Re: The "Incorrect Aspect Ratio" Thread
I can fully appreciate the situation. I guess I'd like to see more openness about the subject, though. Does VUDU have an official position where they are "committed" to providing OAR and "fighting" for it? I'd like to see something like that stated somewhere on the official website.
One of the movies I tested the other day was the first Spider-Man (directed by Sam Raimi). I believe this is a 1.85:1 film that has been cropped to 16:9 (1.78:1). That sort of thing doesn't bother me *too* much, but I did go out of my way to set up my front projection setup with a 2.35:1 screen, so it means that I'm actually filling *less* of my screen for that cropped version. Again, that sort of mild cropping doesn't bother me too much, and I can appreciate that many people (even movie enthusiasts and videophiles) who own 16:9 screens might be willing to accept that amount of cropping in exchange for filling their 16:9 screens completely. But even here, I'd like to know what VUDU (and UV's) "official stance" on the subject is. If what you're saying is true and VUDU has little control over any of this, maybe what I'm looking for is the official position of UV, or even the official positions of each individual movie studio.
Or maybe none of them *have* an official stance on this topic? If so, that's sad and inexcusable, IMO, seeing as Blu-ray discs are nearly always presented in the OAR, so they seem to know that that's an expectation when creating Blu-ray transfers. Perhaps UV or the studios' official stance is that UV is a downgraded "for the masses" format and their studies have shown that this group of customers largely doesn't care about OAR and cares more about filling their 16:9 screens. That would be disappointing and a deal-killer for me, but I'd like to know it now before I invest too much effort and money into building a UV collection.
But this is where I place a bit more blame on VUDU again...why don't their movie listings indicate the aspect ratio? Surely they're already doing some minimal testing of a movie file that is sent to them from UV. It would take minimal effort for them to determine the aspect ratio of the transfer and include that information on the movie details page, so that interested customers like us can take an extra minute to cross check that info against IMDB and then make a determination as to whether it's been severely cropped. Instead, it feels far too much like a crapshoot to me. The original post of this thread is great, but I'm sure it's not a complete list. I imagine there's a good chance that I might happen upon an older movie with the wrong AR that is not listed in this thread. And what about brand new movies that come out? If any of those are wrong, I might have bought it before anyone else had added it to this thread. Let's face it...no one should have to monitor this thread to know what the AR is for a movie being offered on VUDU.
Originally posted by MaxH
View Post
One of the movies I tested the other day was the first Spider-Man (directed by Sam Raimi). I believe this is a 1.85:1 film that has been cropped to 16:9 (1.78:1). That sort of thing doesn't bother me *too* much, but I did go out of my way to set up my front projection setup with a 2.35:1 screen, so it means that I'm actually filling *less* of my screen for that cropped version. Again, that sort of mild cropping doesn't bother me too much, and I can appreciate that many people (even movie enthusiasts and videophiles) who own 16:9 screens might be willing to accept that amount of cropping in exchange for filling their 16:9 screens completely. But even here, I'd like to know what VUDU (and UV's) "official stance" on the subject is. If what you're saying is true and VUDU has little control over any of this, maybe what I'm looking for is the official position of UV, or even the official positions of each individual movie studio.
Or maybe none of them *have* an official stance on this topic? If so, that's sad and inexcusable, IMO, seeing as Blu-ray discs are nearly always presented in the OAR, so they seem to know that that's an expectation when creating Blu-ray transfers. Perhaps UV or the studios' official stance is that UV is a downgraded "for the masses" format and their studies have shown that this group of customers largely doesn't care about OAR and cares more about filling their 16:9 screens. That would be disappointing and a deal-killer for me, but I'd like to know it now before I invest too much effort and money into building a UV collection.
But this is where I place a bit more blame on VUDU again...why don't their movie listings indicate the aspect ratio? Surely they're already doing some minimal testing of a movie file that is sent to them from UV. It would take minimal effort for them to determine the aspect ratio of the transfer and include that information on the movie details page, so that interested customers like us can take an extra minute to cross check that info against IMDB and then make a determination as to whether it's been severely cropped. Instead, it feels far too much like a crapshoot to me. The original post of this thread is great, but I'm sure it's not a complete list. I imagine there's a good chance that I might happen upon an older movie with the wrong AR that is not listed in this thread. And what about brand new movies that come out? If any of those are wrong, I might have bought it before anyone else had added it to this thread. Let's face it...no one should have to monitor this thread to know what the AR is for a movie being offered on VUDU.
Further, there are cases where the film's intro in the preview shows the correct OAR, but then switches to an incorrect AR!
Comment