The Force Awakens: 1.78:1 scenes in 2D? - with recreation of IMAX scene (Released) — Page 4

Dek Rollins said:

My problem with IMAX scenes is that the AR shift wouldn’t have to happen if they just did the whole thing in IMAX. Either use IMAX or don’t use IMAX.

Yall may disagree withme and call me an idiot, but even a movie in all IMAX format would suck IMO. The problem with cinemas today is the evolution of going from CIH to CIW. In the old days, and still in some cinemas today, but not many, You had a screen that was typically a Cinemascope AR (2.39:1) with curtains on each side and at the bottom. The bottom curtain was for that rare Super Panavision (2.75:1 AR). If the movie happened to be filmed in Panavision (2.20:1 AR), the curtains would draw in a bit to accomadate the AR. Or, if it was a Flat (1.85:1) they would draw in a bit more. Despite all of that, the height of the screen stayed the same. Now, more often than not, the width is the same but the height changes, which greatly redduces the experience and IMO is false advertisement. Example, I went to see “Logan” the other night. The ticket said “IMAX” and yes, it was in the IMAX theatre. But it wasnt IMAX. It was a 2.35:1 image projected on the IMAX screen.
As far as your question DEK, I say why not film the entire movie in 2.39:1 on 70mm Anamorphic IMAX? The human eyes naturally scan left to right, not up and down. If you had an IMAX size 2:39:1 screen, imagine how immersed youd be. I remember watching ROTJ in 70MM in an old classic theatre on opening day. The screen was originally a Cinerama (curved) screen that was renovated prior to Jedi, but they still kept some of the curve which made it even more immersive. Ill never forget it. I feel changing AR’s are directors being lazy. You can still convey size and height by changin the focal length of the lense or changing where you take the shot. I hate changing aspect ratio and I dont care for IMAX. Its nothing more than a glorified version of our TVs at home, actually not even as wide as our tvs at home. Thats completely counter to what our brains do naturally.

I disagree. I think square-er frames have been used beautifully, not just in the past, but even in recent years. Recent academy ratio films like Meek’s Cutoff, Fish Tank, American Honey, Ida for example. And the IMAX 15/70 format can be really impressive. If you get a chance, find an IMAX screening of Dunkirk this summer, that’s 80% IMAX apparently. Where I do agree with you is the misleading use of the “IMAX” brand to sell seats to 2K digital performances, which are rubbish. They’re confident that the younger generation are sufficiently confused about the distinction between film and digital that they can use their ‘gold standard’ name to market a whole range of sub-par products.
I also agree that Star Wars is an odd choice for IMAX 15/70. The open matte 15/70 sequence in TFA was gone in a jiffy and few people noticed. It was edited too quickly for it to be visually worthwhile. Plus Star Wars is a cinemascope property - it’s a strange choice to shoot chunks of it in 1.43:1.
I am however, happy that it forces Disney to release the films (in a few cities at least) on celluloid. That’s a good thing. They should consult Christopher Nolan on how to avoid digital intermediaries between the 35 and 70mm camera negatives and the release prints, so we get something that (vfx aside) hasn’t touched a computer. If they’re going to use full 15/70mm they should also talk to him about how to shoot action sequences a little slower so that massive image isn’t wasted.

Very jealous you saw Jedi in curved 70mm! But anamorphic IMAX wouldn’t be possible unfortunately, either in terms of designing the lenses, building the cinemas or getting projection bulbs bright enough.

AllAboutThatSpace said:

Very jealous you saw Jedi in curved 70mm! But anamorphic IMAX wouldn’t be possible unfortunately, either in terms of designing the lenses, building the cinemas or getting projection bulbs bright enough.

