The primary viewing location for Adult movies is the home. Until more people watch their porn on widescreen TV's than on 4:3 TV's it doesn't make sense to make these movies widescreen.

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Austin Powers #2 (saw it on VHS P&S and widescreen dvd)
There is a scene where Heather Graham is walking away from Austin, in the P&S you can see all the way down below her ass, on the widescreen you only see down to the end of her back (the start of her ass). I think that if they started releasing porn in 2.35, you would find a lot of action missing from your screen (i.e. blowjobs where all you see is her head bobbing up and down but no cock, know what I mean?) You would end up missing a lot of picture on the vertical side of things which I think is bad. It would be like watching porn on cable back in the day, very frustrating. Thanks but no thanks, they should stick to P&S. If it's 1.85 fine, but I don't want to see porn on 2.35 letterbox.

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I can understand an adult filmmaker shooting widescreen because they are looking to the future when the majority of TV's will be widescreen. However, if they are going to do that, they should also be shooting in High Definition or on film (which can be converted to Hi-Def).

Recently, Steph posted a press release stating that Adam & Eve were shooting some of their stuff in High Definition. However, I can't believe that studios can cost justify shooting the majority of their productions in either one of these formats (at least not yet).

Don't get me wrong, I would LOVE to see EVERYTHING (Mainstream & Adult movies, TV shows, sporting events) shot and shown in HD Widescreen. Hell, with the transmission antennas from the World Trade Center gone, I installed a rotor on my roof antenna so I can receive a Connecticut HD ABC station. But right now, it just doesn't make any sense to shoot this way.

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I don't really know much about this subject, but something has me a bit confused.
I just picked up the dvd for the movie Colors, on the back it says 16:9 widescreen 1.85:1, I thought 16.9 was pretty much the same as 2.35, no?

Also, how is it possible that Silence Of The Lambs was originally released in 1998 on dvd as 1.85:1, and now they have re-released it on P&S and also separately on 2.35. If what you say is true (that 1.85:1 releases were actually filmed that way, how is it possible that they are able to release Lambs on a 2.35 transfer?)
Just wondering.

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When you start to get into widescreen info, you learn that movies are actually formatted in a variety of widesceen ratios, in addition to the standard or "pan and scan" 4:3 ratio = 1.33. Common mainstream and art movie ratios include 1.67, 1.78, 1.85 and 2.35. Ben Hur is the widest, at 2.7. I.85 is the most common for mainstream films today.

(Movies made before the 50's were generally at the 4:3 ratio, and most TV shows other than movies still are. The great majority of movies are still broadcast including over cable / sattelite in the U.S. reformated at the 4:3 ratio.)

The 16:9 widescreen TV ratio = 1.78. What that means is that wider ratios will actually appear "letterboxed" to some degree, only less so, on a widescreen TV as well as on a standard 4:3 ratio TV.

EXCEPT that widescreen TV's have various adjustment capabilities to stretch the image to more completely fill the screen.

How this is possible (or whether this is possible) without also distorting the image to some degree has always been a mystery to me. Most explanations of this are all caught up in sales and promotion.

But I gather that if the DVD is an "anamorphic" one, it's more possible for this stretch or fitting to work without any loss of resolution (or its sometime said, with an INCREASE in resolution). Not all widescreen mainstream DVD's are anamorphic by any means, as I understand it.

Here's a pretty good detailed but not techno babble explanation I found using google. I just skimmed through it. It's too long and involved for me to have fully digested it in the few minutes I spent, but maybe some of you want to spend more time on it.

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David Crawford
Wicked Pictures

Edited by - David Crawford on Oct 18 2001

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I used to think this was the coming thing, before long. I don't any more.

In fact I don't think very much other than serials and soaps will come out on HDTV in less than 5 years, and maybe not for 10 years -- or never, even. I think an HDTV is an extremely poor purchase decision right now.

Yes, broadcast TV is moving to HDTV. But I don't think many cable or satellite systems will for a VERY long time. And I for one virtually never watch the broadcast channels on TV. OK, Survivor. Sports sometimes.

The reason why not is bandwidth. Cable systems would much rather use the bandwidth to offer 600 channels or 1000 channels than move to HDTV on many or any of their cable channels.

