MGM DVD Hits Visual Controversy - Incorrect Aspect Ratio

[BJ_M]

Yes this is just a proposed settlement on the part of the plaintiffs, so unless MGM agrees it doesn't mean anything. But this suit was filed like 3 years ago. I can't imagine it would have lasted this long unless there was some merit to the allegations. If the plaintiffs just assumed it was panned and scanned merely because the WS is only the letterboxed version of the FS, then surely MGM would have gotten a summary judgment already.

check out what the lawer fees are -- that cant be right / $12,000 on the part of the plantiffs ...

either they are spending NO time on this or they have the cheapest lawers in town ..
$12,000 wouldnt normally get you through the front door ..

[adam]

Heh, read that one again BJ_M. They are seeking 2.7 million dollars in attorney's fees. They are saying they will reduce whatever attorneys fees they get by $12,500 and use this money to fund the enhancements of the two specific plaintiffs who started this.

[BJ_M]

oh - that makes more sense -- i didnt read carefully .

i was looking for the technical explanation of the issue ..

[BJ_M]

only the lawers make money in many of these class action Law suits ...

if they win ...

[adam]

That's pretty much true. The lawyers collect their contingency fee out of the amount awarded and what's left gets divided up among the class. Often this means that the defendant pays out millions of dollars and each joined plaintiff only gets a dollar or two, or sometimes just a few cents. Sometimes the amount is so little that any bank fees to withdraw it would completely eat it up so it just sits....indefinitely.

I joined in that class action against the music industry for price fixing. I got $14.

[BJ_M]

and they still do it

[Gurm]

Ok, let's back up!

1. We know that at least SOME of the titles on this list (i.e. Princess Bride at the very least) _are_ chopped P&S's.

2. We don't know that very many are.

Who has some of these titles and is willing to do a little investigation? I for one have the Bond movies on both VHS _and_ MGM DVD. I can go bust out the VCR and see if it's a chopped P&S or not. Someone else needs to do this too - with other films - so we can see if this is baseless or not.

My money, at the moment, is on this being a mostly baseless claim. I mean, c'mon - look at the list! They have movies on there that aren't even OUT yet!

[adam]

Which movie on that list isn't out yet? Make sure you look them up on IMDB.com, some of them are just old and forgettable. For instance don't confuse Electra (1962) with Elektra which was just released.

[Nilfennasion]

http://www.michaeldvd.com.au/ThatsMySay/ThatsMySay.asp?StepName=Read&ID=21

This has a fairly well-researched perspective on the matter.

Having re-watched my Spetters disc again, this really stinks of people making money out of their own ignorance by using LCD bully tactics. The total merit of the claim is minimal at best. I mean really, what are they going to do? Call up every director to testify as to whether each transfer accurately reflects their intentions?

And really, what is this going to achieve? The natural market mechanism of refusing to buy transfers that are missing picture information works much better. It's how those living in Region 4 got a decent version of Scream, for one thing.

[adam]

Nilfennasion that little blurb is competely circular. It assumes that the plaintiff's don't understand how 1.85:1 or 1.66:1 are displayed in theatres, to support his conclusion that the DVDs were transferred correctly. The whole argument of the plaintiffs is that MGM P&S'ed footage down to 1.85:1 specifically BECAUSE all they would then have to do to transfer to WS would be to add letterboxing. The fact remains, if the footage was not displayed in 1.85:1 in theatres than it is false advertising at the least to state on the DVD that it is presented as it was in theatres. If they were doing this on purpose to save money, then it violates a number of other laws as well, as stated in the notice of settlement.

If this was in fact MGM's policy than it would not be that difficult to prove it. Even the most incriminating policies are documented by the company. If they were doing this, it wouldn't be that difficult to subpoena some internal evidence of it. There are also plenty of film historians who frequently testify in suits like this. Such historians would know the theatrical aspect ratio that certain movies were displayed in.

If this is true, and this settles, than any owner of such a disk has the right to return it for another movie or to get a fixed refund. That's pretty good restitution in my book. Even more importantly, this is one hell of an incentive for MGM or anyone else to think twice before trying to pull one over on the public again....again assuming the allegations are true.

[Nilfennasion]

The blurb makes the mistake of assuming everyone reading knows where the author is coming from. To give you a bit of an idea, this man was interfacing with the video distributors before DVDs were being released in this country, and has long been the definitive source for information about the quality of video transfers. So it isn't like this is just some uninformed crank blowing his horn a la Howard Stern. In all probability, he has had many a talk with MGM reps from Australia about the issue.