Yeh, It was a cool theatre here in town. When I got older it was one of my first jobs. I loved working there. The memories remind of the kid in “Last Action Hero”, although the theatre wasnt that ornate, but it still was a cool theatre. In the lobby, there was a wall of fame lined with pictures of movie stars that had visited there from 1940-1980ish along with two marble slabs that were signed by each star. Walt Disney signed it and drew Mickey and Donald next to his signature. Even Anthony Daniels signed it! The lady that worked the box office had been working there since the 50’s and was in nearly every picture in the background of the stars. It was very cool. Even after 30+ yrs working there, she only made minimum wage ($3.35 hr in 87’).
Yeh, I was more or lessing venting because of how theatres have takien a nosedive when it comes to design and advertising. The hardware is top notch, but they fall short on viewing medium. To add to your comment, I guess a 700mm IMAX anamorphic would be so wide at that size youd be hard pressed to see the whole screen. IMAX is great for documentaries or nature flicks, but Im old school and prefer the scope screens when it comes to movies. The least they could do is maintain CIH, thats what bugs me the most. This is the theatre I saw Jedi in.

Looks beautiful.

Love single screens. Miss the experience these days.

Can someone answer a question for me that I cant seem to find an answer to, even on Google. I feel stupid asking it becasue I should know it already. Im a bit confused when it comes to the term “non-anamorphic.” I often hear that the GOUT version is non-anamorphic, yet it looks no different than any other widescreen offering of SW.

In other words :
standard DVD resolution is 720x576(PAL) or 720x480(NTSC).
If you want to encode a widescreen picture to DVD, you can

1. pan and scan it and encode with “4:3” flag - thankfully not done anymore (I hope), basically cutting the left and right parts of the frame and moving the visible part so that you can see everything “important” in each scene
2. encode as a 4:3 image with black bars at the top and bottom, this is how the GOUT DVD is encoded. On a 4:3 TV it looks correctly, but who still uses a 4:3 TV in 2017 (except me in my bedroom)? On a 16:9 TV you get black bars on the left, the right (both generated by the player because you are projecting an “almost square” to a rectangle), and on the top and the bottom (actual part of the 4:3 image). So you have to find some other way how to crop the borders and stretch the visible middle part (usually TVs have a special mode for it), but it usually looks pretty bad
3. stretch the image and encode it with the 16:9 flag, this is what anamorphic DVDs do. The actual image is taller, but because the player knows it is supposed to be 16:9, it will stretch it automatically. Usually this leaves us with much better looking picture, because we had more “lines of information”

This is a pretty exhaustive (if semi-ancient) guide from The Digital Bits.

https://www.thedigitalbits.com/site_archive/articles/anamorphic/index.html

JEDIT: The pics no longer work so some of the utility is lost, I guess.

TV’s Frink said:

JEDIT: The pics no longer work so some of the utility is lost, I guess.

Just visit the non-secure, archived site for the pics to load: http://www.thedigitalbits.com/site_archive/articles/anamorphic/index.html

Thanks for the replies yall. Thats what I thought, but I wasnt quite sure. Basically a non-anamporphic disc will display in a 4:3 AR and when you stretch it all out to look right, youre basically enlarging the pixals which in turn degredates the image. To be honest, despite owning the GOUT, I dont think Ive ever watched it on my 16x9 TV. I wish the powers that be would offer scope copies along with the Bluray. That way youd get the full resolution instead of the 1920x860 or whatever it is.

Colson said:

BobaJett said:

Thanks for the replies yall. Thats what I thought, but I wasnt quite sure. Basically a non-anamporphic disc will display in a 4:3 AR and when you stretch it all out to look right, youre basically enlarging the pixals which in turn degredates the image. To be honest, despite owning the GOUT, I dont think Ive ever watched it on my 16x9 TV. I wish the powers that be would offer scope copies along with the Bluray. That way youd get the full resolution instead of the 1920x860 or whatever it is.

The Blu-rays do have the proper aspect ratio and resolution, despite their myriad other issues.

No, they don’t. At 1.78:1 they do, but a scope blue ray is roughly 1920x856 or so. When you watch that with a projector, you get a slightly less than ideal image compared to an anamorphic scope theatre experience.

BobaJett said:

Colson said:

BobaJett said:

Thanks for the replies yall. Thats what I thought, but I wasnt quite sure. Basically a non-anamporphic disc will display in a 4:3 AR and when you stretch it all out to look right, youre basically enlarging the pixals which in turn degredates the image. To be honest, despite owning the GOUT, I dont think Ive ever watched it on my 16x9 TV. I wish the powers that be would offer scope copies along with the Bluray. That way youd get the full resolution instead of the 1920x860 or whatever it is.

