Lady and the Tramp: Platinum Edition DVD Press Release

[Luke]

From that part alone, it definitely does not look like the Academy Version has been used:

<img src="http://www.ultimatedisney.com/images/l-o/ltscope.jpg">

<img src="http://www.ultimatedisney.com/images/l-o/ltcrop.jpg">

[MICKEYMOUSE]

Luke or anyone thats knows....I know that there is two versions on this DVD that is coming out. The Widescreen, and the Fullscreen. Please tell me that the picture on top is the WIDESCREEN version of this DVD!! Cause I could care less about the Fullscreen part, I hate FULLSCREEN!!

[deathie mouse]

Hey Mickey!
HeyMickeyyouresoangryyouresoangry
Hey Mickey!

It comes with both, calm down

Hey Mickey1

[Barty]

Some forum thread with some interesting facts about the audio format:

http://www.hometheaterforum.com/htforum ... genumber=1

[deathie mouse]

Actually...

while looking at Luke's pan/scan capture..

*adopts an Herculé Poirot accent and demeanor:

a little bell started ringing in my head

and as I pondered what it was
I said to myself something is odd about that pan/scan capture

so to make the bell go quiet..

Gentlemice and Ladies, at least from Luke's capture, the Lady And The Tramp pan/scan version maybe fullscreen indeed, but not 4:3 Fullscreen but 16:9 Fullscreen!:


this can easily be seen when you compare the two images 16:nined at the same size side by side:

Widescreen

Fullscreen


Now all if left is to see if the rest of the movie is that way

If it is,
very smooth Disney very smooth.

you "flag" the disc as 4:3 but when a non tech saavy 16:9 display owner watches it he can choose to stretch the "Fullscreen" version to "get rid of those damn black bars!"



in other news,
btw, from Luke's capture the aspect ratio of the widescreen version seems to be slightly different than the one in the PAL captures marlan posted.

[Starion]

Thanks for the information and the screenshots everyone. It looks like the widescreen version has black bars on the top and bottom. Or maybe I'm seeing things. lol I want to watch the DVD on my computer monitor. Alas, I must wait until March.

I went to my local Disney Store today. The nice cashier told me that they aren't taking pre-orders for The Lady And the Tramp. Best Buy is offering a free plush toy of what appears to be a grey (gray?) Tramp.

Edit: Maybe the dog that Best Buy is offering isn't Tramp; it might be another dog. Sorry, I don't know his or her name.

[Lars Vermundsberget]

Seeing things? Widescreen movies tend to have black bars on the top and bottom of the screen because they are wider (higher width-to-height ratio) than most TV screens.

The "Academy Version" of LatT was released on laserdisc in the late 90s. I'll consider looking it up (on eBay). Could a picture of the cover be found anywhere...? I've forgotten how that particular edition looks.

[deathie mouse]

Starion, the black bars in the widerscreen version are normal. The movie was shot with a 2.55 wide image. A 16:9 widescreen display is only 1.78 wide, so to insert a 2.55 wide image into it you have to decrease the image's size till it's 2.55 width fits inside the 1.78 frame's width. So since now the movie's height is smaller than the 1.78 display's frame height, there's this empty space we call the "black bars"

Same thing happens when you watch the widescreen version on a standart 4:3 TV which is only 1.33 wide. Just that in there you have to decrease the size of the 2.55 wide image much much more to fit the 2.55 width inside the 1.33 frame's width so you get much much more empty space above and below, hence thicker, or "bigger", "black bars" in a 4:3 TV with CinemaScope ratio films

The only way to eliminate bars in different formats is to have a display for each format and that's impractical. Or a projector with a zoom lens throwing the image in a blank wall where you change the width of every format by zooming and having the height of the image be the same. (What they do in theaters)

[MICKEYMOUSE]

deathie mouse I have a SONY WIDESCREEN HD READY TV. I have those black bars when I am playing it on my DVD player. But what I do (when I have the back bars), is hit the ZOOM button on my controller. Now some of my DVDs don't have the back bars, but are WIDESCREEN DVD (all my DVDs are WIDSCREEN). Now here are my questions

1. Am I loosing any picture when I am hitting the ZOOM button?

2. Why do some of my widescreen DVD have the back bars and some don't (i.e. the new edition of Billy Maddison)?

3. Is there a way where I can set up my DVD player so when I pop it in, I don't see the bars?

[DaveWadding]

2. Why do some of my widescreen DVD have the back bars and some don't (i.e. the new edition of Billy Maddison)?

Starion, the black bars in the widerscreen version are normal. The movie was shot with a 2.55 wide image. A 16:9 widescreen display is only 1.78 wide, so to insert a 2.55 wide image into it you have to decrease the image's size till it's 2.55 width fits inside the 1.78 frame's width. So since now the movie's height is smaller than the 1.78 display's frame height, there's this empty space we call the "black bars"

[Escapay]

For comparison's sake, the screencaps mvealf posted in another thread (which I quoted here on page 4):

Picture 1: CinemaScope widescreen on Laserdisc
Picture 2: Pan & Scan of CinemaScope on Laserdisc
Picture 3: Academy on Laserdisc
Picture 4: CinemaScope widescreen on new DVD
Picture 5: Pan & Scan of CinemaScope on new DVD





So it looks like Disney not only chose P&S over Academy for the fullscreen, but they got a new P&S job as opposed to its original.