Having said all that, I know it is wrong to assume the plaintiffs don't know about widescreen processes, but it is also wrong to assume that they do. Having gone through all of my MGM DVDs that were made during this era and are from Region 1 (a small number, I admit), I have noticed only one fault that these people probably have no idea about. Spetters is certainly not incorrectly transferred, and given how well Verhoeven uses the ratios he films in, I'd know just by looking.

As I said before, lawsuits are not nearly as effective an incentive to do the right thing as reputation-driven boycotts from the consumer. Even the most ignorant buyers in Region 4 know not to buy too many Force Video, or any Avenue One, DVDs. The cause, put simply, is they came onto the market with examples of how DVD-Video does not necessarily entail perfect picture. Nowadays, Avenue One has more or less gone out of business, and Force Video is only surviving because of a significant turnaround in the quality they output. So when I read stories like this, I cannot help but get a mental image of cranks who have not woken up to the fact that not every picture is square.

[Timmychuck]

Didn't Sony buy out MGM?

If they did Sony has to fix all this mess.

[adam]

I'm glad you like the guy but I don't see what that has to do with anything. Knowledge of film transfer is not the issue, and by the way the guy just runs a R4 DVD review site so I'm not sure what that qualifies him for. If the allegations are true it is something that MGM was doing behind the scenes and then disguising it as a conventional 1.85:1 transfer.

All he states in that post is just that 1.85:1 widescreen transfers are a letterboxed version of the fullscreen, and that he assumes the plaintiff's are suing because they don't understand this. This really doesn't answer any of the questions raised by this suit.

I agree it is wrong to assume facts on either side of the issue. That's why I took issue with your source. It is nothing but an assumption.

[Nilfennasion]

The problem with my source is that while he has doubtlessly researched the question by talking to MGM about it at some length, legalities prevent him from saying so. So instead, he simply offers it as his opinion. As I tried to make clear, this guy doesn't "just run a website". As far as Region 4 is concerned, he runs the website. Distributors like Columbia Tristar in particular have long acknowledged this fact and see him as a great interface with which to reach the people. So one cannot simply dismiss his opinion out of hand.

The assumption that the plaintiffs do not understand the widescreen process is actually a fairly safe one. You get people complaining all the time that this or that video doesn't "fill up my screen", and this absolutely reeks of that. That they have not cited any concrete examples only solidifies my theory. When you cut a picture off at the sides, then cut it top and bottom, it looks pretty obvious in the results. In their early days, Force Video did this with a couple of titles, and the lost picture information caused the film itself to make no sense.

So that, in a nutshell, is why I see little validity in this suit. As I said, Spetters is very good at showing when image is missing. If you cropped it down any further than 1.66:1 from the original negative, it would look a lot like some people's amateur photography where heads are missing. If they had an example this strong, they'd be making it fairly clear from the get-go, which makes all this trying to discern the substance of the case pretty indicative to me.

[adam]

Give me a break. Now he has inside information but can't talk about it? This suit doesn't even pertain to Region 4 customers.

I think it is fairly obvious that, again assuming the allegations are true, the reason why they did this is BECAUSE it wouldn't be noticable. If not much is cropped then the P&S won't be obvious, which is why the suit only applies to 1.85:1 and 1.66:1 movies. Leave the fact-finding to the court and to the primary parties since they are the only ones with this information.

They can't provide "concrete examples" in the notice of settlement. There hasn't even been a trial date set yet. They aren't putting on evidence, they are giving notice to the class. The ONLY relevent information are the names of the movies, the dates they were purchased, and the terms of the settlement. After you join the class you can request a copy of the original petition but if you are an Australian citizen then you are excluded from the class anyway.

[GabeB]

A good basic explanation of the history of widescreen:
http://www.amateurhometheater.com/In%20Laymans%20Terms/why.htm

I love this quote:
They would pan and scan the film for TV and video tape. This didn't cause too much trimming for matted movies. But the anamorphic movies were butchered and I think unwatchable.

So, could the lawsuit be over the fact that matted movies actually show more then intended since they're the full frame and the widescreen versions show as intended but not more.

[Gurm]

And I still have yet to see, other than for the Princess Bride, a SINGLE example of this class action being valid.

The Princess Bride is a KNOWN goof-up, and a new version was released. I'd like to see some PROOF that any of the OTHER films on the list were P&S chopped. It should be EASY to prove. Someone? Anyone?

[BJ_M]

A good basic explanation of the history of widescreen:
http://www.amateurhometheater.com/In%20Laymans%20Terms/why.htm

I love this quote:
They would pan and scan the film for TV and video tape. This didn't cause too much trimming for matted movies. But the anamorphic movies were butchered and I think unwatchable.