For example, about nine months ago when it first became available, I upgraded to Time Warner Cable's digital and Roadrunner cable internet here in Manhattan. I get I think about 500 channels, including pay per view and music ones. With Roadrunner (which separately is $40 a month, as most cable internet is) it's about $100/month. (The channel numbering goes to the mid 600s, but there are some holes in the numbering.) Maybe about 75-100 of these are subscription channels that I don't subscribe to, including one (chinsy) movie package, some foreign language channels and a whole lot of sports bundles including expensive local teams bundles. Another 100 or so are pay per view that I occasionally use. There are about 150 non movie channels -- though some of these sometimes carry movies. And I must get around 60 or premium movie channels -- all but one of the bundles. What happens is that for the digital HBO bundle at the same rate or slightly more than pre-digital, I get 7 HBO movie channels, rather than one. And so on. Between Sundance, IFC, and one each of the Cinimax, HBO and a couple of other bundles, there are nearly always several foreign, art and true indie movie choices available. (The way to find things is through Excite's TV web page, customized to your lineup -- which is mostly automatic.)

With digital (translated to S-Video analog for a regular TV by the cable box) all of this is at near DVD quality. Very near.

I think this, rather than HDTV is going to be the "future" for a long time to come. With possibly another doubling in number of channels (and even more cable internet bandwith) as broadband technology progresses in a few years.

Though I do agree that cable and satellites will move to more and more frequently transmit with widescreen formatting, thankfully.

Edited by - dexplorer on Oct 18 2001

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There's a real big experiential jump going from 27 to 32. Lots more than going from 32 to 36. (It's a squared proportional area thing, not an arithmetic thing.)

Really nice 32" tube TV's can be had these days for around $600 at discount places. (E.g. the no frills but beautiful black tube basic Panasonic model.) Or the Panasonic 36" for about $750. Maybe less in each case on a good sale.

Personally I agree that widescreen TV's still aren't worth the price for the extra width they give you (and less height when watching cable or *ahem* porn).

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The majority of DVDs are in the 1.85:1 aspect ratio (16x9), with maybe a quarter at the 2.35:1 ratio (scope). The scope ratio leaves small black bars on the top and bottom of the screen. By the way, I think there's some confusion about the "Silence of the Lambs" disc. It's aspect ratio has always been 1.85:1.

Mr. Crawford, I think I have seen some 16x9 menus. Either that or the DVD producer strikes a balance between full-frame and 16x9 so that it looks acceptable in either format. But the new "Star Wars" disc, for example, has a 16x9 menu. Oh, and I look forward to your discs in this format. If only you could get rid of those pesky condoms.

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In regards to the anamorphic debate, a non-anamorphic transfer fills the screen by stretching the picture both horizontally & vertically. Where as an anamorphic enhanced transfer only has to stretch the picture horizontally, which means less of a loss in detail.
Its also worth mentioning that you don't need a WS set to take advantage of an anamorphic DVD, all recent 4:3 sets are also anamorphic enhanced.

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My position, in case it isn't clear is this:

I would like all movies to be distributed or broadcast, whether on DVD, VHS, Cable, Satellite or the airwaves, in the format it was originally produced.

As far as original choice of production aspect ratio goes, I generally prefer widescreen for anything other than talking heads type video. I tend to like moderate widescreen, around 1.85 better than extreme widescreen. The later does have a function in spectacle type films -- like Ben Hur, Lawrence of Arabia, etc.

Having said all this, I think the best quality / value TV choice in the US market is a 36" no frills but excellent picture tube set. (Like the Panasonic basic 36" black tube). (True black as opposed to dark grey is one of TV's most challenging colors.) It will display a widescreen image real fine.

That's if you can have the TV quite close to your viewing position. (Mine's on an industrial scale cart with a thick bundle of umbillacle cables neatly wire tied together back to my home entertainment stereo setup. Center channel DTS speaker, DVD, VHS, Cable box all on two shelves of the cart below the TV, plus a bunch of blank and other tapes. It can be tucked away in an alcove, or placed in front of the marble table/footstool in front of the main L.R. couch, or rolled right up to my home office off the LR while I'm surfing and viewing at the same time. Situtation normal when I'm by myself at home, or my (recently deceased in an accident) gf was watching her different stuff at her desk/office/TV/cable box/DVD in the loft's large studio room.)

If it's got to be across the room a rear projection getup makes sense. But costs a lot more, for less quality than you get if you have a big tube close to you. A rear projection close to you is real big, yeah, but also much softer and less bright and alive looking than a big tube.

