Star Trek: Origins blu ray question

[numberone1989]

Hi everyone,

My first post on this great forum, I'm looking forward to having some great Trek chats in the near future ha ha!!!

I've got a question for you first though:

I brought the Star Trek Origins blu ray last week (the one disc compilation that has "The Cage" "Where No Man's Gone Before" "Space Seed" and some others as a taster for the original series on blu ray). I brought it primarily because it clearly says on the box "1080p High Definition Full Frame" so I took this to mean the episodes are presented in full screen, as oppossed to cropped 4:3 as the other blu ray sets are for the Originals and TNG box sets.

I put it in my player, and the episodes are cropped 4:3 versions. The meus are full screen, that's not an issue, but the episodes are 4:3.

Basically I think I'm gonna get a refund, but does anyone who has this able to get the episodes as full screen, or was this false advertising on the packaging?

Thanks, I'd appreciate a quick reply as I'm out shopping Thursday UK time so I'll get a refund then.

 

[Warped9]

TOS, like all shows of that time and up until the late '90s and early 2000s, were shot in 4:3 rather than 16:9 widescreen. In 4:3 you are getting the complete image. If what you have are the TOS-R episodes then the new f/x scenes might be in widescreen (I can't speak to that), but the remaining live-action footage will still be 4:3.

If they were to crop TOS to have a widescreen picture than you would lose part of the image on the top and bottom because there is no existing materiel to add to the footage for it to be widened.

Back in the day only feature films were shot in widescreen, but leter (after their run in the theatre) they were usually edited in "pan and scan" for them to be shown on television because for decades all televisions were 4:3 CRT sets (otherwise you'd have these black bars at the top and bottom of the screen). Widescreen television shows are a relatively recent thing going back only to the early 2000s and the introduction of flatscreen televisions.

Back in the day a lot of people didn't care for seeing widescreen images on their 4:3 CRT televisions because they had this perception they were missing something. They weren't, but the picture did look smaller because the film's 16:9 ratio couldn't fill a 4:3 screen and the perception persisted. Today it's similar in that a 4:3 image can't fill a 16:9 flatscreen unless you stretch (distort) the image or lose part of the top and bottom of the image.

For TOS 4:3 is the way it is.

 

[BillJ]

4:3 is what Full Frame is. 16:9 is considered widescreen. All Star Trek shows, except Enterprise were presented in 4:3 when they originally aired.

The black bars are supposed to be there.

 

[numberone1989]

Thanks for the info guys about 4:3 and widescreen. So, full frame is for 4:3 and not widescreen, that's where I went wrong then!!!

So, for example if you see recent WW2 documentaries with old '40s footage, how come that is in widescreen for something much older and other shows like Trek can't be?

It's funny, when Nimoy died, there was a report with old Original Series footage in widescreen from the BBC, so I thought this 'Origins' disc is where they got it from. I wonder where they did get it from, if it's not commercially available?

Thanks for your help, that'll save me some money for the future....

 

[F. King Daniel]

They just chop the top and bottom off, like using the "zoom" mode (usually on your TV's aspect menu) when watching something in 4:3

 

[BillJ]

Thanks for the info guys about 4:3 and widescreen. So, full frame is for 4:3 and not widescreen, that's where I went wrong then!!!

So, for example if you see recent WW2 documentaries with old '40s footage, how come that is in widescreen for something much older and other shows like Trek can't be?

Depends on the cameras they were using and where the footage was meant to be shown. Of course, the footage could've been cropped.

American TV was pretty much all 4:3 until the turn of the century.

It's funny, when Nimoy died, there was a report with old Original Series footage in widescreen from the BBC, so I thought this 'Origins' disc is where they got it from. I wonder where they did get it from, if it's not commercially available?

I know they aired it in Japan in 16:9, but I don't think it was ever released that way.

Is there a reason that you can't watch the show in it's native 4:3 presentation? You can always try the 'Zoom' feature on your TV it will fill the screen but cut off the top and bottom of the image.

 

[numberone1989]

It always annoys me 4:3, why have the big screen but not use it all?

I didn't know that's how old stuff is presented in widescreen, I thought they'd discovered a whole new remastering process!!!

 

[numberone1989]

I tried zooming anyway, it just stayed the same with the bars. Thanks for everyone's input!

 

[BillJ]

It always annoys me 4:3, why have the big screen but not use it all?

How do you watch movies? Many have the black bars on the top and bottom.

 

[Warped9]

It always annoys me 4:3, why have the big screen but not use it all?

I didn't know that's how old stuff is presented in widescreen, I thought they'd discovered a whole new remastering process!!!

Modern flatscreen televisions allow you to "fit to screen" so when you get a 4:3 image it's stretched to fit the 16:9 screens. This is a distorted image. You can get used to it, but when you go back to watching something that really is 16:9 then you really see how distorted your "fit to screen" image was.

Even today's flatscreens can have black bars on the top and bottom with some films that were shot on film larger (or wider) than 16:9.

Even if you grew up watching 4:3 for decades you can still occasionally find it a bit jarring from getting so used to contemporary widescreen.

 

[Stevie Trek]

My Blu-ray set is about halfway between 3:4 and Widescreen (maybe 14:9, but I'm not sure). The black bars down the sides are narrower than in 3:4, which made me think that the picture was zoomed in, but I compared it with a DVD and found that this isn't the case. We're getting extra picture information at the sides which wasn't seen in the original broadcasts nor on the tapes or DVDs. You can see the difference if you compare the two versions of The Cage on the last disc in the Season 3 set. The mixed colour/black and white version with Gene Roddenberry's introduction is 4:3 while the restored full colour version is in the wider ratio like the other episodes. Good shots to compare are the close-ups of the Enterprise viewscreen. I've never seen this mentioned anywhere and they're always advertised as 3:4

 

[BillJ]

My Blu-ray set is about halfway between 3:4 and Widescreen (maybe 14:9, but I'm not sure). The black bars down the sides are narrower than in 3:4, which made me think that the picture was zoomed in, but I compared it with a DVD and found that this isn't the case. We're getting extra picture information at the sides which wasn't seen in the original broadcasts nor on the tapes or DVDs. You can see the difference if you compare the two versions of The Cage on the last disc in the Season 3 set. The mixed colour/black and white version with Gene Roddenberry's introduction is 4:3 while the restored full colour version is in the wider ratio like the other episodes. Good shots to compare are the close-ups of the Enterprise viewscreen. I've never seen this mentioned anywhere and they're always advertised as 3:4

You have a very unique set then, as all of the episodes I have on Blu-ray are 4:3 (all three seasons). As were the DVD's I owned.

I wonder if your player is doing something weird?

 

[Starborn Dragon]

We need to experience Star Trek TOS in an Imax.