So, could the lawsuit be over the fact that matted movies actually show more then intended since they're the full frame and the widescreen versions show as intended but not more.

lot of wrong info on that site

[BJ_M]

maybe that is why it is called AmateurHomeTheater

[GabeB]

This story is now on slashdot.org

Ever try watching Mission Impossible 2 on HBO? I couldn't...

[dphirschler]

I've yet to see any screen captures of this "cropped pan & scan"... even "Princess Bride" which was referred to earlier in this thread. And as I've said earlier, my "Terminator" is perfectly fine. So is "Fish Called Wanda". Doesn't anybody have any examples of this they can post?

Until I see some convincing evidence, I am siding with MGM on this.


Darryl

[FulciLives]

I was looking at the list of titles that are affected and I only own a handfull of them myself and of all the titles I do have there is only one where I still have an older version to compare the newer DVD with. That would be RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD which I have on DVD via MGM and on LaserDisc by Hemdale or HBO (one or the other as I recall). So if you guys want I can dig out both and do some screen captures to compare the full screen LD to the WS DVD.

Other than that there are 2 titles of interest that would be worth comparing.

1.) Robocop
2.) Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2

I mention these 2 titles because I know Robocop was done by Criterion on LaserDisc and DVD and one would expect Criterion to do thing correctly. I have the Criterion DVD of Robocop but I do not have the MGM DVD. I can post some Criterion DVD screenshots if someone wants to post some MGM DVD screenshots.

As for Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 I again do not have the MGM DVD so someone will have to post screen shots of that which we can compare to my screen shots of the Eliter Entertainment LaserDisc (which is widescreen). At the time that Elite Entertainment released the widescreen LaserDisc of TCM 2 they were known for their excellent quality and attention to detail ... in short they were the Criterion of the horror/cult/exploitation genre (under the leadership of Don May Jr. who has since gone on to form his own label Synapse Films). So I doubt that Elite Entertainment would have made any kind of aspect ratio error.

So that is two titles I can think of where we have what should be correct versions (Criterion and Elite Entertainment) that can be compared to the MGM DVD versions.

So if someone can post pics of the MGM Robocop DVD and the MGM Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 DVD then please contact me so we can arrange to post these pics along with my pics of the Criterion DVD of Robocop and the Elite Entertainment LD of TCM 2.

In the meantime I am going to look for my LD of Return of the Living Dead which I got somewhere around here.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

P.S.
These are the MGM DVD discs I have that are supposedly affacted:
THE ABOMINABLE DR. PHIBES
AT THE EARTH'S CORE
DERANGED / MOTEL HELL (DOUBLE FEATURE FLIPPER DISC)
RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD
PHANTASM
PLANET OF THE VAMPIRES

[kisrum]

What I'm reading from the proposed settlement, which MGM is still disputing is:

"Class Members have the right to return to the Claims Administrator one copy of each DVD title manufactured by or on behalf of MGM which was created for a film shot in the aspect ratio of 1.85 to 1 or 1.66 to 1 (“Eligible DVD”)"

(bold face mine)

The plaintiff's have probably identified EVERY film shot in these aspect ratios since some point in time, and they want it to be up to MGM to prove that they were NOT improperly converted to a widescreen DVD.

This has the desirable effect, for the plaintiffs, of throwing the net as wide as they can to catch as many fish as they can in the class action. It's up to MGM's legal and risk management departments to decide if they want to dispute this on a film by film basis.

I'd say this is a long way from settlement, and probably doesn't mean that MGM screwed up every one of these in WS.

I'm not a lawyer, but I've been around enough legal cases to be suspicious of the process.

My $.02.

[adam]

First off, that's not true. As the plaintiffs, the burden will be on them to go through each of these movies and prove they were improperly transferred, unless they can find some evidence of a policy of improperly transferring all movies shot in this aspect ratio, in which case the burden will shift to MGM because of the presumption it raises. Listing every movie shot in these ratios, assuming that's what they did, doesn't make their burden any less. Of course this would be if it went to trial, and a trial date was never even set.

More importantly, MGM has already agreed to this settlement. Read the notice. The parties have reached a settlement, that means they have finished negotiations and come to a contractual agreement which is only contingent on the court ruling that the terms are fair and reasonable. There are really only two grounds for the settlement to be denied by the court. Either the contract is unconcionable (usually because of disparity of bargainging power----yeah right like MGM can't handle their affairs) or because the contract is contrary to some matter of law. In other words, if the parties agree, the court almost always does too. These settlement agreements always state the same thing, that the defendant doesn't admit any liability by settling, but we can all read between the lines. You don't offer a refund on a DVD unless you acknowledge that there is at least an argument that there is something wrong with it.

