Cropping the Original Trilogy : 35mm vs dvd (gout) — Page 4

I apologize for having such a "newbie" question, but are the GOUT releases cropped because that's how the letterbox '93 transfers always looked on home video, or because they were always non-anamorphic to begin with? What would have happened had Lucasfilm made GOUT versions anamorphic on the 2006 DVD's? Because from the looks of it, it doesn't seem like we would have gotten more (horizontal) picture anyway if the '93 transfer was already cropped to begin with.

From reading this topic, it seems all home video releases of GOUT are cropped in one way or another =/

Anyways, I apologize if there is something I'm not understanding here. I still have a lot to learn about the various aspect ratios, and how classic films are adapted for home video (and how they were prior to more modern formats like DVD/BD).

Thanks you Harmy, very much appreciated.

Regarding GOUT, I remember reading in other threads that it was only the abbreviation for the 2006 releases of the original trilogy, and I slipped up when referring to the '93 transfer as GOUT in my above post. My bad!

OK, here's a comparison of a shot with the larger .866 x .732 camera aperture. Same color coding as before (along with dark green for the full .866 x .732 aperture).

Since this comes from one of the very dark, very blue frame scans, I color-corrected it in AviSynth to approximate the original theatrical timing, and did some brightness/contrast adjustment. Unfortunately, this completely blew out the seams in the ceiling lights, but whatever.

If this shot is any indication, the JSC (magenta) and Technidisc (yellow) were sometimes opened up into the area outside the .838 x .700 projection aperture. (This is probably why you can see the glows around the edges in the lightsaber composites.) I'm not yet sure how cropping was handled for scenes with both apertures, like the Mos Eisley stuff. I'll look at those later.

As you can see, the GOUT (cyan) again falls into the .838 x .700 area, off-center up and to the right. The GOUT always seems to be framed above and to the right of frame center. Also notice that none of the transfers show any of the picture outside the .838 x .700 aperture boundary on the right side (light green). Also, all of them are to the right of my hypothetical 5% cropping at .838 x .700 (which I've noticed in my other comparisons).

Great pics. Is there a chance you will release also a version which will be not cropped at all ?

Just want to reminds everyone that the cropping diagram in those images is not accurate, it's a 16:9 HD video diagram stretched out.

I did a bunch of research about the apertures and ratios and stuff, you can see my work peppered throughout this thread.

As I discovered, the cropping thing has an added layer of complexity because the film used two different camera apertures. Have you looked into that at all, -1?

A while back, I did some comparisons of the GOUT and Blu-ray framing over frames from the LPP print. The images were small and lossy, so I eyeballed details between the three versions and came up with framing estimates, then drew them over the film frame using MS Paint.

The dark blue border is the Blu-ray, the light blue one is the GOUT. Since these are resized in the message, the borders may be hard to see. To get a look at the full-sized images, right-click and select "view image" or whatever the equivalent is in your browser.

These two also illustrate the two different camera apertures. Look at how the bottom frame has more black space on the right side, and notice how even though the exposed area is different, light-blue right boundary of the GOUT stays in about the same place on the physical frame.

The cropping seems consistent - though with things like sky, I wasn't able to determine the framing as well, which may be why my GOUT border is higher than my Blu-ray border in the second comparison. (Also, the DVD/Blu-ray version may have been cropped differently from shot to shot.)

In all, I think I did my best with -1's low-resolution images. I may do more comparisons later.

Way back in page 1, -1's initial GOUT vs. raw cropping overlays seemed to suggest that the GOUT framing zoomed in as Han was chasing the stormtroopers down the hall:

Later, I contested this, saying that I didn't detect any framing change during the scene when I compared the GOUT against the Blu-ray.

Now that I have the red reel tests to reference, I can come up with even better GOUT cropping estimates for those scenes. Here's what I came up with for those two shots, using my technique of eyeballing where the edges of the GOUT image are in the uncropped frames.

Here are my estimates, by just comparing one frame to its GOUT equivalent:

The positions of the left and right edges don't match, but that's mainly because the combination of the motion blur of the scene, the DVNR smearing of the GOUT, and the compression of the test clips made it hard to find the left and right edges of the GOUT vs. this clip. But in general, it matches my comparisons from the reel 3 LPP images - the GOUT is framed toward the bottom and to the right.

Then I decided, why not make a more definite comparison using a more static shot, with more clearly visible "landmarks" on all of the edges? So here's a shot from earlier in the scene:

Again, it basically matches the "down and to the right" cropping of all my other GOUT estimates. Next, I decided to map this box over the images of Han, and here's what I came up with:

They fall in basically the same area as my initial estimates, further evidence that this scene is not as cropped as -1 thought, and that the cropping stays in one place.

Next, here's that shot of Ben walking down the hallway that -1 thought was extremely cropped in the GOUT:

I thought this seemed fishy - the proportions don't match (the GOUT overlay here has aan aspect ratio of 2.76:1!), the two images don't line up well, and I could not believe that much would be cropped at the bottom.

