Clint western DVDs in 16:9 widescreen

[bermuda]

Hi,

I just joined this forum becuase I ldig Clint's movies especially the early westerns and the dirty harry series.  I bought the 1st 5 westerns but guess i should hav fot the special editions because the only one with 16:9 widescreen is the good, bad & ugly.  The other movies say widescreen but they are 4:3 widescreen which I didn't realize they would call somting in 4:3 widescreen...  The othermovies I got are fistful, few dollars more, hang'em high, and high plains drifter.  Am I missing somthing or did I just buy the wrong editions?  Thanks

[KC]

4:3 isn't widescreen. It's "full screen" or "altered to fit your television." In the case of most of Clint's Westerns, that would mean "pan and scan," or missing nearly half the image information in each frame. Hang 'Em High is the exception, as its original theatrical aspect ratio was 1:85 to 1, so a 4:3 transfer would be "unmatted" and would show image information that was not intended for theatrical viewing.

I can't believe a version in this aspect ratio would be advertised as widescreen. Are you sure they aren't two-sided, with widescreen on one side and "full screen" on the other? I know that was the case with the original Region 1 releases of A Fistful of Dollars and Hang 'Em High.

Oh, and welcome to the Board! 

[bermuda]

The 1st 3 dvd's have the dual sided dvds with one side being "standard" and the other saying "widescreen" but the widescreens are just the letterboxed video stretched across a 4:3 window - i though it would be stretched across a 16:9 window.

[KC]

Well, that's confusing ... are you sure you have your DVD player and/or your TV set to display widescreen properly?

Here's how approximately the same frame of A Fistful of Dollars looks on the "standard" or "fullscreen" side of my Region 1 DVD:


... and on the "widescreen" side:

[bermuda]

Thanks for the reply - looking at both of your screenshots, both are still in the 4:3 sapect ratio - a 16:9 aspect ratio is wider which gives more room to stretch widescreen picture across.  If you look at the good, bad, ugly it is in 16:9 where fistful and few dollars more are not.  I'm just trying to see if the 2nd edition versions are in 16:9.

Thanks

[KC]

The IMAGE in the widescreen cap is 16:9. That's why so much more background is visible than in the "full-screen" cap where a 4:3 chunk has been cut out of the widescreen frame.

The black bars at the top and bottom of the widescreen cap are just to fill up the blank space in the typical (until recently) non-widescreen TV screen.

I think I know what you're saying, though. The Good, the Bad and the Ugly is an anamorphic DVD, also known as "enhanced for widescreen TVs." The image has been distorted (made taller and thinner) so that it can be stretched out to appear normal when it fills the wider screen width of a widescreen TV. That way, there's much more picture information in a given frame.

Whereas if you have a widescreen TV and you play back a regular (non-anamorphic) widescreen movie, it might show the image just in the central, 4:3 part of the screen with the black bars at top and bottom AND black or gray bars on the sides. There's probably a setting that will blow it up to fill out the screen horizontally, but the quality of the image will suffer.

Here are a couple of caps I made from The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. First, the distorted image in a 4:3 size frame (you might see it appear this way on your TV if the settings on the player or TV aren't correct):

Next, as it appears on 16 x 9 TVs:

This is from the collector's edition, but the original DVD release was also "enhanced for widescreen TVs," whereas the first DVD releases of the first two "Dollars" films (and High Plains Drifter) were not. Hang 'Em High WAS "enhanced for widescreen TVs," but since it's only 1.85:1 in the first place, the effect isn't so noticeable.

I hope that helps clear that up. There's more information here:

http://gregl.net/videophile/anamorphic.htm

http://www.dvdfile.com/news/special_report/production_a_z/anamorphic.htm

http://www.thedigitalbits.com/articles/anamorphic/anamorphic185demo.html

I don't have the other two "Dollars" films in the new collector's editions, but I'm pretty sure they are anamorphic. I'm sure someone who owns them will chime in soon to confirm this.

[bermuda]

Thanks - Hopefully someone will chime in on the collectors editions - I don't want to buy them unless the screen aspect ratio is different from the originals. 

[The Schofield Kid]

I'm a little lost when it comes to this aspect ratio jargon, all I can say it what it says on the back cover of the DVD's. Of course these are region 4 DVD's so it could be different for other regions.

Fistful Of Dollars: Presented in 2.35:1 Aspect Ratio (Approx)  16:9

For A Few Dollars More: Presented in 2.35:1 Aspect Ratio (Approx)  16:9

Hope this helps.

[KC]

Kid, do they also say "Enhanced for Widescreen TVs"? That's apparently the question here. It's the difference between the second Fistful Of Dollars cap, above, and the second The Good, the Bad and the Ugly cap.

[The Schofield Kid]

Kid, do they also say "Enhanced for Widescreen TVs"?

No, nothing about that, but I looked at some of my other fairly new release DVD's and "Enhanced for Widescreen TVs" isn't mentioned on any of them either.

[KC]

One way you could tell is to play the disc on your computer. If they're "enhanced for widescreen TVs," with the software players I've used, the player (assuming it's not in fullscreen mode) will expand to a 16 x 9 shape (like the second The Good, the Bad and the Ugly cap). If they're not "enhanced," the player will stay in the much more nearly square 4 x 3 shape.

You might find the word "anamorphic" on the DVD box, instead of "enhanced for widescreen TVs."

[The Schofield Kid]

"anamorphic" isn't on the DVD covers of Fistful of Dollars, For A Few Dollars More.

I checked a couple of other Eastwood DVD's and Hang 'Em High, Coogan's Bluff and Paint Your Wagon do say anamorphic widescreen.