iRewind Talk: Some DVD 1980s movies are full screen cropped to wide screen

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Topic: Some DVD 1980s movies are full screen cropped to wide screen

Ralph Palumbo
Rewind Curious
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I just discovered that some if not all DVD of movies from the 1980s that are being sold as wide screen are in fact full screen videos with the top and bottom are cropped to fit the wide screen format. I knottiest during the opening credits of some of my movies on wide screen DVDs were just as wide as some of my movies on full screen VHS. I have a combo DVD-VHS player and decided to play the DVD and VHS of the same movies to test this and in switching front VHS to DVD and back, I discovered that both were just as wide and the Black bars on the top and bottom on the wide screen DVD only covered over that part of the screen, making it appear wide screen. [Frown]

80'sRocked

Play it Loud, Play it Proud
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Interesting....why would they do this?

Ralph Palumbo
Rewind Curious
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I Don't Know, But I was shocked when I discovered this.

Nick
Webmaster
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There is a reason for this. It goes something like this (deep breath)!

Many 80s movies were shot in full frame and then "matted" where the top and bottom were cut off in the cinema print to show only the bit the director intended. Then, on video they just took the lazy route and transferred the movie "open matte" without chopping. This has the advantage that there was no need to "pan & scan" where the transfer operator has to move the TV frame within the widescreen frame to follow the action but this sometimes also showed bits that were not intended like microphones etc.

The "cropped" DVDs apparently show what the director intended and the same as what would have been shown at the cinema.

Personally, I think sometimes its nice to see both, to get the full picture [Smile]