New Route 66 set is screwed up

[bencasey]

Fake widescreen. These people are morons. What the hell are they thinking. I really want to watch the show with black on the top and bottom of the screen with the people's heads chopped off. Idiots.

[Michael]

WIDESCREEN TV's...

sad, very sad...

us 50's & 60's TV fanatics just can't win between the miserable PD stuff to the edited music, cut shows, etc...

we don't get no respect...

I can see it now...all the mad rush for a butchered widescreen BLACK & WHITE 60's TV shows...

:biglaugh:

Morons is too nice! I can't say how I really feel.

I was really counting on a better picture on the already insulting SPLIT season releases!!!!

SPLIT SEASONS...another GREEDY practice in the TV on DVD world that jars my azz...

[Steve Hoffman]

Fake widescreen. These people are morons. What the hell are they thinking. I really want to watch the show with black on the top and bottom of the screen with the people's heads chopped off. Idiots.

Are you kidding? Wow. That's bad news.

[Michael]

Are you kidding? Wow. That's bad news.

check out http://www.hometheaterforum.com/htf/sd-dvd-tv-shows-tv-movies/256967-best-route-66-a-10.html

[TimM]

This is getting to be very frustrating. I really enjoyed the first set although the picture quality was just a step up from a public domain release. I think I would have prefered that again if I had to choose instead of someone deciding to chop off the top and bottom of the picture.:shake:

You would think that if someone decided to make their living in that buisness they would actually have some interest in the stuff they are working on and take the time to do it right. To me this would be the same as if Steve got a chance to remaster Abbey Road and released it with gaps between all the songs on side two because he either didn't care or wasn't familiar with the album.

[John DeAngelis]

check out http://www.hometheaterforum.com/htf/sd-dvd-tv-shows-tv-movies/256967-best-route-66-a-10.html

A post from that site:
I cannot believe these people. They must be total imbeciles. So, they corrected the print problem and got nice quality 35mm prints and then they screw it up by putting it in fake widescreen. I can't even watch it with black bars on the top and bottom of the screen cutting off the top and bottom of the picture. And how did the first couple of posters in this forum not notice this? Did they think the picture was supposed to be chopped off? Anyway, here is the number for Stephanie, who is Kirk Halam's assistant at Roxbury. I would suggest as many people as possible call and give them a piece of your mind. The number is 310-393-4006. Unbelievable.

[Jack White]

Doesn't the DVD give the viewer the option of a 'full screen' view (which was the original aspect ratio)?

[bencasey]

[QUOTE=TimM;3223545]This is getting to be very frustrating. I really enjoyed the first set although the picture quality was just a step up from a public domain release. I think I would have prefered that again if I had to choose instead of someone deciding to chop off the top and bottom of the picture.:shake: [QUOTE]

I agree. The beastly prints they used did not get me nearly as aggravated as this. I have a zoom feature on my DVD player that I can use to get a full picture but then it cuts off the sides of the image. Wonderful. Just when I was thinking how they save me 100+ hours of work by not having to transfer my off-air tapes of the show, this happens. Oh well, time to pull out those Super Beta Nick at Nite masters. As someone else said on HTF, what's in store for the next season, colorization?:realmad:

[il pleut]

well that's the mentality. the people i know with wide screen tvs watch everything in widescreen, whether it's presented that way or not. somehow it doesn't bother them that everyone looks fat and things are totally out of proportion. they would rather have that than the blank screen on the sides.

it's a shame that the people who know better have to suffer.

[The Wanderer]

it doesn't bother them that everyone looks fat and things are totally out of proportion. they would rather have that than the blank screen on the sides.

Those people should get themselves a Winky Dink screen and crayons.

[John DeAngelis]

This is getting to be very frustrating. I really enjoyed the first set although the picture quality was just a step up from a public domain release....


They've recently been braggin that they've remedied this problem by locating better prints. Then they go and screw it up a brand new way.
Really stupid! If you can't make it better, don't make it worse.

[jstraw]

Lord love a duck. 4:3 is 4:3 fercryinoutloud!

[JohnBeas]

Theres still so many people that just don't understand aspect ratios but you'd think someone who's in the business would know better and not make such a huge mistake. I don't know how many times I've been in Best Buy and heard a customer say (when buying a DVD) "I don't want the one with those black bars - I hate those". Just wait until they buy a widescreen TV and find all those DVD's they own now have black bars on the sides! Of course those are the same people who will just stretch the picture and think it looks great.

[Vidiot]

So, they corrected the print problem and got nice quality 35mm prints and then they screw it up by putting it in fake widescreen. I can't even watch it with black bars on the top and bottom of the screen cutting off the top and bottom of the picture.
Ideally, in a 16x9 transfer of a 4x3 picture, what would be done is that the full left & right information would be preserved, but then a technician would (tastefully, we hope) "tilt and scan" the image, keeping the headroom right as much as possible but cutting off the bottom of the frame.

Like it or not, there's a resistance to 4x3 (aka 1.33) aspect ratios on widescreen TV sets. Every TV store I've ever been into insists on "fattenizing" the picture, squeezing the left and right edges out to fill the screen. Some people seem frightened of the idea of watching a small squarish 4x3 picture in the middle of the frame, believing -- incorectly -- that this wastes the left and right parts of the screen with empty black borders.

