Wild East's If You Meet Sartana Pray For Your Death question

DVD, BluRay & VOD
1

Hello Friends-

I read somewhere that Wild East’s version of IF U MEET SARTANA PRAY FOR YOUR DEATH aspect ratio is screwed up. Is this true? I wanted to purchase this title on ebay, but now I don’t know.

Thanx,
Blonde66

2

I think it is. But I barley remembered it so it couldn’t be that bad.

3

IF you have a widescreen TV it should be okay. The image is scrunched up for 4 x 3 sets.
If you can get a decent price on ebay I say go for it.

4

I had to alter it on my DVD player from 2,2:1 to the corect 1,78:1. After doing this all was fine.

5

Yes, it appears close to 2.35:1 when it should be 1.85:1. This happens whether you watch it on 4:3 or WS TVs. If I remember rightly you can sort this out by changing your DVD players display setting to 4:3.
If you have any experience using video software you can extract the movie & correct the aspect ratio without too much hassle.

6

Yes the aspect ratio should be 2,35:1 (techniscope or pariscope), but it is more like 1,78:1 which is not correct. Almost every SW is in techniscope which means an aspect ratio of 2,35:1.

7

It is correct, I compared it to a 35mm-version, which is in ca. 1,66:1

8

www.imdb.com states that correct aspect ratio is 2,35:1. It is most likely techniscope (or pariscope) which is a variant of Cinemascope and aspect ratios was usually 2,35:1.

9

I have no idea what the correct ratio is, but i do know the IMDB is frequently wrong.

10

Other than the aspect ratio, is the picture quality good? I just rented this one from netflix & hoped to purchase one with better picture quality. Is there one out there that is the best version on dvd?

11

OK, to continue the discussion we had on another thread, my first question is what is the original aspect ratio of the movie. IMDB states 2.35:1 and SWnet 1.78:1. Secondly I played the DVD on my PC using VLC and I tried several different ratios. Here’s some snapshots:

4:3
[/URL]

16:9

2.35:1
[URL=http://img808.imageshack.us/i/vlcsnap2010080618h33m55.png/][url]http://img153.imageshack.us/i/vlcsnap2010080618h29m42.png/[/url]

12

The image seems cropped on top on all three screenshots. 2.35:1 seems far too squeezed and 16:9 seems more like 2.20:1. The first snapshot at 4:3 seems more correct to me, but looking more like 1.66:1 and not 1.78:1 which I believe to be the correct AR. Can anyone explain to me wtf is going on?

P.S. The ratios above the pics are the AR setting on VLC player each time.

13

1.78:1 can’t be the correct AR. That is a (new) TV (16:9) aspect ratio. 1.85:1 is probably what is meant.

14

It may be so, but I doubt it’s 2.35:1 as IMDB says.

15

Note that the AR settings (4:3, 16:9 etc) include the black bars

In 4:3 the image (so without the bars) is 12,7 : 7,7 = 1,65:1

In 16:9 it’s 12,7 x 5,7 = 2,22:1

In 2,35:1 it’s 12,7 x 4,8 = 2,65:1

Seems to me you get the (more or less) right AR in 4:3 mode

Like Soren says 1,78:1 is AR of modern widescreen TVs, therefore nowadays TV series or Made for TV movies are shot in in this AR

Action movies are usually in (about) 2,35:1, most other movies in 1,85:1
1,66:1 was an AR that was quite popular in countries like France and Italy in the sixties and seventies, therefore many French and some Italian movies from the period have this AR (My guess is this movie was shot in 1,66:1)
2,20:1 was occasionally used in the past, older movies (oldies but goodies) often have an aspect ratio of 1,37:1

16

OK, got it. The database probably needs to be corrected, 1.66:1 seems more correct to me than 1.85:1 for this movie.
Any idea why the image is a bit cropped on top?

17

This is how you get things on a widescreen TV (the AR of the screen is 1,78:1)

A picture shot in 2,35:1 > bars top and bottom:

[/URL]

A picture shot in 1,66:1 > small bars left and right:

[URL=http://img710.imageshack.us/i/shot4large.jpg/][url]http://img213.imageshack.us/i/oncep.jpg/[/url]

With a picture shot in 1,85:1 you should have a very small bar top and bottom, but most TVs have ‘overscan’, which means the board covers a small part of the image. Most of the time a 1,85 picture fills the screen.

Cropping on top: films are often cropped a tiny bit, or zoomed, because most print damage usually occurs near the edges. Sometimes the edges get a bit blurry too.

18

[quote=“ION BRITTON, post:16, topic:1627”]OK, got it. The database probably needs to be corrected, 1.66:1 seems more correct to me than 1.85:1 for this movie.
Any idea why the image is a bit cropped on top?[/quote]

Most films in 1,66:1 or 1,85:1 were in fact shot in 1,37:1, the normal 35 mm film format. The Widescreen is then done by masking it for a 1,66:1 aspect ratio while projecting it in the cinema.

This means there is always a lot more to see at top and bottom on the 35 mm negative than it was intended to be seen in the cinemas. But all this can be seen if these films are shown in a 4:3 open matte aspect ratio. Which mostly was the case for TV showings and VHS cassettes in the times when the 4:3 TV was the only TV standard.

But nowadays, in the times of 16:9 TVs, DVDs of films, originally intended for a 1,66:1 masking, are mostly released by DVD companies in a 1,78:1 or 1,85:1 aspect ratio. Which is simply done by masking the film slightly more than originally intended.
If you compare a 1,66:1 or 1,85:1 DVD with a fullscreen VHS of one particular film, then you can see that in most cases there is a lot more to see at top and bottom, while the sides are identical.

So a fullscreen VHS of a 2,35:1 film loses nearly half of the original image, while a fullscreen VHS of a 1,66:1 or 1,85:1 film shows instead more on top and bottom (if it is open matte fullscreen). But this “more” was not intended to be seen for the audience.

19

Wildeast will be re-releasing this title soon with a new transfer [Anamorphic Widescreen] (just to let you guys know).

20

Are you gonna make dvd-r copies of it and sell them on your site? You know, like you do other retail dvd’s?