TOS-R in Widescreen?

Therin, this board has gone over and over this argument for months. I don't feel like addressing the bulk of your asinine response, except to ask: when do you reckon they'll release the HD versions w/ original effects? I'd like to mark it on my calendar.

Mark my words: If they're not releasing it now, as an alternative to the new versions, they never will. In a few years, the original DVDs will be discontinued, the originals will not be syndicated, and the originals will never be seen by new fans. I'm hoping my DVDs will last many years...

Thanks,
Doug

 

That cropped footage looks horrible. Yeah, I'm sure the shots that aren't based on live action at all (e.g. space shots with all new SFx) will look fine. But once you're cropping the live footage it gets bad. Normally, I wouldn't mind so much for a TV show. However, the cinematography for TOS was so perfect. In most TV shows the "cinematography" is pretty bland, unnoticeable, but in TOS they really went the extra mile and did it amazingly. They did it better than any of the subsequent Trek series. It's a work of art that stands out, and this cropping ruins it.

I do think it's inevitable. I just hope you have the option to show the uncropped version. At least I've got my standard DVDs!

Mr Awe

 

Done.
Doug

 

Side note:

In ENT's final episode, footage from TNG ("Menage a Troi") is reused, but in widescreen. I have seen screencaps which seem to indicate that it was NOT cropped. How did they do that - since TNG was filmed in 4:3?

 

Were DS9 and Voyager also filmed in widescreen? I would buy all of these series if they were remastered in widescreen with updated effects.

And for TOS images where someone's head is cut off in a widescreen matting, I think it'd be possible to expand the image to 16:9 with cgi reconstructions. It'd be costly to do that for all the scenes, but for a few scenes where the chopping is really annoying.

 

No. Only ENT was filmed in 16:9.

 

I think you mean "filmed in 4:3 but cropped"...

 

This has got to end somewhere, They're already going in and creating all-new effects. Now we're talking about cropping original scenes? Deleting material that was carefully composed, shot by shot?

What if the contemporary aspect ratio changes yet again?

Why is wider better? Really, why? Does it help make our living rooms disappear? I still can look left and right, up and down, and tell that I am not on a starship.

What if a narrower, vertical screen is tomorrow's fashion?

If you can't get over the boundaries of the screen, here's a 1950s strategy: turn off all the lights.

 

HDTV is widescreen. That's why.

 

Looks Good, and much better....

 

Actually, it is correct that these shows were "filmed in widescreen and then cropped," at least in a sense.

TNG, Voyager, DS9 and most of Enterprise were all shot on 35 mm film. TOS was also shot on film, but I'm not sure if it was 16 mm or 35 mm. As a result, all of those shows captured the same widescreen image on the film that a movie would.

But when the director is choosing where to place the camera and how to compose his shots, he knows that it will be shown in 4:3 on TV, so there are lines marked on his monitor that indicate how much of the image will be viewable on the TV, and he composes the shots that way.

Therefore, while you could go back to the original film elements and pull an actual widescreen version, rather than just cropping the version we got, you'd get shots that were composed very differently than what the director intended. In some cases, you might even get things in the shot like lights and crewmembers, which the director let into that portion of the shot because he knew it wouldn't be shown on TV.

Personally, I'm a purist. I'm in favor of retaining whatever shot composition was originally created by the director for the film or TV show in question. On new productions being filmed today, I prefer to see everything done in widescreen. Actually, my personal preference is the really wide 2.35:1 aspect ration and not the 16:9 one. But I don't like changing things from the way they were originally intended.

For movies that were shot and composed in widescreen, I want to see them widescreen, even if that means seeing black bars on my TV. For TV shows that were composed for 4:3 screens, I want to see them in 4:3, even if that means seeing black bars on a new widescreen TV. And for things that were shot in relatively unusual ratios, like CinemaScope and VistaVision productions, I want to see those ratios retained.

 

Wider is better if you're taking a 4:3 image and adding the sides to make it wider--more picture. However, if you're making a 4:3 image into a 16:9 by cropping then all you're doing is losing image. Totally depends on the technique.

Mr Awe

 

No, there is an HD standard for 4:3 images. So, HDTV is widescreen, but it's also fullscreen.

Mr Awe

 

Technically, Babaganoosh is right. HDTV by definition uses a 16:9 screen. You are right, Mr Awe, that there is a digital television standard for a 4:3 screen. Actually there are many of them but the most common one is SDTV (Standard Definition TeleVision), which is a 4:3 screeen broadcasting in 480p. When your local station broadcasts something on the same frequency as their HDTV programming, like the local news or commercials, it is almost certainly in SDTV. The initials HDTV are reserved for 16:9 broadcasts in 720p or 1080i.

 

Negative. All HDTV broadcasts must be, by definition, 16:9.

Now some *digital* TV might be 4:3. But not all digital is HD.

All HD is digital, but not all digital is HD.

 

Very informative post, Therin, but I have to nitpick the lines quoted above. Some people on the AVS forums are already whining about seeing black bars on their HDTVs for 2.35:1 material. I don't know how vocal they'll get, or if the content manufacturers will listen, but it's possible that we'll still endure cropped material...chopping off the sides of a 2.35:1 film to "fit" a 16:9 TV.

Doug