Edited by - dexplorer on Oct 18 2001

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First, for DVD, the phrases "anamorphic" and "enhanced for 16:9 TV's" are interchangable. In this context, 16:9 is not being used to describe the aspect ratio of the movie, but the aspect ratio of the TV (personally I wish that the industry would just get together and all use the same descrtiption just to cut the confusion). Using this technology makes a DVD look better on a widescreen TV, and actually makes the DVD look worse on a standard 4:3 TV (I'll get back to this later).

The Phrase "anamorphic" initially comes from the type of lens used on movie cameras when filming a movie in the 2.35:1 (or wider) aspect ratio. For the most part, movie film is still a 4:3 ratio (it looks just like the negatives that you get back when you have 35mm pictures developed). In order to get a widescreen image onto this film (without severly degrading picture quality), filmmakers use a lens that actually squeezes a widescreen image onto the film. If you were to hold the film up to light and look at it, everything would be tall & skinny.

Movie projectors at the theater are equipped with a lens that reverses this process and stretched the picture back out to a widescreen image. This methodology allows the entire frame of the film to be used thereby maintaining higher picture quality.

As I explained in my earlier post, 1.85:1 aspect ratio films are generally made by covering the top & bottom of the film (either in the camera, projector, or in post-processing), and then zooming the image to fill the screen. This zoom process decreases the image quality, but at 1.85:1 the quality is not greatly diminished. If they went any wider than this, quality would get very poor, which is why the anamorphic lens process is used for wider films. (There is also Super-35, which is a newer technology which uses higher quality film that allows greater zooming without significane degradateion, but for this discussion, lets forget this format).

Next, let me tell you a little about widescreen TV's. They all have different types of stretch or zoom modes. The two modes that are relevant for this discussion either: 1) zoom the entire picture by approximately 28%, which eliminates a significant number of scan lines, therefore decreasing picture quality or 2) just stretches the picture in width. This doesn't eliminate any scan lines, but makes imates look fatter than they should. This second methodology works exactly like the movie projector stretching the film back to a widescreen ratio as described above.

Back to DVD, like film, the picture recorded on a DVD is in a 4:3 (or 1.33:1) aspect ratio. So, in an non-anamorphic DVD, the black bars that you see on a widescreen movie, are actually recorded onto the disk. On a widescreen TV (before activating one of the zoom modes), this picture will appear in the center of the TV completely surrounded by black bars on all sides. In order to watch this type of movie properly, the first zoom method is used, creating a lower picture quality.

With an anamorphic DVD, the widescreen image is squeezed onto the DVD (just like the movie camera squeezed the picture onto the film). When this is played back on a widescreen TV, the image fills the screen top to bottom. You then activate the zoom mode that just stretches the picture width maintaing all of the scan lines. As an aside, if the movie is 2.35:1 there will be small black bars recorded on the DVD and displayed on a widescreen TV).

Now, back to why this actually looks worse on a 4:3 TV. In order to properly fill a 4:3 TV, your DVD player has to actually build the black bars at the top and bottom of the picture on the fly. In order to do this, the player has to eliminate some of the scan lines. Some players do this better than others. Some players just eliminate every third line or so, others try to merge some of the lines together. From my understanding the second methodology tends to produce better results.

In a perfect world, this "anamorphic downconversion" would look just as good on a 4:3 TV as a non-anamorphic disk, but with cheaper DVD players that is not usually the case.

As fars as "Silence of the Lambs" is concerned, this movie was shot in 1.85:1. I don't know where you are getting information that is available on DVD as 2.35:1, but I'm 99% sure that this is incorrect (Amazon.com lists the aspect ratio of the widescreen SE as 1.85:1).

On the topic of HDTV, you would be surprsed to know how much programming actually IS available in High Definition, and how much the prices have come down. I have recently seen Toshiba's 65" widescreen HD-ready TV for $2500. A couple of years ago the Non-HD version of this same TV was more than $6000. In programming, currently CBS and ABC are broadcasting their entire prime-time, drama and sitcom, lineup in High Definition. HBO and Showtime both have HD versions of their primary channels. HBO is producing many of their own series and movies in HD (Sopranos, Band Of Brothers, 61*, etc...).