HDNet is one of the services that demands that all master tapes they air must be in 16x9, and they resist even 2.40 or 1.85 letterboxed tapes. When I did a bunch of mastering tests on Twilight Zone for Image Entertainment a few years ago, we had several discussions on what aspect ratio to transfer the show in, and they agreed that 1.33 was the only way to go. But I know that eventually, somebody's going to take all the flat 1.33 TV shows and movies and force them into a 16x9 aspect ratio.

In the case of Route 66, the mistake that mastering company apparently made was to try a "one size fits all" size, which will inevitably result in slicing off the tops of actors heads. That's completely unacceptable. But I see decisions like this as being inevitable for the widescreen HD future.

[Highway Star]

Gee whiz, aren't there any adults in charge anymore...

[jstraw]

Ideally, in a 16x9 transfer of a 4x3 picture, what would be done is that the full left & right information would be preserved, but then a technician would (tastefully, we hope) "tilt and scan" the image, keeping the headroom right as much as possible but cutting off the bottom of the frame.

Like it or not, there's a resistance to 4x3 (aka 1.33) aspect ratios on widescreen TV sets. Every TV store I've ever been into insists on "fattenizing" the picture, squeezing the left and right edges out to fill the screen. Some people seem frightened of the idea of watching a small squarish 4x3 picture in the middle of the frame, believing -- incorectly -- that this wastes the left and right parts of the screen with empty black borders.

HDNet is one of the services that demands that all master tapes they air must be in 16x9, and they resist even 2.40 or 1.85 letterboxed tapes. When I did a bunch of mastering tests on Twilight Zone for Image Entertainment a few years ago, we had several discussions on what aspect ratio to transfer the show in, and they agreed that 1.33 was the only way to go. But I know that eventually, somebody's going to take all the flat 1.33 TV shows and movies and force them into a 16x9 aspect ratio.

In the case of Route 66, the mistake that mastering company apparently made was to try a "one size fits all" size, which will inevitably result in slicing off the tops of actors heads. That's completely unacceptable. But I see decisions like this as being inevitable for the widescreen HD future.

It's time for someone to do for "pillaring" what the informational short on TCM has done for letterboxing.

I will ONLY rent or buy widescreen DVDs of films that were shot in a widescreen format and I will ONLY rent or buy programming that was shot in 4:3 if they are still 4:3 on DVD.

As far as I'm concerned, there is no such thing as the right way to make 16:9 out of 4:3.

[Michael]

Doesn't the DVD give the viewer the option of a 'full screen' view (which was the original aspect ratio)?

...nope.:shake:

[bencasey]

Gee whiz, aren't there any adults in charge anymore...

Nope :shake:

[guy incognito]

In the case of Route 66, the mistake that mastering company apparently made was to try a "one size fits all" size, which will inevitably result in slicing off the tops of actors heads. That's completely unacceptable. But I see decisions like this as being inevitable for the widescreen HD future.
Unfortunately, you're right. It has nothing to do with the people making these things not knowing any better, and everything to do with the commercial imperatives of marketing to *consumers* who don't know any better, or don't give a damn.

It's time for someone to do for "pillaring" what the informational short on TCM has done for letterboxing.
It couldn't hurt. I'd start with the opening of Polanski's Chinatown (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLala2dkQXo) as Exhibit "A".

[SonicZone]

Are you kidding? Wow. That's bad news.
Wish we were, Steve.

The manager at the DVDPlanet Superstore in Rancho Cucamonga thought I was joking when I went back and told him about this.

Sub-par prints are bad enough, but this is beyond inexcusable !!!!!!! :realmad:

[balzac]

Beyond the obvious irony of this problem being sort of the opposite of the "average consumer" not wanting letterboxed stuff on their 4x3 TV's back in the day, I've been surprised that a lot of "home theater enthusiasts" that were so adament about "OAR" and anamorphic transfers for DVD in past years do not seem to be nearly as outspoken or concerned with 4x3 material being cropped for 16x9, whether it's for standard DVD or the HD formats.

I actually read a review of the "Star Trek" first season HD-DVD set where the reviewer seemed to only begrudingly admit that the material was in the proper 4x3 ratio, and added that it still would have been nice to have it in 16x9 to "fill the screen."

What's even more frustrating about cropping 4x3 material to 16x9 for people with 16x9 sets is that, at least when it comes to standard DVD players, most 16x9 sets have a "zoom" function that does the same thing. I suppose if the material is actually mastered in 16x9 that it will look a bit better than just zooming in on the 4x3 on the set, but the option to avoid "pillarboxing" is there nontheless.

I don't even care that much if studios want to release material cropped, zoomed, dubbed, colorized, or any with any other alteration as long as they also preserve and release the original version as well.

[apileocole]

But I see decisions like this as being inevitable for the widescreen HD future.

That's how professionals remove value from their positions; by doing work that's no more informed than "Joe off the street." Not to mention that some of those "Joes" really would do better work than the "professionals." The industry really has to be smarter, or it's just more expensive.

[John DeAngelis]

This link should lead to a blog that updates the Route 66 fiasco:

http://classictvhistory.wordpress.com/2008/02/14/86-this-66-the-tv-classic-route-66-hits-a-dead-end-on-the-hi-def-highway/

[R. Cat Conrad]

After reading this thread I sent an email to TVShowsOnDVD.com and linked this discussion. Since this TV Guide affiliated site is a sort of central clearing house for TV series information and they're in frequent contact with series producers their reports can have a far reaching impact.

Looks like I'll be returning my copy of Season 1 - Part 2 as defective when it arrives from Deep Discount. :sigh:

:cheers:
Cat

[runofthemill]

How completely aggravating and irresponsible.