DVDizzy Forum

What do you think of the BATB Platinum Edition Restoration?
likes/dislikes

Personally it took me recently to really TRUELY appreciate it.

I had a great opportunity to view the Laserdisc of BATB and comparing to the DVD, the DVD is SSSOOOO much better. You get to see the background more and even other objects that were harder to see in the first release.

BUT, some things could have been left not so bright, like Belle was glowing in the dark at some points in the movie lol.

HOWEVER, I do not like the fact that they cropped the movie to 1:85.1 and not is original 1:66.1 aspect ratio. I would have really Enjoyed the movie in it's original release. I am also glad they changed Mulan back to 1:66.1

Maybe with BATB Blu-Ray release, it will be right.

BATBFan1 wrote: HOWEVER, I do not like the fact that they cropped the movie to 1:85.1 and not is original 1:66.1 aspect ratio. I would have really Enjoyed the movie in it's original release. I am also glad they changed Mulan back to 1:66.1

Maybe with BATB Blue-Ray release, it will be right.

It was the producers/directors' choice to present the movie in its 1.85:1 theatrical ratio as opposed to the full 1.66:1 image, so Disney will most likely stick to their wishes when releasing it again in Blu-Ray.

BATBFan1 wrote:
I had a great opportunity to view the Laserdisc of BATB and comparing to the DVD, the DVD is SSSOOOO much better. You get to see the background more and even other objects that were harder to see in the first release.

You DO realize that this is because they re-detailed it for IMAX, right?

Escapay wrote:

BATBFan1 wrote: HOWEVER, I do not like the fact that they cropped the movie to 1:85.1 and not is original 1:66.1 aspect ratio. I would have really Enjoyed the movie in it's original release. I am also glad they changed Mulan back to 1:66.1

Maybe with BATB Blue-Ray release, it will be right.

It was the producers/directors' choice to present the movie in its 1.85:1 theatrical ratio as opposed to the full 1.66:1 image, so Disney will most likely stick to their wishes when releasing it again in Blu-Ray.

But WHHYYY????

If it was made in 1.66:1 not 1.85:1?
It isn't fair! We are missing some of the animation.

I agree that fans of animation shouldn't me made to watch B&tB in an incorrect aspect ratio, even if the directors did want it that way. But look on the bright side; even if Disney decides to keep it in its incorrect aspect ratio for the Blu-Ray re-release, at least Blu-Ray will be able to handle 3 different versions of the film, unlike the current disc. We'll get perfect picture quality.

If it were up to me, I'd put the 1.66:1 version and the 1.85:1 version on one disc, slap "Human Again" in the Deleted Scenes section, and put the Work-in-Progress version somewhere else, so that we can have our cake and eat it too.

BATBFan1 wrote:

Escapay wrote: It was the producers/directors' choice to present the movie in its 1.85:1 theatrical ratio as opposed to the full 1.66:1 image, so Disney will most likely stick to their wishes when releasing it again in Blu-Ray.

But WHHYYY????

If it was made in 1.66:1 not 1.85:1?
It isn't fair! We are missing some of the animation.

No, it was drawn and animated in 1.66:1, but was matted theatrically at 1.85:1, which is what they wanted the audience to see. It's like the full-frame animated Classics from 101 Dalmatians onward. They were animated in fullframe (which is what we get on the DVD), but in theaters they were matted down, usually to 1.75:1 or 1.85:1

For Beauty and the Beast, it was meant to be seen in 1.85:1, which is how it's presented on the DVD.

Escapay

I think that the transfer is very acceptable, but it could be better because the movie was packed with three versions of the film, so this affect the great restoration that they did because they abuse of the space of the DVD and that's why sometimes the lines of the characters are not well defined.

Tarzan. wrote:I think that the transfer is very acceptable, but it could be better because the movie was packed with three versions of the film, so this affect the great restoration that they did because they abuse of the space of the DVD and that's why sometimes the lines of the characters are not well defined.

Disc one only contains 2 full versions of the film. When you select the newer version with Human Again, there's a cut where it goes and adds in the different chapter for the added song, and then back to the original. But still, two full films does decrease it's encoded bitrate.

mikemgmve wrote: Disc one only contains 2 full versions of the film. When you select the newer version with Human Again, there's a cut where it goes and adds in the different chapter for the added song, and then back to the original. But still, two full films does decrease it's encoded bitrate.

