DVDizzy Forum

Apprently Walt had it framed in 1.66. The 40th DVD is in 1.66. But IMDB had its OAR as 1.75 and the 2 prevous DVD releases were in 1.85. So WHO has it right?

we'll never know lol I think Deathie can answer that. because from what i read the 1.66:1 show more on top and bottom and the 1.85:1 show more on left and right that leads me to believe that Mary Poppins was shot in 1.37:1 and then matte to the later ratios.

Shortly after posting my review of the 40th Anniversary Edition DVD, I received a very informative e-mail from a man named Michael McNiel.

Mr. McNiel wrote:
"I was glad you included comments about the aspect ratio. If I understood Scott MacQueen about 10 years ago, Poppins was actually filmed wider than it was intended to be projected…I have never learned the reason for this. The first widescreen laser disc was 1:66 as well. If you see the Poppins trailer at the end of the Japanese “Song of the South” laserdisc, you can see the film in a wider aspect ratio than on any of the video releases. It is actually annoying for me to watch as there is so much wasted space on the right and left sides of the screen. People who saw this trailer and then bought the 1:66 widescreen laserdisc complained to Disney believing that the Japanese trailer was the correct aspect ration…this was mainly fueled by the fact the animators did fill in the empty side spaces with animation. Mr. MacQueen did point out that Poppins was actually hard matted in theaters in 1964 for a “Supercalifagilistic 1:77” aspect ratio (yes they called it that in the theatre press books). I believe the later widescreen releases were put into 1:85 to help appease the earlier complaints. The 1:66 is probably much closer to the actual theatrical exhibitions, but I agree with you…why would they not just do 1:78?"

So I imagine a few lines of picture on the sides are covered by black bars that shouldn't be. Doesn't make sense to do 1.66:1 instead of 1.77:1 if that was the original supercalifragilistic aspect ratio. But the difference is very tiny on DVD.

Luke wrote:Shortly after posting my review of the 40th Anniversary Edition DVD, I received a very informative e-mail from a man named Michael McNiel.

Mr. McNiel wrote:
"Poppins was actually filmed wider than it was intended to be projected…

Filmed wider that it was intended to be projected?! Wierd, but interesting theory. If the original camera negatives were indeed too wide, how did they make the final distribution prints less wide? Mask off the sides with black bars? Or slightly blow up the image so the sides were cropped off? I would be curious if deathie mouse has any comments or has ever heard of this strange practice.

see I was right lukey! 1.77.1 was the correct ratio for Mary Poppins! hehe only 3 more pixels huh?

Or "trip the light penthatholic"


mmm interesting letter..

The only way I can think it was shot wider than shown theatricaly would be that it was shot in a Silent Aperture camera (what we call Super-35 today) or in a larger format, like VistaVision or Technirama for example, and then printed down optically to regular 35 mm sound aperture.

But as far as I know Poppins was photographed in standart widescreen which as you know (and MickeyMouseboy mentioned in the begining) is normally photographed in Academy Sound 1.375 cameras and matted (projected) in widescreen from 1.66 to 1.85 depending.

Understand this: All flat photography 35mm sound film is the same width! The PHYSICAL Projector Aperture width of Academy 1.375, European Widescreen 1.66, Disney Widescreen 1.75, and USA Widescreen 1.85 prints is the very same 0.825 inches for all! (20.95 millimeters) (And since the mid 90's, Scope prints too) it's just the height that varies and of course you make the images the same height (on the screen) in the projection you change the lens' focal lenghts, (therefore widening those same common to all ratios 0.825 inches to diferent widths and positions on the screen.) (if you see the RP-40 film projector alignment test jpeg i posted recently you can visualize this better, specially cus it enumerates the different rratios and dimensions)

There's also the camera aperture width (0.868", about 22mm) which is just a little extra 5% safety photographed area on the sides but that's is also common to all formats too, so all ratios have that little extra on the negative/print but that is not shown through the 0.825" Projector aperture (it's there cus film weaves (moves side to side during projection) and other technical reasons.) But this is not what Mr. McNiel and Mr. MacQueen must mean, since all formats have it. As Poppins1 suggests, what did they do to make it less wider in exhibition then? Close the curtains, use a non standart reduced-width Projector Aperture metal plate?
Did Disney overprint a black side matte on the prints, reducing their widths?

This would imply Disney for some strange reason was hell bent on intending it to be shown at 1.77 but since he knew USA theaters would show a 0.446" x 0.825" 1.85 image, he instructed projectionist to change the metal aperture to a new one filed down to a less wide 0.446" x 0.789" one (that's 20mm wide) to hide the side matte bands, and to close the curtains slighly?

Well , then how would had this been projected in Europe? Cus over there prints would be shown with more vertical image using the 0.497" x 0.825" 1.66 European Projector Aperture. Would they be shown there with a modified to the same strange new width 0.497" x 0.789" Projector Plate? (1.59 Aspect ratio!) I don't think he would do 0.446" x 0.789" 1.77 matted prints, cus those would then show up Windowboxed in Europe with the 1.77 image inside a black widow frame inside the 1.66 screens!