The Blu-rays do have the proper aspect ratio and resolution, despite their myriad other issues.

No, they don’t. At 1.78:1 they do, but a scope blue ray is roughly 1920x856 or so. When you watch that with a projector, you get a slightly less than ideal image compared to an anamorphic scope theatre experience.

Slight correction: you’re mixing up the vertical resolution of 2k with the horizontal of hd. Scope is 2048x856 for 2k cinema and 1920:817 for hdtv.

For 35mm film, traditional 2x anamorphic cinemascope is something like 1880x1550 for 2k.

Fang Zei said:

Slight correction: you’re mixing up the vertical resolution of 2k with the horizontal of hd. Scope is 2048x856 for 2k cinema and 1920:817 for hdtv.

For 35mm film, traditional 2x anamorphic cinemascope is something like 1880x1550 for 2k.

I thought 2k was 2048x1080. 16x9 HDTV is 1920x1080 and a scope film brings that down to 1920x860ish. If BD would come with an anamorphic scope disc (1920x1080), then you project with an anamorphic lense, youd have a 1920x1080 image which is better than the afor mentioned 1920x860ish image. Granted, to the average joe, theyre probably not gonna notice the difference. But for most folks here, the goal is to get as close as possible to the cinema experience in the home. The thing I dont understand is that 2k and 1080p are nearly the same, but considered different.

BobaJett said:

Fang Zei said:

Slight correction: you’re mixing up the vertical resolution of 2k with the horizontal of hd. Scope is 2048x856 for 2k cinema and 1920:817 for hdtv.

For 35mm film, traditional 2x anamorphic cinemascope is something like 1880x1550 for 2k.

I thought 2k was 2048x1080. 16x9 HDTV is 1920x1080 and a scope film brings that down to 1920x860ish. If BD would come with an anamorphic scope disc (1920x1080), then you project with an anamorphic lense, youd have a 1920x1080 image which is better than the afor mentioned 1920x860ish image. Granted, to the average joe, theyre probably not gonna notice the difference. But for most folks here, the goal is to get as close as possible to the cinema experience in the home. The thing I dont understand is that 2k and 1080p are nearly the same, but considered different.

You’re still mixing up the vertical of 2k with the horizontal of hdtv.

You are correct that 2048x1080 is 2k resolution, which is 1.89:1. HDTV is 1.78:1 (or 16:9), and is 1920x1080.

For movies framed in 2.35:1, the resolution is 2048x856 in 2k and 1920x817 in hdtv. Fitting the full width of the image into a slightly narrow frame (1.78:1 instead of 1.89:1) necessitates lowering the resolution slightly along both axes.

My dumbass is just now getting it! Duh! I wasnt thinking. Thank you for the correction, again. But, again, I am of the opinion still that it would be better if they released a scope disc for folks with anamorphic projectors. As is, like you said, a BD is 1920x816, similar to a 35mm Flat film print. A scope BD would be 1920x1080 and when unsqueezed, you’d have a better projected image than the BD we get now.

And software is quite capable of converting that for output. Look at DVD’s.

BobaJett said:

My dumbass is just now getting it! Duh! I wasnt thinking. Thank you for the correction, again. But, again, I am of the opinion still that it would be better if they released a scope disc for folks with anamorphic projectors. As is, like you said, a BD is 1920x816, similar to a 35mm Flat film print. A scope BD would be 1920x1080 and when unsqueezed, you’d have a better projected image than the BD we get now.

The BR spec in later revision has gotten better. But I remember when it first came out thinking the anamophic support sucked. I guess they were afraid of putting too much burden on the players, and I guess at the time HDMI spec wasn’t as good as it is now either. So for mass production we get stuck with things with backward compatibility.

Was it film or digital? The digital IMAX only opens up to 1.9:1.

May I ask if anyone has the Starz capture? If so, can you please send it to me?