Does this release use the "seamless branching" technique like Alien Quadrilogy for instance?

I agree that the average bit rate is low (I have the UK/Australian release and it has 6.64 Mb/sec).

I think the restoration is aboslutely stunning! I do think it would hae better if they had put the "work-In-Progress" version on a seperate DVD though... As the quality it has been a bit compressed to make space for both versons of the film.

As for the aspect ratio, I think it's ok that it's 1.85:1, when this was something the director Don Hahn Personally wanted changed for this release... The directors choice must be the rigth one IMO... And still we get a lot more of the picture than in the VHS releases so Im not complainin'...

The restoration is indeed stunning... if you watch your movies on a standard-definition television under forty inches. If you're like me, however, and have an HD projector with a 76-inch screen, the insanely horrible artifacting around the characters is all too apparent. I can't even make it through "Belle" without having to turn the movie off.

In contrast, most of Disney's other SE/PE DVD's look spectacular, with Aladdin looking truly mind-blowing on a large screen.

BATBFan1 and Pasta67, Beauty And The Beast ratio: As Escapay said. 1.85

People, you have to understand the concept that the camera aperture (or in this case, the total rendered area) is NOT the Original Aspect Ratio!



If it was, the OAR for Lord Of The Rings would be 1.33 as it was shot on a 1.33 Silent Full aperture Super-35 camera at aprox. 19mm x 25mm camera hole size, YET that movie's correct aspect ratio is 2.39




As posted uncounted times, the reason the CAPS films are rendered in near 1.66 is cus 35mm prints are mechanical things, not electronic data that you can uprez and resize at a whim. So only ONE image can be printed on them. Since the 35mm CAPS films prints are projected ALSO in Europe where some theaters have 1.66 wide screens, a little bit more image on the top and bottom is rendered for them so when the 35mm film print is shown in one of those European 1.66 theaters you don't end up with the hated by everybody black bars ON A MOVIE THEATER SCREEN, that you would see if the 35mm print was renderered hard matted in the correct 1.85 aspect ratio. Theater projectionists don't have zoom lenses to blow up the 1.85 tall image to fill the 1.66 screen's height, so animation and background is drawn to fill the otherwise empty black bar space that would result. (and zooming to fill a 1.66 screen would crop the sides of the 1.85 screen also) (which would then crop animation that was intended)

Is that clear?

Same reason the 60's and 70's movies were shot "full frame" 1.37 with a normal sound aperture camera instead of hard matted to 1.75



In my state there was only ONE theater (and even that place no longer exists) that knew what lenses to use to change Projection ratios from 1.37 to 1.66 to 1.75 to 1.85, yes that would imply 4 different specific lenses, 4 different projector aperture plates and someone changing the curtains 4 times for each and we aren't counting Scope movies! Theaters have enough trouble presenting properly the 1.85 and 2.39 ratios today as it is.

A Disney movie in an US theater is 1.85

Mulan was 1.85
Lion King was 1.85
Aladdin was 1.85



If the director is filming a movie for a 1.85 theatrical presentation he makes sure his characters are framed for THAT.
The director of BatB didn't "change" it to 1.85, that's how he shot it.

There weren't any 16:9 TVs or DVDs back then so millions of people would only see it on a theaters at 1.85




BTW, the PAL dvd version of Beauty And The Beast looks stupendous one of the best transfers i've seen, no fuzzi lines.

Going back to the topic, i don't think of the DVD version of Beauty and the Best as a restoration but more as a re-interpretation, it changes the mood of the film.
Maybe the Blu-ray should have 3 versions like this: Original theatrical dark moody colors, original theatrical Work In Progress, and the IMAX happy bright recoloring one currently on the DVD.

marlan wrote:

mikemgmve wrote: Disc one only contains 2 full versions of the film. When you select the newer version with Human Again, there's a cut where it goes and adds in the different chapter for the added song, and then back to the original. But still, two full films does decrease it's encoded bitrate.

Does this release use the "seamless branching" technique like Alien Quadrilogy for instance?

I agree that the average bit rate is low (I have the UK/Australian release and it has 6.64 Mb/sec).

No, Beauty and the Beast doesn't use "Seamless Branching". True seamless branching works in a way similar to multiple audio tracks or multi-angle video on a DVD. The alternative images and audio are integrated into the datastream, and data not required is "ignored" by the player.