Cus all 35mm Flat photography prints are contact printed, they dont' change dimensions from going to one ratio to another or from projector to projector nor from USA to Europe. It's the same physical print.The image is fixed. Only the projector lens/mask/screen shape combination changes.

The other posibility, that it was shot on a 1.33333 wide Silent Aperture camera that has a bigger "hole" or Aperture cus it's not covered by the optical soundtrack. So the images there can be 24mm wide (0.945") instead of the 21mm (0.825") for the sound cameras. but apart that that would give the original negative higher quality, this wouldn't nescesarily mean it was wider in the negative than the print cus all he would have to do was optically recenter and reduce the image back into the smaller (standart widescren) Sound aperture so no need for the proportional width/areas to be different/hidden. Just shoot at the aspect ratio you want and copy it from Silent to Sound (Exactly what they do today on Super-35 films)

If it woulda been shot in VistaVision (like the sfx of Roger Rabbit) well VistaVision's negative aspect ratio is 1.50 so no wider stuff there neither!. On Technirama well thats wider (2.25) but why would Disney make things more complicated by shooting Anamorphics for a film to be projected on standart widescreen film?

Nothing of this makes sense!

The ONLY thing that would make sense is this:

Shot in Silent aperture but composed for similar Sound height and extra Silent width. that would give something in the vicinity of 2.00-2.20 wide. For special 70mm prints maybe? then cropped down and optically printed onto to 1.66-1.85 for regular 35mm prints (with a desired Disney projection ratio of 1.75 (or 1.77 whatever, seems strange for that HDTVish ratio to show up 30 years befoere it was invented but i'm not gonna split hairs) )(If you check SMPTE RP-40 it has engravings for 1.66/1.75/1.85 cus those were standart ratios back then, not 1.78 ) But this is getting science fictiony. Cus What strange EXTRA WIDE 35mm material woulda been used for the Japanese laserdisc??? The japanese laserdisc would use a regular 35mm trailer. The only extra width they could show wouda been the aforementioned extra 5% camera aperture stuff if they just didnt use the correct precise 0.825" Projector Aprerture image as they should be doing. Maybe the japanese don't ovrerscan zoombox anything? Cus those dimensions, that image, is locked in in all prints! Unless as i postulatted, Disney was doing some very weird things by zoming-in optically for the prints or overprinting strange side mattes. Maybe he was experimenting with Technicolor separations assembly printing? All very strange for a complicated sfxs movie! As if the sfxs wouldnt give him headaches, and he wanted more by simoultaneouly filming and reprinting in strange non standart ratios? -_-

Now we go to the various laserdiscs/DVDs.
This i explained before .o/~why does the world needs to be filled with silly aspect ratios id like to know cus here i go again i. looove. you. .o/~ We havent seen this japanese wider trailer LD, (probably the same source/print/wider transfer mvealf mentioned once being wider than the US Laserdisc and DVD.) Now I have seen the Archive Laserdisc and so has That1GuyPictures and he compared it to the first US DVD/2nd Laserdisc. He said the Archive's image shown included the same width as the 1rst DVD/2nd US Laserdisc, but it showed more height. The 1rst DVD per Lukes capture is 1.81 measured in "computerese" ("16:9" = 1.77778) (I trust Luke's captures with my life) But as i mentioned many times before, I measure things using NTSC standards where actually things are recorded as 486 x 711 = 1.3333 (therefore 480 x 702 = 1.3333, and 480 x 720 = 1.3675 therefore, "16:9" is really 1.82) then the 1rst DVD's image measures 1.86. The new DVD image in Luke's computer measured standart way comes out as 1.66 but in the NTSC way 1.70, but showing more height than the first DVD but less width. And etc etc after comparing the two images I concluded that if in the first DVD we were seeing the correct 1.85 aperture, well the new DVD was actually showing a theoretically created non standart 1.79 aperture height but croping the regular 0.825" width 6% therefore creating a 1.75 pan scan width from what would been the 1.85 real one (or if you want it to measure the crop based on a standart Disney 1.75 aperture, 1.66.) (1.66 outta 1.75 its the same percentage loss as 1.75 outta 1.85) you can see all this more clearly on my pic I'm reposting here.



The 2 pixel thick black rectangle denotes the standart Disney 1.75 aperture. Vertically outside it and inside it in 1 pixel black line thickness are the corresponding 1.66 and and 1.85 apertures. (if you have trouble seeing them blow up the image ) The first DVD would correspond to the 1.85 one. The red rectangle denotes the image area of the new DVD. Notice it's narrower (cropped) and the height falls in between the 1.85 and 1.75 standart heights . Cus as i said the new dvd is actually showing around what would be a 1.79 non standart Aperture height. Is this the incredible non standart Supercalifrodisquitusfrostus "1.77" narrow ratio? It boggles the mind if this was true, that Disney and Co woulda gone to great lenghts to make projectionists change standarts to fit this mxyztrtlyplexic magical ratio that's just only 4 or 5% different but similar when there were already 3 industry accepted standart ones used for 10 years already. Why wouldn't he just compose in 1.75 like usual to get 1.75 like usual? Mulder?

