Having a 'senior' mement about Aspect Ratio

[DB83]

So I have this PAL VHS - the original longer version of The Alamo - which the case describes the AR as '2.35:1 to show the full width of the picture'.


Viewing the capture correctly at 768*576 and cropping away the letter-boxing leaves me at 768*376 - there is also some crud left and right but it is not critical to this appraisal.


Now IMDB (not always accurate) states the AR for the film at 2.20:1 which is already in conflict to the earlier quote.


Yet the cropped image is nowhere near 2.35:1 or even 2.20:1


So am I missing something or is a simple case of what I read from the case (the official truncated dvd also quotes 2.35:1) is not true.


Can upload a sample if required.

[DB83]

Well I think I might have sussed it.


I loaded up the dvd and did a similar exercise. The result is pretty close to 2.35:1 and there appears to be more detail on the left and right on the dvd.


Which means that the claim on the VHS case is incorrect - the full width is not there - and that is somewhat annoying if I considered merging the two versions for the 'best of both worlds'


However, my eyes could deceive me inasmuch that the dvd is WS and the VHS might not be able to reproduce the true image what with advances in home video production since the VHS was released in the 1990's


So comments are welcome.

[smrpix]

The Alamo was shot in 70mm (65mm camera negative) and released theatrically in both 70mm 2.20:1 and 35mm anamorphic 2.35:1 versions.
Over the years various extractions were made for home releases from the different versions -- so everything you're saying can be simultaneously true.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0053580/technical?ref_=tt_spec_sm


Ben Hur and Lawrence of Arabia are other egregious examples of how this went awry.
http://www.widescreenmuseum.com/special/ben-hurdvd3.htm

If you want the full(est) image, your best bet is probably to stream it on Amazon Prime these days.

Richard Harris wrote about the last film restoration of the movie in 2006:
https://www.in70mm.com/news/2009/the_alamo/index.htm

[DB83]

Thanks for the info and the last link.


But, as with dvd, I guess any streaming version would be the subsequent edit. What was used for the longer VHS and concurrent LD is no longer available/useable.


In fact a BD of the full version appeared in Germany a month or so ago (and is already OOP). It transpires that this was an edit of the best available elements with the cut stuff up-scaled to 720p.


There is also another version circulating in Australia that claims to be the full version without any inter-editing. My suspicion since the write-up is rather 'flowery' is that this also came via the LD.


Don't get me wrong. It is a fine film. But this not a film I would watch very often. I viewed it complete during the capture and it could be ages before I get back to it for conversion to a more manageable size. In fact I bought the VHS in the 90's on the typical whim that happens when you are in a store. Put it in a draw and clean forgot about it. So the tape has had all of two or three plays since then - the original capture some years ago was lost when a HDD died on me.