Could it be possible that rather spend more money restoring and remastering the Academy negative, Disney opted to just do a new P&S job on the widescreen?

But at the same time, if you look at the paws of the brown dog in the center, you can see that a tiny bit more is visible on the bottom of the fullscreen cap of the DVD, while the widescreen cap cuts it off a bit. In the post mvealf made, he mentioned something about how the Academy animation had a bit of picture on the top and bottom, as seen here:



So maybe it is Academy? Eh, we'll all find out when we read the Lukester's review!

Escapay

[Paka]

For comparison's sake, the screencaps mvealf posted in another thread (which I quoted here on page 4)

Yes indeedy, which is located here for easy access. I recommend reading the thread in full, even though it's old and some of the links are broken. It definitely was a grand undertaking by deathie, mvealf, Disneyunlimited and company!

It should be easy to locate on the International DVD forum anyway - since I just bumped it up to the first page with an interesting development on a possible transfer of the Academy ratio version in a not-so-hard-to-find format.

[marlan]

1. Am I loosing any picture when I am hitting the ZOOM button?

2. Why do some of my widescreen DVD have the back bars and some don't (i.e. the new edition of Billy Maddison)?

3. Is there a way where I can set up my DVD player so when I pop it in, I don't see the bars?

1. Yes you are, the left and right edges of the image, if the image is anamorphic. Also the image appears distorted, if you use ZOOM mode when the DVD player would automatically switch your TV set to WIDE mode.

2. Because there are generally two kinds of widescreen movies ("VistaVision", aspect ratio 1:85 : 1; and "CinemaScope", aspect ratio 2.39 : 1 [the reality is more complicated]), and there are two ways of releasing these formats on DVD: "anamorphic enhanced" and letterboxed image. Usually widescreen movies are released in "anamorphic" ("squeezed") format, so there are no black bars visible in "VistaVision" type on a widescreen TV (or they are very tiny and hidden by overscan); but if this format is released in letterboxed format, you have the black bars on all sides and you have to use the ZOOM mode of a widescreen TV; "anamorphic" DVDs automatically switch the display to WIDE mode. But the "CinemaScope" type movies are so wide that you still end with the black bars at top and bottom in order to show the total horizontal width of the image even on a widescreen TV.

3. I do hope there is not.

Some links:
http://www.widescreenmuseum.com/widescreen/
http://www.dvddemystified.com/dvdfaq.html
http://www.widescreen.org/

[marlan]

For the sake of comparison, here's the mirror shot from the new UK DVD:



(Click to view in actual size.)

This shows slightly more at the bottom and more at right than the laserdisk.

Perhaps we shall have soon the corresponding shot from the US DVD release.

[Lars Vermundsberget]

deathie mouse I have a SONY WIDESCREEN HD READY TV. I have those black bars when I am playing it on my DVD player. But what I do (when I have the back bars), is hit the ZOOM button on my controller. Now some of my DVDs don't have the back bars, but are WIDESCREEN DVD (all my DVDs are WIDSCREEN). Now here are my questions

1. Am I loosing any picture when I am hitting the ZOOM button?

2. Why do some of my widescreen DVD have the back bars and some don't (i.e. the new edition of Billy Maddison)?

3. Is there a way where I can set up my DVD player so when I pop it in, I don't see the bars?

I recommmend: Focus on the movie - not the "bars".

Get this straight:

1. A movie image has a certain "shape" (width-to-height ratio).

2. A TV screen also has a (fixed) shape.

3. If the two are (very) different, there's bound to be "black bars" here or there (top and bottom, but sometimes on the sides), UNLESS you're going to have the movie image mangled one way or the other (squeezing or cropping/zooming).

Quite a simple concept.

If you have P&S DVDs/videos, the mangling has been done for you. If you're going to do the mangling yourself, your options depend on your equipment.

[MICKEYMOUSE]

www.dvdtown.com has a review of Lady and the Tramp

Video 10/10
Audio 8/10
Extras 8/10
Flim Value 8/10

For an in dept review head over to the site, it's a pretty good read.

[Luke]

*Wonders what this exponentially growing review will be considered if that is considered "in dept"*

Anyway, no thumb here:

<img src="http://www.ultimatedisney.com/images/l-o/ltcrop2.jpg">
<img src="http://www.ultimatedisney.com/images/l-o/ltscope2.jpg">

[deathie mouse]

A coffe-table printable review?

So i see other shots in the pan/scan are not distorted like the 2 dog shot. interesting. A pan/scan and vario-squeeze!



marlan , if I may correct you: When you say VistaVision what you really mean is "flat", or Standard Widescreen, movies which are from 1.66 to 1.85 wide. VistaVision is one way to shoot that kind of movie The best way


MICKEYMOUSE: Well others have aswered most of your questions, so i'll add just a "little" more dethidata just in case.