Remember that That1GuyPictures also said the image crops diferently from left to right on diferent scenes. So this Transformers magical new ratio (the red square in the pic) is gliding and sliding from left to right all the time. Doesn;t his explanation make more sense as to why the dvd is narrower
?
Is this the real supposed magical once in a lifetime ratio?
So whats hapening?
How much wider is the mistery trasnfer on the Japanese?
5%?
Is MMB watching in relish savoring his discovery that Sleeping Beauty is 12% overscanned?
Why is the sky blu?
funny how special wider stronger faster we will rebuilt them trailers show up unscathed from time to time
Can we reremeber Marty McFlys' missing jacket sleeves?
Do people eat RP-40 for breakfast or use it to lubricate and unstuck sprocket holes?
Turn i n next time... oh ok i'll stop now.


I havent seen the wider laserdisc. that surely would help.

I'll tell you a little story. Most people think 1.85 is wider than 1.66 so they expect to see more image on the side if something is 1.85 wide than 1.66. The inverse also happens, they expect to see less image on the sides if the movie is 1.66 After all its narrower! After all that's what happens to Scope movies when they are pan scanned isn'y it?. But as we have seen, Standart widescren films are narrower or wider only when when projected to the same height and compared in proportion (see my Mulan 1.66 vs 1.85 pic. Boths have the same width: they include the same image content between their left border and their right border. The same 0.825" Projector Aperture width is used for both.

But mm most people not realize this unless they are UD members and don't fall asleep reading long posts.

Most people have never heard of 1.75 neither, nor that it's related to Disney so much that it's called Disney ratio by some.
ahh but they have heard of HDTV's 1.78 or actually 1.777778. Mmmm.. 1.77 anyone? Like many people still believe Academy os 1.33 like the long dead (75 years dead!) 1.33 Silent Aperture was, instead of 1.375. Which is sometimes caled 1.37

Didnt the DarbyO'Gill party line instruction manual err i mean press release say that theters were instructed to play it in widescreen 1.75 at that time. So mmm 7 years later there was a Suprmaxilofacialocious recommended unique new 1.77 ratio? and this is a "narrower" ratio that was filmed "wider" for some strange misterious reason? hummmmm...


lalala...


It was filmed normally, recommended to be projected accurately 1.75 Disney ratio and people are confusing the USA 1.85 concept with "filmed to be wider in IMAGE in the negative" but thats not how things work in the physical print reality and when things are explained that way 20 years later using the same terms things get lost in the translation, consequence of not eating RP-40 for breakfast and eating HDTV snickers bars between meals

I'd love to see the wider japanese Poppins and find out it was wider by 10 or more % proving it's indeed a special unique strange for no reason to be explained shot wider format. who knows.
As thing stands i think the Luke 1.85 capture looks more correctly framed than the mini pan scanned one and since, and if showing the whole width of the 1.85 Projector Aperture, that, composited with the whole height of the new one, would give you 1.79 and that would be very very close (2%) to Disney Ratio (1.75) in fact as That1GuyPicture knows and mentioned probably the Archive is 1.75 and the correct framin/ratio or very near it cus remember those LD days were pretty dedicated to specialized movie connossiours collectors while today them dvd days are more geared to movie lovers in general and we are under the corporate fear of aspect ratio's Act.


People hear this Disney film or that one is 1.66
or has an 1.66 image and they think its narrower
And we get a narrower Poppins disc.

The truth will set you free Mulder

Eat your RP-40's . Full of nutritious vitamins and millimeters

I must lay off the penthathol

But does that mean I will see her right shoe when she does the kick in the second chorus of Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious?

For my peace of mind I prefer to think of anything from 1.66:1 to 1.85:1 as pretty much the same thing...

It is certainly a shame that mvealf's captures from the laserdisc and deathie's thorough response have been lost due to the forum troubles. If anyone has saved the wealth of information that was presented in this thread, please do share it!

Luke wrote:It is certainly a shame that mvealf's captures from the laserdisc and deathie's thorough response have been lost due to the forum troubles. If anyone has saved the wealth of information that was presented in this thread, please do share it!

Here are the 3 photos I originally posted:<p><img border="0" src="http://www.ultimatedisney.com/images/m-p/mp3.jpg" width="400" height="300"></p>
<p><img border="0" src="http://www.ultimatedisney.com/images/m-p/mp4.jpg" width="391" height="220"></p>
<p><img border="0" src="http://www.geocities.com/disney_laserdi ... s/e/MP.JPG" width="640" height="480"></p>

Ok, here are my regenerated Poppins OAR posts. As there is the posibility that if i did them all in one single post the web server might implode again, and to protect your sanity, i'll do them as separate posts as they originally were. I'm also adding interstitials including what I remember others wrote that has gone missing, so a sense of the original thread is preserved as best as can be. If I paraphrase incorrectly something anyone else said or if I miss something, just tell me and i'll remaster it I'll try to get it right or as close as i can. (including my posts)


First (i think) Poppins#1 said he hadn't thought of the Silent Aperture explanation, but that it wouldn't be any wider if they just transfered it into the sound aperture, or the other possibility, that if had they printed it directly onto the sound film that would leave lots of empty space on the right only, but according to what had been said that wasn't the case that the Japanese Laserdisc had equal space on both sides.
He then said that his opinion was that Poppins OAR was 1.75 and that he thought the Gold DVD was cropping a little bit of that vertically and the New DVD horizontally (but not anything to have a cow over). He also conjetured that if the trailer was in a wider aspect ratio it might just be cus trailer was conformed to be projected before a movie that was in another format, like a Cinenmascope one, since sometimes trailers are reformated (cropped) just for that purpose.


