TJT

As a final note, after trying it - my opinion is that cropping to 1.85:1 is not ideal for Star Wars on TV… the screen becomes a bit too stuffed and image too near. I would say something like 2.21 or slightly less would be optimal preference for me… the image becomes slightly larger but doesn’t lose anything important from the sides really.

That’s how I prefer to do it, crop slightly but not too much, of course depending on a film.
Somehow this is seen as blasphemy here and deserves all kinds of vicious name calling and abuse.

Hard to believe that nobody here would never crop a film at all…for example one with 2.77:1 original aspect ratio… black bars become just too dominant and the image too narrow and small, at least on my TV. One option would be to move closer to TV but that of course is even worse - that is not how human vision works, is straining for the eyes and leads to actually less cinematic experience. So my final opinion on this is that cropping IS ok and people claiming otherwise are simply following the current norm, no doubt initiated by the auteur theory where a film maker’s vision is always seen as the correct one. If the sides were included in original film then that is how you must watch it, right? Ironically Lucas’ claim is that the special editions were actually his original vision so where does that lead the “widescreen purists” here…

So there.

“The fact is that your preference is a very unpopular preference, and because of that, there isnt any need to sacrifice bluray compatibility just so that people watching on a HD have the option of cropping the image.”

… that seems to be the problem in a nutshell… I didn’t realize that it MUST be letterboxed in order to get full wide screen for BR. Most torrents are not letterboxed.

“You are literally the first person on this forum asking for something like this.”

…That surprises me. It’s not like TV always shows the wide screen version either, even when one is available.

“Just go into the manual crop in VLC, crop off the letterbox, then crop off the desired amount of side-image, and enjoy your botched version of Star Wars.”

…I closed VLC and tried this again. Now it works with manual cropping, while previously it didn’t. Odd. Problem solved, thank you. Now if I only found my old CRT… ahhhhh.

“I don’t see why zooming in on your tv is such a bad option for you. Incredibly easy, quick, and accomplishes the exact same thing that cropping in some other program would.”

… Probably yes. However this computer is connected to a TV which doesn’t let one to modify aspect ratio during “PC mode”. I’m watching it on PC which is connected to TV.

“I think I actually answered you earlier. Are you cropping the left and right in addition to the top and bottom? You need to, because doing what you ask requires the sides to be lost.”

…Yes I am doing that.

“My obnoxiousness is a result of you acting like we wasted your time by giving you a version that wasn’t screwed up. You’re the very first person I’ve ever seen request something so messed up, but you claim that we are minimizing interest by doing it the way everyone wants it (correctly). Go on blu-ray forums and suggest similarly bad ideas and see just how unpopular your preference is. You might be nearly the only person who wants to watch films in this manner.”

…I’m certain there are lots of people who don’t like black bars on top and bottom. This is a matter of preference. Now if this file wasn’t letterboxed one could easily choose whether they want to see it wide or cropped - This would be optimal.
The downfall apparently would then be that then you couldn’t burn it on Blu-ray? I agree a BR should have all the material aka not cropped version… I simply didn’t realize that that’s what the torrent was all about, to burn it on Blu-ray rather than to keep it on HD and watch a couple of times.

“Your comments on the color are even less appropriate in this thread since the entire project is about changing the color of the release you’re complaining about.”

…Wait, so comments on colour correction are unwanted on forum about comments on colour correction. One learns something new every day…

“Account created today? I smell a Troll (and I fell for it)”

…No, not a troll at all. I honestly came here to ask about this problem since it bothered me. I created account to specifically ask about it.

As for my comment you replied to: It is correct in principle… no restoration effort, no matter how well done, is useful if nobody uses it. There is a fine line between accuracy and practicality with these sort of things. I could bring up some examples from arcade emulation scene but you’d probably not be interested.

That’s all, I think, Cheers.

“The original wasn’t a cropped piece of shit, so please don’t say you had any intention of watching the original.”

…The difference is that I’m watching it at home, not movie theater.

“Furthermore, you could crop harmy’s into the piece of shit you so desire if you were willing to wrangle up a few brain cells for the task.”

… I tried and it didn’t work. I don’t see anyone else here either finding solution for removing black bars on VLC player. The options are:
-Use another program which can do this
-Zoom your TV
-Crop the whole file using for example Avidemux filters. This might take several hours.
-Watch it letterboxed

“Finally, you didn’t download this version at all, since I never sent you the link. I’d tell you to fuck off, but unfortunately the appropriate thread is Harmy’s and I don’t want you there either.”

… I already stated which version I watched and it was available on kat.cr. You seem damn obnoxious, from the very first post of yours.

Anyways, sorry Harmy for any bad feelings. It’s a really nice version of Star Wars and the picture looks most parts exactly as I remembered it; the skin tones especially are closer to truth than the special editions, I feel. Some “white” scenes though seemed a bit too colourless and white, for example sand scenes outside on daylight.

I just never learned to love those black bars… shoot me. 😃

Also your cropping isn’t working because you would need to crop the left and right sides to squeeze it onto your 16:9 monitor, meaning losing actual video.

…that is exactly my intention, to “mutilate” the video by cropping the sides and the remaining image filling the whole screen. I prefer watching films this way at home rather than watching the wide screen version. Only very rarely I watch them wide, if the film really benefits from seeing the sides.

And it seems to me that VLC is unable to do this on letterboxed videos. My conclusion is that this version of Star Wars works only if you want to burn it on Blu-ray. Or watch the widescreen version. Downloading this version and then wasting time on trying to figure out the cure really spoiled the viewing experience, I wouldn’t recommend this version to any casual viewer who just wants to watch the original once, which is majority of people really.

The letterbox is there to make it Blu-Ray compliant.

…Ah, that explains… thanks for quick reply.
Unfortunately I don’t have Blu-Rey burner.

VLC is perfectly capable of cropping the letterbox off if you don’t like it. If it won’t work with the standard crop settings, open tools and you can manually crop in there.

…Yes I found the manual crop but all it does is the same as standard settings: it crops part of the visible picture away but does not stretch it to fit the screen. It just removes pixels from visible picture.

Normally, without letterboxed video, choosing: video/crop/1,85:1 …the video crops and stretches to fit the whole display. This doesn’t happen with letterboxed for some reason (probably because the video here already fills the whole screen) I have check on “always fit window” setting, but changing it doesn’t seem to have any effect.

Sort of like my “quote” tags.

Hi,

I torrented the 18 GB Despecialized v 2,5 and watching it currently - great work!!!

However I have couple questions… why is it letterboxed??? There are black borders up and down the screen which I simply can not get rid of using VLC media player… I would like to crop it to fill the entire display area but this can not be done since it’s letterboxed. Why on earth would one letterbox any video…

Also, I notice that the film has LOTS of different audio tracks, while some commentary tracks will probably be interesting… I don’t think it’s wise to include for example Polish audio (that’s what subtitles are for)… it just bloats the size and makes people less interested in downloading and sharing it. A preservation effort which nobody/few watches hasn’t achieved its goal.

But yeah, what’s up with the letterbox thing?