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01/15/09
01/15/09
I also recall at least one other manufacturer who actually made a wider aspect ratio set for only a brief time. I doubt if this recent reincarnation will catch on but it sure would be kewl to have for Ben Hur even though that is even wider at 2.76:1.
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01/16/09
The non-IMAX scenes were filmed in 2.39:1 (2.35:1 hasn't been a valid aspect ratio since the 70's, but it's used interchangably with its successor aspect ratio - 2.39:1, or the rounded version of the latter - 2.40:1). The IMAX scenes were filmed with IMAX camera rigs, which only film in 1.44:1 (just a touch wider than standard TV screens), and they were apparently shaved down to 1.78:1 for the Blu-Ray release (meaning that no, you are _not_ watching the Blu-Ray version in the true original aspect ratio for those five scenes).
@thedarkhorse:
While I agree that the IMAX experience was amazing for this film (as compared to, say AOTC on IMAX, where Lucas had to carve up the plot to trim it down to the then-unbreakable-if-you-didn't-want-an-intermission 20-minute runtime limit), I was sitting close enough to the screen that I actually had to make a point of looking at the top of the screen to tell if I was watching an IMAX scene in 1.44:1 or a regular scene in 2.39:1. On the plus side, I was rarely conscious of the fact that I was watching a rectangular image.
01/15/09
That is to say this can't be truly anamorphic like this claims because that data is hard coded in. Its going to be anamorphic part of the way then just zooming or something to get rid of the rest of the black bars.
01/15/09
Blu-Ray has no such accommodations. There's no such thing as "anamorphic" blu-ray (regardless of what is labelled on the package). The signal is always 1920x1080p or less, and there's no anamorphic adjustment.
Unfortunately "anamorphic" has come to mean "widescreen" to a lot of people, including the people who make the package art and write the amazon descriptions. But true anamorphic means "putting a wide-screen film on regular-format frame and using a set distortion to fill the entire frame of the film", and it goes back to shooting wide-screen movies on regular 35mm 4:3 film.
01/16/09
"Unfortunately "anamorphic" has come to mean "widescreen" to a lot of people"
That's because "anamorphic" DVD encoding is only used for widescreen movies. And because a non-anamorphic widescreen DVD will be picture-framed on a widescreen TV, unless you zoom in (in which case the picture quality is shot to hell, and you'll probably lose the outer edges of the actual image).
And it actually goes back to WWI tanks that had an anamorphic viewfinder which could present someone inside the tank with a ~180 degree view.
01/16/09
Didn't know about the tanks though.
01/16/09
Ah, but there's also the opposite thing where people will call an anamorphic DVD "letterboxed", even when the black bars are not hard-encoded into the frame.
And yes, it's a freakishly weird little factoid, which I only found out after doing some moderately extensive research into what sort of aspect ratios have ever been used. Currently, there are only five widely-used ARs, which are 1.33:1 (standard TV), 1.44:1 (IMAX), 1.78:1 (widescreen TV), 1.85:1 (Academy Flat theatrical), and 2.39:1 (modern version of the old CinemaScope anamorphic theatrical, which was only revived due to Star Wars).
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