Beauty and the Beast actually has the first half of the film encoded once, and the second half (which includes the new sequence) encoded twice - and the "branching" is performed on the layer change. As you can imagine, this solution has a lot of information needlessly duplicated, and is far from ideal.

Initially, I thought the reason for this is because the film does make use of alternative angles for the "WiP" presentation, as - although information on the implementation of seamless branching is difficult to find - I don't think its possible to have multiple angles and seamless branching on the same title (being as the branching itself is a more complex form of multiple-angles).

However, Disney use the same technique on the Lion King (although this time, it is the opening of the movie until the layer change which is duplicated being as the additional sequence is close to the opening of the film).

Therefore, I can only assume that the disc authors decided to use this cruder and simpler method of "branching" because they knew the Platinum titles would sell millions of copies, and there are considerable players on the market which still have problems playing seamless branching discs (especially at the time "Beauty and the Beast" was released).

The reason for all the confusion with the implementation of seamless branching is because it was loosely specified in the DVD Forum's technical specifications and most DVD manufacturers interperated the requirements slightly differently.

@ deathie mouse

Why did then change the Special Edition of Mulan to be 1.66:1 and then have it on a Gold Classic Edition as 1.85:1?
It doesn't make sense. I know where you are coming from, but you are losing animation that animators spend their hard work and dedication on. Why in the heck would Disney want to do something like that? They are cutting a nice lil chunk out by doing that. Yes, when we saw BATB in the movies it was 1.85:1 but now we can enjoy the entire film as 1.66:1

Who agrees?

BATBFan1, Mulan wasn't changed back to 1.66, Mulan was never 1.66 on a US theater (unless the theater was wacked) nor was Beauty and the Beast. Believe me, I projected Mulan and The Lion King.


as for your questions, I already answered , go back and re-read my post very carefuly. examine the pics.

You're saying you're missing picture? Tell you what, even the 1.66 versions on the Laserdisc is missing "picture", as you call it. Allow me to introduce for the mullionths time the concept of camera aperture, projector aperture and film DIMENSIONS

the CORRECT projected width of 35mm sound film is 0.825", or 20.955 millimeters. That is what's supposed to be seen that's where the groundglass lines are in the viewfinder of the camera, that's what the cameraman see and frames for and the projectionist projects on the screen .

But you think the camera shoots only 0.825"/20.955mm? Noooooooooo mr.Bond it films a little more! 5% more, the camera hole is made a little wider, 0.866" or 21.9964 millimeters (22mm for short) so guess what? you're missing that millimeter!!! and guess what? in the other direction, the height, same thing happens the Acadmy height is 0.600" or 15.24 millimeters. Now you think the camera is 0.600" high? Noo mr.Bond it's 0.630" or 16.002 milimeters high (16mm for short) so you're missing another millimeter there if you keep thinking like you do. The 1.85 Aspect ratio height dimension is 0.446" or 11.33 mm, Now since you want the whole image and nothing but the whole image, if you show the 22mm width you end with a 1.94 image, but then you say wait! what about the whole height? well you end up with 1.375 image! so are we gonna watch our carefully composed 1.85 movies in 1.375? well that's what VHSes are for! you can watch loooooooots of movies with more image anywhere on VHS. Since DVD is a pixel perfect digital medium we prefer to see it with 100% of the carefuly composed image not 95% or 90%, or 105% like you seem to want.

You say the animators went to all the trouble to animate the bleed that falls outside the composed area. well i told you one reason. Want another? Do you think the directors and the artist are only gonna animate JUST exactly what they're gonna shoot with no leeway whatsoever to change the camera position? "Hey Roy, you know what? I changed my mind I actually want to show a couple more buttons down that shirt, but since we animated exactly so the edge of the animation falls on the edge of the camera, though luck, we have to spend 500,000 more redoing it" (Instead of animating more broadly and just framing exactly what you want WITH the camera's 1.85 groundglass the first time.) Your argument would make one say, but hey, the actors brought legs to the studio, when we transfer to video this medium shot the director framed, we have to change the ratio to show the legs cus they came with the actor, after all he took several years to grow them.




