Blu-only Releases?

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MichaelB
Joined: Fri Aug 11, 2006 6:20 pm
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Re: Blu-only Releases?

#276 Post by MichaelB » Wed Dec 28, 2011 7:52 pm

zedz wrote:The Coppola version was released on DVD, however. I've got an Australian edition (that I believe is now OOP).
The Coppola version nearly came out in the UK, courtesy of Optimum - in fact, it got as far as the checkdisc stage before being withdrawn, presumably for legal reasons.

It's no bad thing that it didn't get released, though, as it was a pretty terrible edition - the entire film crammed onto a single disc, run at the wrong speed (24fps versus Brownlow's preferred 20fps - in fact, since it was PAL, it may even have been 25fps!), and the whole thing presented anamorphically even though most of it is in 1.33:1, in other words losing a significant amount of resolution for the sake of the triptychs at the end.

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Tommaso
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Re: Blu-only Releases?

#277 Post by Tommaso » Thu Dec 29, 2011 7:55 am

Is there any other way if you want the image to get bigger once the triptychs come in? Cramming the triptychs into a 4:3 frame would certainly run contrary to the effect that Gance had in mind. So does DVD or Blu allow for an aspect ratio switch 'on the fly', so to speak, while the film is running?

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MichaelB
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Re: Blu-only Releases?

#278 Post by MichaelB » Thu Dec 29, 2011 8:13 am

Tommaso wrote:Is there any other way if you want the image to get bigger once the triptychs come in? Cramming the triptychs into a 4:3 frame would certainly run contrary to the effect that Gance had in mind. So does DVD or Blu allow for an aspect ratio switch 'on the fly', so to speak, while the film is running?
I'd have encoded the bulk of the film as non-anamorphic 4:3 (spreading it over two discs in the process), and then switched to 16:9 anamorphic for the triptychs. On some systems there might be a momentary glitch during the switchover, but that seems a very small price to pay given that the alternative is a marked loss of resolution throughout most of the film. It's also worth noting that live screenings tend to have a rather longer break while the triptychs are set up - I think the only genuinely seamless one I can recall was the one at the Royal Festival Hall in 2000 (and, presumably, 2004).

Of course, this situation doesn't arise with Blu-ray, as it only comes in a 16:9 aspect ratio.

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