February 2007 Archives

I return with some findings about HD presentations, specifically in regards to this whole KING KONG letterboxing situtation. Thanks to everyone who commented on my previous entry, and thanks to the various sources on the wonderful internet (see below) who provided the answer to this short-lived mystery.

Turns out KING KONG was shot on Super 35 mm film, which allows the filmmakers to utilize additional space on the film that the soundtrack would have previously used, to create a larger negative to work with. It also helps to enhance the presentation of different formats, as it can add horizontal space to home video releases, and with todays widescreen televisions means you can see a significant amount more of the horizontal image.

Of course you are losing some of the vertical image as a result, as is always the case with non-letterboxed scope aspect ratio films, but the difference is less noticeable than it used to be on a standard 4:3 television. For the HBOHD version, they made it open matte to show the additional horizontal image that was always there. Which is basically the same thing they've been doing for full-frame TV versions, but here at least you aren't losing as much. Kind of an interesting compromise if you think about it.

Check out this thread on AV Science Forum where a bunch of nerds like myself went over the same comparisons. (Thanks to cag.com member Ph8te for pointing me in the right direction.)

Also, if you feel like delving even deeper into this, check out widescreen.org's aspect ratios and filming techniques page (their motto is "defending the visions and intentions of film makers").

Okay, I still have some movies and the internet stuff waiting to get published, but before I finish that series I need to post some HD-related "Consumer Reports-type" content. I've been meaning to comment on the different presentation qualities present among the broadcast HD channels, and now I can also see how they compare with the current Blu-ray and HD-DVD technologies (yeah, I have both). First up was the obvious comparison of recently debuted on HBOHD "King Kong". Since my HD-DVD player came with a copy of "King Kong" on HD-DVD, it would be easy to see it stacked up against my Comcast HBO feed.

Upon tuning in to HBOHD I immediately noticed that the movie was not being shown letterboxed. This surprised me, considering that I had watched a bit of the HD-DVD and knew it to be heavily letterboxed (Peter Jackson loves his epic, cinema-scope scenes). I took a few screenshots to directly compare how they displayed the exact same shot. What I found astonished me:

First we have this close-up shot of Kong on HBOHD:

Then the corresponding shot on HD-DVD:

Whoa! It actually looks like the letterboxed HD-DVD is cutting off part of the image! I would have guessed the opposite to be true. To further illustrate my point let's take a look at a wide shot of the airplanes that attack the giant ape:

First we have the shot on HBOHD:

Then the corresponding shot on HD-DVD:

You can totally see more sky above, and also more of the plane in the lower right corner. Weird. I guess I need to find out more about what kind of version HBO receives--and if the HD-DVD is actually fake letterboxed?! If anyone has any idea what is going on, feel free to comment. Also, I should point out that no amount of fancy HD technology could possibly make me enjoy this piece of shit film--"but it looks pretty good."