And now to your very good question: why do they make some transfers show more of the vertical? like 1.66 instead of 1.85. Several "justifications". Not reasons:

Oh new! REMASTERED! DIFFERENT! SEE wE CHANGED it. WE ShoW you MOre
Oh 1.66, Guess what? less bars! yes less black bars that every child and parent that don't know how film works, hates, whines, and complains about.

After ALL most people still have 1.33 TVs Not anyone has an 1.85 TV
and hey! talking about TVs, did you know that 4:3 TVs throw away 1 out of every 4 lines of a DVD to show you your widescreen movie? start with more image end with more image.
And talking about TVs, did you know that MOST TVs cut off the borders of the picture?
Called OVERSCAN?
You've heard about the TV SAFE ACTION AREA? it's 90% of the height

Here a very good Justification for the transfer done in 1.66:

if you're watching Mulan on a 16:9 TV what you see is the 1.85 FRAMING. cus the tv cropped the 10%. 1.66/1.85 = 90%
so you're actually watching Mulan with 1.85 framing.

Now you'll say, why then didn't they letterbox the slight 1.85 black bars if they're gonna be hidden on the TV anyway? BECAUSE the 10% is an average number, so one TV will have 8% and another will have 11% etc etc and we can't have people seing variable black bars (in fact that's why they invented the overscan in the first place to make the picture always spill outside the tube and fill it) but even if the thing were so precise it matched perfectly, remember, the folks with a 4:3 TV would get thicker black bars if they do it 1.85 instead of 1.66 (like they do with Beauty And The Beast) (And look! you're complaining! so you prove the wrong version right!) Now look at the Mulan pic. Is that empty space above the dude's head so important to see? Is his pant important? Is one of two Mulan unused arrows important? For the scene?? No, in that scene Mulan made a bubu and what's part of the scene what were suposed to experience is him peering over and looking at her reprehensively and she smiling as oops i did it again. smile. and that's best served with a close thing medium shot.

Hope it starts to make sense cus you're loosing sleep over nothing. I even think you could see on the Work in Progress Laserdisc (yes i have it) the 1.85 framing rectangle lines on the art, and I remember thinking, why didn't they crop the transfer to that! the correct framing just like i saw it recently on the theater? before i started to seriously think about all this compromises home video editions do and now i pass this info to you.
_________________

What DM explained here is pretty much the reason why I consider (for my practical purposes) 1.66, 1.85 and everything inbetween (including 16:9) basically the same thing...

Then we've got "TV screen ratio" 4:3, which is about the same as 1.375 AND "wide wide-screen" of about 2.20 and up.

This roughly covers everything...

deathie mouse wrote:BATBFan1, Mulan wasn't changed back to 1.66, Mulan was never 1.66 on a US theater (unless the theater was wacked) nor was Beauty and the Beast. Believe me, I projected Mulan and The Lion King.


as for your questions, I already answered , go back and re-read my post very carefuly. examine the pics.

You're saying you're missing picture? Tell you what, even the 1.66 versions on the Laserdisc is missing "picture", as you call it. Allow me to introduce for the mullionths time the concept of camera aperture, projector aperture and film DIMENSIONS

the CORRECT projected width of 35mm sound film is 0.825", or 20.955 millimeters. That is what's supposed to be seen that's where the groundglass lines are in the viewfinder of the camera, that's what the cameraman see and frames for and the projectionist projects on the screen.

Ok you are starting to turn out like the mad man in your icon lol. j/k

I get what you are saying, but we are still missing picture.

BATBFan1 wrote: Ok you are starting to turn out like the mad man in your icon lol. j/k

I get what you are saying, but we are still missing picture.

Lordy...

Is that little little little bit of picture really THAT important?

BTW, the mad man's name is Taylor.

Escapay

to explain the 1.66 aspect thingy, I think this was because a few years ago Disney went a little nuts and insisted that all the films released to dvd strictly use the "family friendly widescreen" which was the 1.66 ratio. As recent DVD releases have shown, Disney decided to care less about the 1.66 thing and just stick with whatever aspect ratio the film originally came in.

Escapay wrote:

BATBFan1 wrote: Ok you are starting to turn out like the mad man in your icon lol. j/k

I get what you are saying, but we are still missing picture.

Lordy...

Is that little little little bit of picture really THAT important?

BTW, the mad man's name is Taylor.

Escapay

mmhmmm.

Apparently I am not alone here.

What's your favorite Disney movie? I know you would be ticked if that happened to you.