Then mvealf posted that he indeed had that Japanese Laserdisc and if anyone could help him attain good quality captures from it he would post them. He also said : "One of the things not mentioned in the detailed article about the laserdiscs, is that the ratio changes (I can't remember if it's on the Archive edition, or the later THX version), but the movie starts off looking less wide, and as the movie progresses, it gets wider."

then I posted:

Ahhh mvealf, I was hoping you showed up

maybe with your help we can find the answers!

mvealf, to take captures of Laserdiscs or any video from outside the computer you need a hardware video capture card/device plugged into your computers PCI slot or connected trough a USB or Firewire/iLink/IEEE 1394 cable (like a DV camcorder with video passtrough capability or ElGatoTV, Canopus Converter Bridge etc etc, or built in (like in my case, my Mac has RCA video and S-VHS jacks built in) and software support from the devices and your motherboard/OS to make captures (ussually taking a screenshot of the desktop) (but i think you've mentioned your puter used the video overlay technique or something that bypasses the desktop and when you took screenshots you got nothing or something?, im not sure if I recall correctly. And if this happened only when playing DVDs on the computer which is not what i'm talking about when capturing external video, like Laserdiscs) If you have an external video capture card it should let you capture screenshots as minimum.. maybe only 240 x 320 instead of full size.. but at least that..

Anyway, if you presently don't have the harware/software combination to make pixel perfect captures don't worry, can't you do them like you've done som before? Using your underscanned 16:9 monitor technique? (and a camera I suppose)

Even if that's not as perfect as a software digital capture, it could show the relative differences between the various Laserdiscs and DVDs (like we managed to do with Lady and the Tramp before we got Anders, Disneyunlimited and the rest of the gang to do software captures)

if you can, just take one of each (Japanese Wider LD, Archive Laserdisc, remastered LD <-> first/gold DVD, 40th new DVD) from the same frame. (Specially good if from the same scene as the Luke review comparison capture to interpolate)

if you post that, even if with slight ovescan/video timing differences on the monitor/players video out I can probably interpolate and resize the pics to be the same basic central size and calculate the missing areas and different aspect ratios, even if the TV display has mild overscan on some. (All I need is at least ones that are equal to Luke's so i can compare and calculate the others from that. Having that "base" then i could calculate even further scenes that you might scan to compare.
Well at least i could try!
I could update my little graphic too.

I really love to see your captures

mvealf wrote:One of the things not mentioned in the detailed article about the laserdiscs, is that the ratio changes (I can't remember if it's on the Archive edition, or the later THX version), but the movie starts off looking less wide, and as the movie progresses, it gets wider.

You mean you think it's actually part of the movie's design or just the transfer? If it's the former that's interesting and could add to the "wider shot than it is" theory. Maybe it was designed as a multi format ratio movie like Brainstorm, Galaxy Qust and Brother Bear? Maybe in this case just in a subtle way, like slowly going from 1.66 to 1.85 as we inmerse ourselves into the Mary Poppin world? and those instructions were discarded, or forgotten afterwards?

If it's the later: transfer issues, well i've seen that happen in some discs, for example my CBSFox STAR WARS widescreen special edition changes ratios/letterboxing in a couple of places slightly, those are transfer issues, maybe the telecine operator was scanning/zooming in/out opening/closing the letterbox matte a little selectively to copy the action or enphasise clarity or cover splices defects framing errors (like a boom that got down a little to close for confort or the edge of a studio painted backdrop (it can happen! ) whatever.

Like the Dr Strangelove disc that has different mattes heights . altho on the movie theater it was all matted down to 1.85 in the USA (it worked fine at 1.85, that's the way i've always seen it)

Well I hope you can work something out and present what could be the definitive answer to this

Lars: yes 1.66 - 1.85 negative areas are very close (asit can be seen in the mini graphic i made)
I think in one of the first post i wrote i said that i classify movies in 3 basic shapes:

Square (Silent, Movietone sound, Academy sound) that vary from 1. 175 to 1.375 and usualy are called or classified as 1.33 or "4:3"

Widescreen (Europe, Disney, USA, VistaVision) that vary from 1.66 to 1.85 and we now could clasify them as 1.78 or "16:9" (1.75 would be a better average but as more movies seem to be made in USA Hollywood maybe 1.78 could be skewed as a better average)

Scope (too many formats, including non anamorphic 70mm) but all those fall between 2.00 and 2.75 (very few 2.00 and 2.75 tho) the average of that would be about 2.37 As you see the averages are about 1.33 x 1.33 = 1.78 x 1.33 = 2.37 mmm we need new wider 21:9 displays to get them all (21:9 is part of the mpeg coding just that nobady uses it) (Yet. )

When separated into their three basic "shapes" the differeces between the various variations between aspect ratios is not that much.