Sports (especially football) are incredible in High-Def. In NY, if you have Cablevision, most Mats, Yankees, Knicks, Nets, Rangers, Islanders, and Devils games are available in HD. CBS has done a good job broadcasting most of the major sporting events that is has the rights to in HD (Super Bowl, Final Four, Masters, US Open Tennis, all NFL playoff games, Thanksgiving football games. At this time, the biggest problem with HD sports is the scarce number of HD production trucks. Until there are more production trucks available, it will be difficult for the networks to be able to broadcast the entire NFL schedule in HD, but for CBS, I wouldn't be seuprised if that were to happen by next season or the following year at the latest. This year, CBS is broadcasting one SEC (college) football game in HD every week.

Just recently, Marc Cuban (the owner of the Dallas Mavericks) has launched a HD Sports channel (HD Net). Currently, because of specific broadcast rights that DirecTV has with the different major sports leagues, this channel is only available on DirecTV. During the month of September, HD-Net broadcast about 18 major league baseball games. They have approximately 65 NHL games this year as well as 39 different events in association with the US Olympic Committee. They are still in negotiations, but should have a significant number of NBA games this year, and have 80 baseball games scheduled for next year.

The worst thing that would have possibly happened to HDTV occurred on September 11. One of the biggest problems with HD over the last few years was the inability of NBC and ABC to be able to negotiate a least for new antenna space on the World Trade Center (CBS broadcasts its HD signal from the Empire State Building). Because of the delays in NY, the networks were reluctant to spend money on HD programming (why spend all the money when you can't show it to your largest market?).

This past spring, everyting was worked out, and all of the NY stations were broadcasting a digital signal. Shortly before Sept 11, ABC announced their fall HD lineup, and NBC was expected to make some type of announcement as well (they are getting ready as evidenced by the shows that they are now doing in widescreen). When the WTC collapsed, so did the likelyhood of new HD programming on NBC.

I'm probably rambling at this point, so I'll stop. If I have confused you, or have missed something, please ask. I am more than happy to try to help you understand. Also there is a very good article on Anamorphic DVD's with pictures and diagrams here

Edited by - Bill Broderick on Oct 18 2001

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Functionally the 1.85:1 widescreen ratio that most films are produced to be displayed at in movie theaters is equivalent to 1.78:1 (aka 1.78).

Wider films, such as the 2.35 you mentioned, will either letterbox even more than usual on your TV, or if you have a widescreen model, will noticeably letterbox for the first time.

Anamorphic titles look better on letterbox TV's than non-anamorphic ones do. If you want to know why, read Bill just above. So if you've got a widescreen TV you want to get an anamorphic version of the title if you can find one.

But anamorphic titles supposedly look less good on many standard TV's than non-anamorphic ones. (Which no doubt is why more titles don't come out anamorphic.)

If you've got a standard TV but figure your DVD library is "forever" and you are gonna go widescreen eventually, then get or rent an anamorphic title and see how it looks on you existing 4:3 set. On many DVD player / 4:3 TV combos being anamorphic won't phase it. (Apex 600A DVD player is again a champ here. It's a computer pretending to be a DVD player.)

Does that help simplfy?

Edited by - dexplorer on Oct 19 2001

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Do DVD's look any better on HDTV than on a high quality standard or widescreen TV?

I.e., is there any "reserve" resolution in DVD's that nothing but HDTV's can utilize?

It's the actual visuals I care about, not scan line theory.

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thanks for the info, I work for a company that makes adult dvds and we have just recently received some Nicholas Steele movies that were shot 16:9 format on DigiBeta which we will encode squeezed to keep the quality higher than if we just had a letterboxed dub made to encode. I'm still surprised that a lot of adult movies that are shot 16:9 are released in the squeezed format. I don't understand why they'd shoot 16:9 and release a stretched image.

I also do freelance work for the major studios, and sometimes I deliver menus in both 16:9 and 4:3 formats which I still don't understand because if you encode both sets, how would the player know which to display? Typical big studio though, they ask for things and when you ask them why they need them that way, they have no idea, they just know that they need to deliver what it says on their spec sheet. And I love it even more when one producer tells you they need something one way and another calls and tells you that the previous producer didn't know what they were talking about...sorry, I'll stop now.

Anyway, I've been lurking here for a while and thought I'd chime in with my appreciation for this info and the link to digitlabits.com, what a wealth of info

thanks again

We've got a long way to go, and a short time to get there.

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This interlaced image can create a flicker (you can most obviously see this in closing credits (white writing on a black background).

A Progressive scan DVD player displays all 480 lines, all of the time. They call this image 480p.