-1 just put up a test clip with this shot, so I decided to do another estimate. This one was even harder, because all four edges are dark, and the test clip is so crushed and compressed. Without any "landmarks" on the edges of the frame, I really had to eyeball it. Here's what I came up with:

As you can see, my estimate shows that it's no more cropped than any of the other shots I've tested. -1's initial comparison was just very inaccurate - no offense to him, of course. Those comparisons are what got me thinking about the GOUT framing in the first place.

Now, here's the same shot with the cropping estimate from that stormtrooper image mapped over it:

Again, it is very close to my first estimate, and it basically matches all my other estimates of the GOUT cropping area, framed toward the lower-right of the raw image.

And here's a shot from the uncropped, uncorrected test clip, with the approximate GOUT framing as a blue box:

Yes, the GOUT is cropped from the raw film frame, just like any video transfer. However, from what I'm seeing, it's not as severe or as inconsistent as it seemed from -1's initial comparisons.

Not sure, I'm not thinking in percentages. I'd think no more than 10%.

If I were to crop it, I'd at least make sure that the rounded corners on the right side are never visible. A 2.35:1 frame that falls inside those borders should work. And remember, there are two different camera apertures during the film. I'd make sure the cropping fits inside the smaller one.

One guideline I'd give you: Make sure that each line of text in the opening crawl is visible from end to end as soon as it scrolls up into frame.

Please, if the final release will be cropped, PLEASE release an "uncropped" version too :-)

I think he's said that any version would have to crop at least a little bit of the picture for stabilization purposes?

I did another cropping estimate, this time against one of -1's high-resolution images from the color timing thread. First, here's what the GOUT looks like (or more specifically, DJ's V3):

Now here's the GOUT area traced into -1's high-res image of the same scene, scaled down to fit in this page, and with the 95% height adjustment to correct the proportions of the image (thanks You_Too for pointing that out in the colortiming thread). Right click "view image" to see it at full size.

As you can see, there's a decent amount more on the sides of -1's image, and a sliver more on the bottom, though the GOUT has a tiny bit more on the top (which is why the red box has no top edge - that area is not visible in -1's example image).

I think that the framing of -1's images from the colortiming thread is good. There's nothing wrong with it being cropped a little bit less than the official releases. Although, with the 95% height correction, it's obvious that -1's version is wider than 2.35:1, closer to about 2.50:1.

Here's -1's screenshot, with the proportions adjusted, and then cropped to 2.39:1.

And here's the same image with my GOUT framing estimate.

As far as the sides go, the cropping just about matches GOUT. I'd maybe open the picture up a little bit more on all four sides. At least, as much as possible without showing the black borders.

I do agree there should be a version that is as close to uncropped as possible, it's fun to see that extra image.

EDIT: none pointed out that DJ's V3 crops off a few pixels, so here's the same shot as seen in the official GOUT:

The GOUT is actually cropped a teeny tiny bit less than I've been assuming from the V3. It's a very, very, VERY small difference, but nevertheless, I'll take this into account and work from the official GOUT in my future comparisons.

Here's another test. I used You_Too's corrected version of another one of -1's hi-res images from the colortiming thread.

First, the GOUT (and it's from the official released GOUT this time):

Now, here's my approximation of how that fits into -1's image:

Again, a bit more on the sides, a little more on the bottom, a little less on the top. And again, the aspect ratio of -1's image, when the proportions are corrected, is wider than the intended ratio.

Right-click on it and view it at full size, and notice the weird garbage on the left side; from the uncropped frames I've seen, the exposure level often "drops off" near the left edge of the frame. In this case, I wonder if the picture may be trailing off "sooner" (i.e., more to the right) than it does in the uncropped frames of other scenes that I've seen.

Here's the same image cropped to 2.39:1:

And here's what it looks like compared to the GOUT framing:

Yes, if the image is re-proportioned, then cropped to 2.35:1-2.40:1, it actually has a teeny tiny bit *less* on the sides than the GOUT.

I think that the cropping for the standard -1 release should be a bit more "open" than that. Here's a suggestion:

The red box is an aspect ratio of 2.35:1, the green areas are if the width were extended out to 2.40:1. This framing fits nicely inside the smaller of the two camera apertures in the film. Here's what this framing looks like on one of the shots with the larger aperture.

Unfortunately, any fixed cropping of the film has to lose that extra picture on the right side. If that picture area were included, the shots with the smaller frame size would have a black bar on the right edge.

I'm not sure, but the Death Star scenes I've been working on may be in the larger aperture, which could explain why they lose more on the sides.

For the main release, I'd probably go with something like the green box I drew, and then adjust the horizontal position so that the opening crawl is centered. (Again, I do think there should be a secondary "uncropped" version which shows as much of the frame as possible, so that we can see all that extra picture, even if it means that some shots have black area on the right.)