Poppins#1 yes, that's a possibility. I'm sure that when they make 70mm blow ups of Widescreen movies they probably are optically reframed wider than even 1.85 on the prints, maybe 2.00? remember also the extraneous camera aperture image can be used, that automatically makes a 1.85 movie a 1.95 movie with the extra side image withouth even starting to crop vertically. Do the SMPTE max recommended 5% crop obn the vertical and you got yourself a 2.05 image...

Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious!


Chris i love the colors on your avatar

Then mvealf replied that adding to the story, there were many Mary Poppins Japanese Laserdiscs, the first Bandai in the 80's. The Pioneer one that was the basis of the trailer in Song of the South, that both of those had japanese subtitles under the image and the letterboxed image was set higer in the frame to accomade them . That the other 2 Japanese Laserdisc were identical t the USA Laserdiscs and that there was a 5th Jpanese L:aserdisc he hadn't yet seen and would like to get. He also explainded that he transfered the LD to his stand alone DVD-RW and had DVD drive in his compiuterwith Firewire as that was the only way he could watch them there with the DVD playback software that came with n it but his current software didnt take screen capttures. He asked if his method was sound and if it would work with capture capable software , then he would only need someone to point him to the correct software. He aslo wondered if the pixels/lines would change in his method or would be ok as I had mentioned him once that sometimes this happened when transfering analog video to computer captures.

MickeyMouseboy also chimed in in reference of earlier post, that things were changed as you could see in trailers, citing the "atrociti" made with Sleeping Beauty going from the full 2.25 Technirama 70 original to the 12% cropped transfer made from the 2.35 Anamorphic 35mm print

then i posted:

So many japanese versions, eh? Beauty.

mvealf, Luke has mentioned he uses an old version of PowerDVD but i don't know where to get that or if it's still available/free, etc, since I basically never use PCs and i don't know of otherPC software DVD players that can capture. Maybe you could try VLC? http://www.videolan.org/vlc/ which comes in various OSes flavors but i've never used that program. Or someone else might give other PC sugestions. I 'd think any software mpeg2 player should be able to open your vob dvd files and then let you screen capture them on your desktop...

So you plug your LD player to a standalone dvd-RW recorder and then afterwards playthe dvds on the computer's dvd-rom drive? did i get that right? or your dvd drive with Firewire in the computer is the standalone? but you cant watch the laserdisc video going in on the desktop while recording? think i'm confused

You also say your DVDrom drive has Firewire, but is that used just for the DVD drive? it don't connect the Firewire pipleline to the Puter? cus if it did you could use software to watch/edit/capture DV video coming into it from lets say a DV camcorder with video inputs/passthrough or any device that outputs DV video through Firewire so you could do captures that way too i guess. (Sorry if i'm kind of ignorant on the PC side of things, on Macintosh you just plug the Firewire cable anywhere theres a firewire port and launch those iLife programs to edit DV/Firewire video so i'ts kind of straightforward..)


Anyway, YES, your method would work just fine. If you have the Laserdisc video already recorded as DVD's all you'd need is a software DVD player that makes captures for posting the screenshots. So i hope someone helps you to get the PC DVD software you need!



As for the change of lines, since with your method you're recording your Laserdiscs directly onto DVD's you don't have to worry. Assuming the standalone's electronics are good , you'll only loose the 6 vertical pixels cropped by going from analog 486 lines to mpeg2 480 pixels which is normal and in this case don't really matter cus were talking about 6 pixels of letterbox black band The widescreen's image pixels would not change.
You might also find that Laserdisc derived DVDs, when you look them in software captures on the computer, might have a few black blanking pixels on the sides in some cases to fill up the difference between the horizontal 711 pixels corresponding to analog NTSC 1.33 video and the extra 720 of mpeg/digital video, like some of the captures Luke has made of supplemets on DVDs derived from older analog video sources are, but this is normal, and it's supposed to happen and it's not a changing of the Laserdisc image. So all seems good.


Of course when you do software captures, the raw data DVD 480 x 720 square pixel "window" looks to be in the incorrect aspect ratio (1.50) on a computer if displayed just like that (raw), so you'd have to resize it for watching it on the computer screen (or let the software resize it) The easiest way if you're gonna resize them from raw is to follow "computerese" based resizing (maybe even the software makes that automatically) which makes it "4:3" 1.33 "wide" (by making the pic 480 x 640, or 540 x 720 or multiples/fractions of that (like 240 x 320)

Or you could follow NTSC timing conventions and resize them to give the exact true video display image (like i do) but it'll probably be complicated trying to make the computer DVD software player do strange (to it) resizes

(On a video display this NTSC standarts resizing is done automatically on its way to the TV itself.)