I'm asuming you have a true Widescreeen 16:9 display, no?
(Go ahead, measure its faceplate height and width. The faceplate, it should be very near 1.78 wide as tall )

1. Are you loosing any picture when you are hitting the ZOOM button?

Usually yes. So NO ZOOM!

(Depends on how you've set your DVD player, and the kind of Zoom functions of your Display) (DVD players also have zoom functions but lets skip those for the time being )

Just to make sure, since you have a Widescreen 16:9 display (no? ) your DVD player's video/display Set-Up should be set to 16:9 or Wide.
NOT to any 4:3/Standard/Letterbox/PanScan setting!

mine says:

TV Display >>

4:3 / PS
4:3 / LB
16:9 WIDE

I have it on 16:9 WIDE. That way the image's full resolution is transmited (and 16:9 coded disc images are sent widescreen to a 16:9 Widescreen display )

So NO ZOOM!


OK there's TWO exceptions to this rule

1: If you have a widescreen film (Standard Widescreen (1.66-185) or "Scope" type Widescreen (2.00-2.75) that has been released in a 4:3 coded disc, usually refered to "Letterboxed" cus the widescreen image sits inside the 4:3 shape. Since these type of widescreen film discs are not coded (or "enhanced") for 16:9 displays (Cus the studio used an old Laserdisc master (Laserdiscs were made before 16:9 displays were available), or for any reason thought it would be better to make the transfer for the mayority of 4:3 displays users ignoring the new 16:9 display owners ), your widescreen image (be it Standard Widescreen or Scope) will sit like a small rectangle inside you 16:9 display with black empty space on all sides (top and botom, left and right) cus it really IS a rectangle INSIDE a 4:3 "square" INSIDE your 16:9 wide display rectangle!

So to compensdate for the lack of foresight of the Studio, you must Zoom that small rectangle in the middle TILL It FILLS the Width of your 16:9 screen. If it's a Standart Widescreen (1.66-1.85) movie it will fill your screen (Always remember that since 1.66/1.85 is not a perfect fit for 1.78, depending on ovescan, there might be a slice or two of black ) If it is a Scope Widescreen movie (2.00-2.75) you still will have around a third of empty blackspace above and below but that IS NORMAL cus Scope movies are still wider than your 16:9 Widescreen TV. ok?

Examples of this would be the Widescreen Letterboxed old DVDs of The Lady And The Tramp and The Little Mermaid (and the Widescreen Laserdiscs and Widescreen VHSes) etc.

2: If you have a widescreen film, shot with an Academy sound camera or a Silent camera (the Super-35 process) without a hard matte, transfered to DVD in "open matte" form (in other words showing all the unintended for the screen extraneous vertical image captured by the full aperture hole in the camera ), it will apparently look like any other 4:3 movie sitting squarely on your Widescreen 16:9 display, but it's not! You can use the Zoom function to enlarge the picture and properly widescreen it exactly like it's done in theaters for those films.

Examples of this would be DVDs of The Sword And The Stone, The PowerPuff Girls movie (or at least i think that'a what it was called:-P)

Apart from that, NO ZOOM!



2. Why do some of your widescreen DVDs have the back bars and some don't (i.e. the new edition of Billy Maddison)?

That's been answered in previous posts above but to make a concise summary: cus some are shot in Scope (wider format than your widescreen TV) and some are shot in Standard Widescreen (a format that matches your widescreen TV)

(And same same thing applies to watching Academy (1.375), Silent (1.33), and most TV programs of the 20-th century (1.33): They were shot in a format narrower than your widescreen TV so they will have black bars on the sides)

i hope thats clear.

3. Is there a way where I can set up my DVD player so when I pop it in, I don't see the bars?

Well you can play with different setting of your display's Zoom and Stretch functions, or you DVD players zoom functions, to see if you fill your screen with cropped orr distoreted images from various formats. (For example if you use the ZOOM on the Display watching the new Widescreen Cinemascope Lady And The Tramp disc your screen will be full but Lady and Tramp will look like they haven't eaten meatballs in a long time!!

Is that what you want?

[MICKEYMOUSE]

When I meant ZOOM, I did not mean the ZOOM button on my DVD player. I meant, I hit the ZOOM button on my SONY WIDESCREEN TV. So does that answer the question?

[Escapay]

Anyway, no thumb here:

<img src="http://www.ultimatedisney.com/images/l-o/ltcrop2.jpg">
<img src="http://www.ultimatedisney.com/images/l-o/ltscope2.jpg">

Hmm...



Even though the thumb is gone, now there's a tiny bit more on the bottom. Then again, the laserdisc may be framed differently than the DVD, which may explain it. And with this latest cap, we can see that it really is a P&S and not Academy. Shucks...

I'm gonna go crazy over this, I know it.

Escapay