Cropping the Original Trilogy : 35mm vs dvd (gout) — Page 2

RU.08 said:

Nice pics -1. The cropping seems fairly consitant throughout (obviously with shot-by-shot ajustments for keeping the action center).

yeah, this is the standard practice.

about overscan:

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overscan

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There is no hard technical specification for overscan amounts for the low definition formats. Some say 5%, some say 10%, and the figure can be doubled for title safe, which needs more margin compared to action safe. The overscan amounts are specified for the high definition formats as specified above.

Different video and broadcast television systems require differing amounts of overscan. Most figures serve as recommendations or typical summaries, as the nature of overscan is to overcome a variable limitation in older technologies such as cathode ray tubes.

However the European Broadcasting Unionhas safe area recommendations regarding Television Production for 16:9 Widescreen.^[7]

The official BBC suggestions^[8] actually say 3.5% / 5% per side (see p21, p19). The following is a summary:

later

-1

Well, there isn't much more left to say, short of confirming that the 2004 master is cropped less than the GOUT but still there is some cropping compared to all the information available on a 35mm print. I totally understand it being cropped; most damage usually appears on the edges of prints and even on the print, the edge of the image isn't always exactly the same, so you need to leave some space for that. What I absolutely don't understand is why on earth is every shot in every transfer cropped differently? Why would they do that? I'd understand every reel having slightly different cropping but why every shot? And the amount of cropping is so small that I don't buy that it's to keep the action in the centre. Also if they just cropped by the same amount on all sides, they'd keep the originally intended centre, which should be most desirable with this minute amount of cropping.

here's some more ratios from the mos eisley scene:

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x

later

-1

Harmy said:

Well, there isn't much more left to say, short of confirming that the 2004 master is cropped less than the GOUT but still there is some cropping compared to all the information available on a 35mm print. I totally understand it being cropped; most damage usually appears on the edges of prints and even on the print, the edge of the image isn't always exactly the same, so you need to leave some space for that. What I absolutely don't understand is why on earth is every shot in every transfer cropped differently? Why would they do that? I'd understand every reel having slightly different cropping but why every shot? And the amount of cropping is so small that I don't buy that it's to keep the action in the centre. Also if they just cropped by the same amount on all sides, they'd keep the originally intended centre, which should be most desirable with this minute amount of cropping.

I can't speculate about the scene-to-scene cropping. That really is confusing too.

But for the overall cropping, maybe the technology of the time made it difficult to capture the whole frame. Remember that the blu-ray of Phantom Menace has more picture information that the previous version; this was supposedly due to some technological limitation in the past.

Yeah, like I said, that's understandable but I really don't get why it's different shot to shot.

here is a comparison of a few things..

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1) background - 35mm

2) foreground (with a dark border) - gout

3) standard VIDEO cropping - 5% - 10%

i picked a scene that was from a

red reel, so the colors are not

accurate at all for the background..

============================

i created an avisynth script to resize,

align, and overlay all the elements into

a video, and then extracted sample frames here..

the gout frames match up pretty closely to the 5%

standard cropping:

=====================================

reference start frame

TServo2049 said:

That cropping chart is not correct. You stretched a 16:9 TV overscan chart out to 2.35:1.

 i agree it might be off.

but we are comparing the gout DVD, which is for TV

and home releases right?

regardless, its a guide for the cropping, and it matches

up pretty well for the amounts most of the time.

later

-1

I'd be interested to see how the film compares to the DVD edition. If anyone could do a couple of screenshots it would be interesting to see if there is more information on the film than on the DVD/BD. My DVD drive has been broken for a couple of years now, so I can't read any DVDs to get any samples which sucks.

TServo2049 said:

negative1 said:

TServo2049 said:

That cropping chart is not correct. You stretched a 16:9 TV overscan chart out to 2.35:1.

 i agree it might be off.

but we are comparing the gout DVD, which is for TV

and home releases right?

 

regardless, its a guide for the cropping, and it matches

up pretty well for the amounts most of the time.

The GOUT was letterboxed for 4:3 TVs. Old widescreen transfers followed different rules - they weren't concerned with TV overscan because there was so much black space on the top and bottom.

Sometimes, old widescreen masters were cropped more so the image wouldn't suffer on smaller TVs. Sometimes it was just on the left and right (I know of old laserdiscs of 2.35:1 films that are 2.20:1 or even 2.10:1), other times it was all four sides (also known as "zoomboxing").