If you post the images without cropping (be them raw or "computerese" resized) i can take it from there

I prefer raw captures but i'm dethi




MickeyMouseboy, you know I hope we'll get the whole Technirama image in the Blu Sleeping Beauty..

Then mvealf wrote:I finally got some screen capture software. Keep in mind that the letterboxed image from Japanese laserdisc is the unrestored version from the 80's, so the quality difference looks extreme. The first 2 images are from the review on this site. #1 is the Gold edition, # 2 is the 40th Anniversary edition, and the bottom is a screen capture from the Japanese laserdisc, which looks like it has more picture on all 4 sides to me. I'll try to post different comparison shots later.

OK deathie mouse, do your stuff ....

(I've ommited the captures cus mvealf has already reposted them above, and cus we got a big pic bonanza coming soon )

That's great, you got your software! Now you can examine all your LD's and DVDs I'm so glad.


Well I've been busy in the lab working on the slab.

Ok here's the summary. Exactly resized Pix forthcoming later.


The Japanese laserdisc is showing more image than the Gold dvd image and the New dvd image in 3 sides.

The Japanese LD shows much more top and bottom that the Gold DVD and a smidgen more to the right. The Gold DVD actually shows a micro smidgen more on the left. This could be due to printing or scanning error, but it's negligible.

The LD also shows much more top than the New dvd, a little more of the bottom, and of course LOTS more to the right (like the Gold DVD also does) than the New one.

I took a while cus the frame from the Japanese LD is actually a previous or later one in sequence than the one in Luke's capture. (You can't see it cus the LD image was a little dark on Dick Van Dyke's face and he is the one that seems to've moved slighly between frames) so i had to measure the backgrounds too to get the images right, all the same relative size for superimposition.

After enlargement this is how the raw pixel numbers ende on my pics (they almost ended kind of equivalent to the aperture dimensions I mention, but of course they are not, i just guessed an aproximate basic size to work with and that's how they ended relative to each other)

474 x 822 = 1.734 <- Japanese Laserdisc:
442 x 820 = 1.855 <- Gold DVD
450 x 768 = 1.707 <- New DVD

since i worked from downrezed captures there can be a margin of error so i'd just round that off to 1.73, 1.85, and 1.71 to makes sense

As always I use NTSC Broadcast standards timing.

As you can see the Laserdisc and the new DVD are very similar in aspect ratio.
But if you look at the actual pixel numbers, the Laserdisc is showing 5% more vertical and 7% more horizontal image.

Compared to the Gold, the Laserdisc is showing for all practical purposes the same horizontal image ( just a slight error in centering alignment basically , or maybe that's actually a result of they being 2 sequential frames), but it's showing 7% more vertical image.

I'll post the piccies later cus i need to collate the dozen or so i generated and arrange them in a presentable manner , compared to one another, and as they would look on a theater screen projected at the same height.

The Laserdisc image seems to be showing the full left edge of the image on a print. I woulda concluded that was the edge of the camera aperture if it were not that the Gold dvd shows a cleaner, micro slightly more image, edge. Probably the Laserdisc blue edge is a result of the duping/printing process (Technicolor?) in making the print while the Gold used an earlier or better aligned element.

In any case If the Laserdisc is showing the whole camera aperture, the new DVD would be showing aproximately the Projector aperture near 100% (maybe 98-99% on the sides) . on the other hand if the Laserdisc were showing the exact correct 100% Projector Aperture, then the new DVD is showing 5 or 7% less which would be at or near the SMPTE maximum cropping allowed.

I still prefer the 1.85 one to the New dvd one not because it's wider tighter but because the actors are slightly off center giving a more pleasing and natural movie action composition instead of the re-centerered Thay1GuyPictures-type Disney mini pan/scan (Yeah it's named after him now ) But all the images are fine and acceptable (Remember, what you see in a theater is not nescesarily the perfect aligned 100% Aperture always) (and if you saw it on a run of the mill 1.66 theater or an 1.85 theater , or a Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious theater where they might show it at the recommended Disney 1.75 one you'd see it on each differently) And besides, we also have to contend with evil overscan too on most monitors

As Lars said 1.66:1 to 1.85:1 is pretty similar.



One thing for sure even when working with the dowrezed capture, the new DVD was the sharpest cleanest image. It's like a slight veil or haze has lifted up, or the gass from a window has been removed.


Thanks mvealf for the capture!
When i post pix i'll have the LD one cleaned up somewhat and it'll look a little better too; more like the others.

Coming soon: Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious comparison pix




ok we're here now (hopefully) about back where we were (unless the was a post after this one i didn't see. I think I saw one with the corner of my eye before things imploded but the parsecs were passing by too fast)
Carry on

First let me start this post by thanking again mvealf whom without his help this wouldn't have been possible

His Laserdisc capture was essential to this.

And of course, Luke for his UD <a href="http://www.ultimatedisney.com/marypoppi ... >review</a> and captures.