So the short answer is Yes, a dvd can look quite a bit better on an HDTV than on a non-HD widescreen TV. Even without a Progressive scan DVD player, most HDTV's have built in line doublers which effectively turn 480i into 480p, but since this process requires the DVD player to convert the digital signal to analog (in order to send it to the TV) and then the TV converts it back to digital (in order to do the line doubling) and then back to analog to display it, the quality of this process is not as good as when the DVD player does everything in the digital realm, and converts it to analog and passes it to the TV which then displays it as is.

Please note: Although you can't take advantage of Progressive scan without an HDTV, all progressive scan DVD players will produce an interlaced picture as well. The price of progressive scan DVD players is coming down dramatically (and the quality is going up). Sony and Panasonic both have new progressive scan DVD players that have received rave reviews for under $300 (I saw the Panasonic RP-56 advertized for $219 last week).

At this price, if an HDTV is possibly in your future, this is definitely a feature that you should consider if you are in the market for a DVD player.

One last thing, avoid the inexpensive Pioneer progressive scan player (I think the model is the 343). It has received HORRENDOUS reviews.

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Thanks for all the info. You sure know your stuff.

Now let me ask you a subjective question.

Using the difference in quality between a best of breed VHS prerecorded tape vs. a best of breed DVD on a non HDTV widescreen as the benchmark at 100%, what would be the percentage of visual improvement going from regular widescreen to HDTV using DVD's with a progressive scan DVD player as the source.

E.g., 10%, 20%, another 100% -- what would you say?

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Objectively, I can tell you this:

Perfect quality VHS: 240 lines of resolution (120 lines on the screen at any given time)

Perfect quality DVD: 480 lines (240 lines on the screen at any given time)

Perfect progressive DVD: 480 lines all of them are always on the screen).

I won't say that progressive scan produces a picture that is 100% better than non-progressive (especially since the TV does some level of line doubling already). But as far as I'm concerned, if someone is purchasing an HDTV, and doesn't own a progressive scan DVD player, they should plan on buying one of these players at the same time as they buy the TV.

Another thing that makes this a difficult question is that the size of the screen has a lot to do with how much better one format looks over another. The smaller a TV is, the closer the scan lines are to one another. So adding additional scan lines on a small TV doesn't necessarily have as great an impact as it does on a big TV. This is why quality VHS may look just as good on a 13" TV as a DVD of the same material does in a 27" TV. So the bigger the TV, the bigger the impact of improved resolution.

Not having progressive scan with an HD set is kind of like putting regular gasoline into a Ferrari. It will run, but not as well as it can.

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Do you have a tube or projection TV?

Have you heard anything about the liklihood of widescreen tube's getting any bigger than 38"?

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I plan on buying a 34" direct view (tube) set for my bedroom in the fireseeable future.

It is unlikely that the tube sets will get much (if any) larger than 38". Apparantly there is a tremendous amount of pressure on the inside of the tube, and if they get much bigger, it will be very difficult to keep them from breaking (actually exploding) from the pressure. This is why the larger sets do not have flat screens. The rounded screen makes them much stronger.

I wouldn't worry about the shortcomings of Rear projection TV's. They have come a LONG way in the last few years. You no longer have to sit directly in front of them to see a good picture. There are still some issues if you are at a severe angle higher or lower than the picture (but when is this the case), but they have eliminated the problem from side to side.

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Superbit utilizes a special high bit rate digital transfer process to encode movies at double the normal dvd bit rate. By converting the full physical space of the disc, Superbit dvd delivers the best picture and audio quality available on the market today.

There is also an illustration showing that a standard dvd uses a little less than half of its space for video, where Superbit dvd uses about 75% of its space for video.

These are the titles now available on Superbit dvd:

- Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon
- Air Force One
- Desperado
- Johnny Mnemonic
- The Fifth Element

The following will be available in December:

- Gattaca
- The Patriot
- Bram Stoker's Dracula

I'm looking forward to the Dracula one myself.

These superbit dvds are easy to spot. All of them come in a silver box, kind of like the Terminator 2 box, except these actually have a photo of the movie on the cover, where T2 did not.

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I already own a kickass double edition of El Mariache/Desperado, full of extras (audio commentary, two "movie lessons" by R. Rodriguez, the short "Bedhead").

Mouseover Willis´ receding hairline to find a nice Superbit review.

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With a Superbit DVD, you will get a high quality movie, with Dolby Digital audio. No more, no less/

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