That image is not a guide for 2.35:1 cropping. The safe zone boxes are not the right width. It is a guide for 16:9 films on 16:9 TVs - notice that it has a separate line for 2.39:1 letterbox.

And actually, the example images you just posted are about 2.20:1 - shouldn't they be wider?

I'm just kind of confused. I thought that we were comparing the GOUT cropping to the the amount of cropping that would happen in movie theaters - that's why I went to all the trouble of making that chart I just posted.

hmm... so if this is correct, then maybe it wasn't cropped

properly or it was cropped differently than the laserdisc masters?

now i'm really confused.. i don't know what standard they used

in the GOUT for cropping decisions..

as far as aspect ratio goes : 

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2:35 : 1 -> should be the final aspect ratio AFTER cropping

since the full frame is never shown..

in my prior screenshots i did not alter

the GOUT images, so they approximately

have a 2.25 : 1 aspect ratio. i then altered

the 35mm frame to match it as well as possible.

maybe this whole process is going to be off..

because no one has ever compared the uncropped picture

to a cropped DVD image... so i'm not really sure which

standards and ratios apply..

i'll post some different comparisons then.

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the other thing is, in the end, even if the aspect

ratios are off..

the actual percentages, and the actual GOUT image

is PROPORTIONALLY always going to look the same

when superimposed. no matter how you stretch it

out, it's still going to cover the same area over the

original frame. and that proportion falls into the 5%-15% range.

later

-1 

TServo2049 said:

 

I will say that the framing of the Technicolor screening Mike Verta attended seems to have been about 10%.

If you could provide a full-size frame of this shot, I could figure out how much the Senator screening was cropped compared to the full film frame:

 

thanks, those comparisons look great.

yeah, i'll have to get to that shot and then post it..

don't have it yet.

i mostly have the first several minutes of the movie,

and the long sequence from the trash compactor on.

if you have a comparative frame from those, we can

look at those.

later

-1

TServo2049 said:

 

If you can provide a scan of that frame from your print, I can nail down the Senator cropping.

here's a sequence of frames,

wasn't sure which one it was.

again, they are a little dark:

===============

later

-1

TServo2049 said:

Thanks, but I actually needed a high-resolution image, with the full frame and the soundtrack. The images you just posted are still lossy reduced conversions; the background details are too fuzzy, vague or crushed for me to compare them to the Senator screenshot. I have to use the paneling on the right wall as my reference, but the whole right side just shows up as black on these screens.

Do you have access to the full-size frames right now?

Also, I made a mistake in my framing chart - I used the modern Panavision aperture of .825 x .690 instead, which is actually a little smaller than the older .839 x .700 aperture that was in use in '77. I'm found an even higher-res scan of an older SMPTE RP40 chart; this time it's the complete frame, including the soundtrack area.

i don't have the full frames,

and the 1080p version is here:

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http://img26.imageshack.us/img26/5274/swr1r2d200001080p.jpg

but i think it's still too crushed when it comes to detail..

ok.. we'll find some other frames then.

later

-1

i've watched about half the movie now

in it's full uncropped glory..

honestly, that 5%-15% that is cropped

really makes a difference. you might not 

see it in all the shots. but i had the gout

running on one monitor, and this version

on my tv. and there just seems to be a different

look and feel to so many shots. little details all

around the border, and the framing seems new.

unfortunately, the final version will be cropped

to match the released ones, because it helps

stabilize the shots, and cover up damage

on some of the shots (although our clean up

will take care of most of it).

later

-1

TServo2049 said:

Don't crop too much. Certainly don't crop as much as the GOUT. 5% would do (like the area in the second green box in my diagram above). Maybe something close to the small amount of cropping on the Blu-ray?

I think most theatrical screenings would lose a minimum of 5% around the edges anyway. I just feel that as much image should be retained as possible.

i have some say, but not a whole of control

over the final amount. because it depends

on a lot of factors as we look through the

whole thing.... whatever % it finally ends up

being will take into account the theatrical

look and feel.. and if it's more, that's what it will be.

however, with the raw versions, there will definitely

be a chance for 1 or 2 fully uncropped versions with

all the details and picture left in.

later

-1

Actually, while generally cropped less percentually, the BD is cropped more than the GOUT on the right side of the frame in many shots (but that much less on the left of course.)

TServo2049 said:

 

I think the 5% cropping there is about as perfect as you'll get it.