The following paragraph is for Laserdisc collectors so you may want to skip it:

Japanese laserdiscs are recorded slightly different than other NTSC Laserdisc.
While Japanese analog NTSC and for that matter all Digital Video (PAL and NTSC) has the video black setup at 0% IRE, American analog NTSC video equipment uses 7.5% IRE as black
What this means is, American video gear recording analog NTSC assumes 7.5% to be the maximium black, so if a Japanese LD is recorded on analog US gear, the black, being at 0%, and the adjacent dark tones, will be recorded up to 7.5 % too low. On a TV this darker image is displayed that way too but you can adjust it back up with the tv controls or many TVs lack true black level retention (which clamps the black voltage level to the true value) and may float the slightly darker image up again to a lighter version so you might not notice the difference when watching on a tv. But in recording, and specialy to digital with its rigidly set 8 bit levels, thisdarkening of levels could happen and the Japanese LD image might end up too dark. If you have a way to adjust for this, the solution is to raise the black level to the 7.5% analog USA standard before recording. I also checked the whitest part of the Laserdisc capture (the japanese subtitles) and found that their brightest spot only reached like 95-96% IRE Instead of the usual 100% IRE so the whites could be a tad off too (or maybe the subtitles are that way, 95% off white) So that may account for a great part why the Japanese LD capt looks a little dark. I'm certain the LD looks better than that on mvealf's monitor.


Which brings us back to our scheduled program
So I took the Japanese capture and brightened it's greyscale till it looked similar to the DVD captures. I didn't touch the color. I also sharpened it a bit to bring it more in line with the others. All this changes brought up some of the analog noise and mpeg/jpeg compression noise to the fore because of what i said before but i'm sure the original analog signal coming out of the LD player would look much cleaner than this. Having the image look similar to the other two helps make a fair comparison of the aspect ratios/print areas. Now that the image was similar to the others I resized all of them so that the images within them would be the same size and we could easily overlay them and compare the differences in matted/cropped areas. I also applied my NTSC timings filter to the computer captures to get the correct proportions in Professional video gear.

So the first comparison pic shows the three in exact relation to each other as they would be in a print, just with different mattes covering them:

top: Japanese Laserdisc
middle: Gold DVD
bottom : New DVD





The new dvd image is positioned to the left cus that's where it would be on the negative since it's missing the right side of the image

The Gold dvd is just a basic Widescreen 1.85 matte that crops slightly the top and bottom to get the slighly wider aspect ratio cropping.
It's a little skewed to the top so I would have centered it vertically a little more if I'd done it

This can be seen when we overlay the 1.85 Gold dvd image on top of the 1.73 Laserdisc image on the top image on the following pic:



The bottom image is the New 1.71 dvd image overlayed on top of the 1.73 Laserdisc image. Altho they have very similar aspect ratios you can see the new DVD is cropping the image both vertically and horizontally so altho it's almost the same ratio, it's not the same image area! Also you can see how the right side is cropped/panscanned out.


To show the relationships of this more clearly, I overlayed the three images together in the next pic, where you can see that while the Gold dvd is a pretty straightforward 1.85 letterboxing of the image, the new dvd is almost basically a pan/scan of the Gold dvd, with the matte opened up slighly the bottom:



As you can see this composite of the three images making up a whole, almost 1.75 OAR looks pretty handsome specially cus it has the whole image with the sharper clearer image of the characters from the new dvd on the front.

It was this image that made me discard the notion that the Laserdisc and Gold dvds were possibly showing the slighly larger, not meant to be seen, camera aperture width.
If the New dvd was narrower cus it was cropping out this extra 5%, they wouldn't have pan scanned so hard to the left to include this extreme left edge area and recenter it and matte it inside a pillaboxed frame to prevent it not being lost on a overscanned display like That1GuyPictures correctly deduced they were doing. What would be the purpose of scanning out a rightfully right, right image area, supposed to be seen, to show the extreme left of an image area not supposed to be seen?? Therefore the new dvd is showing the left side of the Projector Aperture width, and the larerdisc and Gold DVD are showing the full Projectur Aperture width.

You may also have noticed while looking at the overlays that the Gold dvd sky had better color than the Laserdisc and that the New dvd sky had better color than the laserdisc too. But on the three way overlay it is clear that the Gold dvd sky had deeper color than the new dvd.

So I took this complete composite cleaned it up, cropped slighly the 1.74 image that resulted into exact 1.75 and dethimastered the colors a little bit to get my Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious Technicolored OAR pic. I then resized this 1.75 image and the 1.71 from the New dvd, to both have the same height as they would when projected on a theater, to make this final pic:

top: 1.75 OAR
bottom: New DVD



What would Dina think!!

