that the experimental super-high-definition format that has sixteen times the resolution of current HD?

If so, I'm not sure whether it pertains here or not -- it has the same native aspect ratio (16:9) as current HD (assuming pixels with equal width and height), just four times as many pixels each way. So depending what you have in mind, it may or may not have anything to do with what we're talking about.

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The early bird gets the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.