My opinion: To me the uncropped pic looks the best (compositionally I mean ) cus, by Mary Poppins being slightly off center instead as to the right like in the bottom one of the new dvd, it makes her be more of the center of attention. You may notice she's kind of in a Mary Poppinish pose: standing straight but looking back, she is the center of attention and Dick Van Dyke is talking to her. I think this was the director's intention. The bottom one may look more balanced (of course it does, it has been re-centered!) but the enphasis is then shifted equally to both of them, if not more so to Dick Van Dyke, as we read from left to right so he becomes the more overpowering figure, Mary is no longer the center of attention.
Also the top image having slightly more width (and slightly more vertical image area visible) gives us a more open breath, more vista, like a day in the country
Altho some people may prefer the bottom one cus, the characters are larger! This is of course, because the bottom New dvd image has been slightly cropped/zoomed in. But remember, you're seeing a tiny version of this this on a computer with images that are about 3 inches high. On the Cinema this images would be seen 4 or 5 times taller than what they look on your screen now so the characters would look big withouth needing to be zoomed in

Isn't Mary pretty?

well that's all, this has been the dethi version of the Mary Poppins OAR i hope you have enjoyed it. I also made a very widescreeny version by cropping the 1.75 into what would be a 1.85 version, then cropping it further vertically into the maximum SMPTE would allow. I've left that on another topic


Which brings us to, The End? Not quite! Cus Poopins#1 has brought a new angle into the Poppins OAR in the other thread, Tune in next time for the continuing adventures of...
The Poppins Oar!

Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious

Wow, deathie. Nice exhaustive investigative work. Great job on those graphics!

Thanks for proving my theory Deathie! You make me proud...
Plus, now I have a new theory!

I think Di$ney wanted to save some bucks on the restoration,
so they were like "Hey, don't bother removing dust, specks and grain from the
right and left sides, we'll just crop them, since no one will notice them on a
TV screen." and Lowry Digital was like..."OK".

(I'm just kidding, knowing Lowrym they probably restored every inch of the
frame, and some dork at Disney decided it was better to write down 1.66:1
because it's been associted with FAMILY-FRIENDLY widescreen.
What they weren't counting on was that we are even bigger dorks! We notice when
they mess with our movies!)

Oh well, my guess is that in the next Home Video Incarnation they can advertise
the film as being presented as "the way Walt Intended it to be seen" and they
will do a better sound restoration job and not keep the cheesy new sound
effects. (Some of which are great, and some of which stick out like a sore
thumb.)

Ok...but seriously, my post is getting "deathly" long.
Haha!
Thanks again Deathie, I bet you always did your homework on time!

Well, the year can't end without one more post about Mary Poppins ratios.

Here's the "4:3" cropped version vs. the OAR (1.75) one.

's interesting that the "4:3" version preserved the slight off-centeredness of the OAR shot while the new DVD's mini zoomed in-mini pan scanned one (1.71) did not. o/~ Mary IS the center of attention o/~ (*starts to sing like Burt )

I didn't adjust the color of the capture (courtesy of one of my human friends ). It looks fairly good so I left it alone (The DCh seems to be fairly well calibrated )
(Remeber I had to technicolor the OAR one)(that's the reason the OAR is slighly splotchy in the blue sky; since the dvd's sky it was based on was very pastel, i had to push it a little to get the tech blue)

Also of note is the peculiar notch on the upper left corner of the 4:3 image, characteristic of DCh transmisions (as my friend tells me). An HDTV 16:9 widescreen marker? Overscan safety top marker? Or something more sinister? )

I paired the new pic with the dethstorated OAR pic cus going from one to the other the difference in width is like a breath of fresh aire. Next time someone tells you they prefer movies in tv "Full Frame" instead of movie Widescreen you might wanna try show them this .
And tell them this is just a 1.75 wide movie..

I tried with the mini pan scanned DVD one on top but it didn't taste the same. I didn't get the exact same "Look, I'm at the top of the world" feeling


Don't forget that this 4:3 is the full frame image with NO overscan. An unregulated (with overscan built in) display may make this 4:3 thing loose 5%, maybe up to 10%, more on all the sides..


(btw as an experiment I've also "overscanned" the OAR 1.75 one to see what it would end up looking like on a non regulated 16:9 display, and at least in this shot there was NO need to mini pan scan it and recenter for DVD as they did, unless you didn't want someone that doesn't know or appreciate subtle composition to complain and say, "hey that's a botched job, them people are not in the very right dead CENTER!!!"
(Like the way thousands of amateur photos and videos have people always with their heads dead center where the focusing aid of the camera would be )
You can do this experiment too, just crop 5 or 10, or whatever in between % you want to experiment with, equally from all sides) (if you want to see a, for example, "10% overscan" (total) pic, crop 5% of the top, bottom, left, right of an image: a 100 x 137 pixel pic becomes a 90 x 123 pixel pic, etc etc blah blah)

disclaimer: as the source was made from analog capture, the high resolution of the Compact Disc may reveal limitations of the analog source (Actually, since this is downrezed from a slightly higher res version than the dvd it looks slightly sharper.. mmm.. like the dif between pal and ntsc thereabouts) (You'll have to blow it up to see it ) Not valid outside the USA and it's territories.Some restrictions apply. Why are you reading this. It's tiny

Top: dethstored OAR
Bottom: "4:3" version



PS: That1GuyPictures I always did my hw at the last possible minute. usually in the morning before the bell rang