[FulciLives]

Here is my comparrison of RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD

I've taken 4 shots from the LaserDisc (full screen) and matched it with the same shots (as close as I could) with the MGM DVD (which is full screen on one side and widescreen on the other side).

The images below are in this order:

1.) LaserDisc (full screen)
2.) MGM DVD (widescreen)
3.) MGM DVD (full screen)

Scene 1 - LaserDisc (full screen)


Scene 1 - MGM DVD (widescreen)


Scene 1 - MGM DVD (full screen)


Scene 2 - LaserDisc (full screen)


Scene 2 - MGM DVD (widescreen)


Scene 2 - MGM DVD (full screen)


Scene 3 - LaserDisc (full screen)


Scene 3 - MGM DVD (widescreen)


Scene 3 - MGM DVD (full screen)


Scene 4 - LaserDisc (full screen)


Scene 4 - MGM DVD (widescreen)


Scene 4 - MGM DVD (full screen)


As you can see the framing on the full screen LaserDisc pretty much matches the framing on the full screen DVD but the real trick here ... is that the widescreen DVD does indeed to appear (at least to me) to be the same image with just the top and bottom cut off.

I am not sure if this really proves much of anything because it is not uncommon for movies to be shot full frame 1.33:1 and then have a "soft matte" added for theatrical release (and widescreen home video release) only to have this "soft matte" removed for the full screen home video release.

As for RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD I have no idea exactly how it was filmed, i.e., soft matte or hard matte etc.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

P.S.
All the images were captured either from the LD (NTSC US release) or the MGM DVD (NTSC US release) using my BT based capture card. I am using the BTwincap driver which has a proper NTSC aspect ratio at 712x480 so all captures were done with this resolution using the HuffyUV codec. The AVI was loaded into VirtualDubMod then copy and pasted into Photoshop and saved as JPG images at the original resolution of 712x480. Please note that the WS DVD version is 16x9 anamorphic but my DVD player was set to 4:3 Letterboxed mode not 16x9 mode ... this was done to get a proper 4:3 ratio from the WS DVD thus avoiding that "stretched look" and the need to resize the capture.

Please note the capture settings were the same for all 3 captures so any differences in brightness/contrast and color saturation etc. are due to the source material being different (i.e., the LD is much brighter than the DVD).

*** PLEASE NOTE ***
All images have now been uploaded (took a few minutes). This post is now finished.

[BJ_M]

the LD image is smaller - odd ... they blew it out for some reason ...

good work

[FulciLives]

the LD image is smaller - odd ... they blew it out for some reason ...

good work

Now that you mentioned it I guess the frame on the LD was a bit "blown up" because there is some picutre missing on the top and sides (mostly the left hand side) compared to the full screen DVD although the bottom appears to be the same on both.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[GabeB]

This is what I had suspected. The lawsuit is over the fact that the "widescreen" versions of the movies do not show anything more then the full screen but instead less.

[FulciLives]

This is what I had suspected. The lawsuit is over the fact that the "widescreen" versions of the movies do not show anything more then the full screen but instead less.

However this is NOT always WRONG because like I said some movies are shot full screen open film frame (about 1.33:1) and then a soft matte is added to the top and bottom for the theatrical release and the widescreen video release whereas this soft matte is simply not there on the full screen release.

In that situation the theatrical presentation and the matching widescreen home video presentation have less picture than the full screen home video prestentation but the full screen one is clearly wrong is that you are not supposed to see that extra top/bottom bit of image.

However things get tricky because some films are shot full frame with a hard matte that is on the film so in that case it cannot be removed (hence the diiference in terminology with soft matter vs hard matte) and in this instance the full screen home video version has the sides chopped off whereas the widescreen home video version shows the whole image ... unless ... and here is the nasty part ... unless they take the hard matte full screen master and cutt of the top and bottom to make it widescreen. In that instance you not only are missing the sides but also stuff on the top and bottom when compared to the true presentation (i.e., the film frame in total).

This "goof" (hard matte widescreen transfered to full screen then made widescreen by cutting the top and bottom ... therefore a double whammy) has been done before ... I recall the WS LaserDisc of BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA was like this. People also complained of the same thing for the BACK TO THE FUTURE LaserDiscs and I think this error was carried over to the DVD versions of those as well (at least the first batch I seem to recall they were recalled and "fixed").

Things can even be tricky with what we consider anamorphic or scope films when it comes to 35mm such as TERMINATOR 2. This was shot in such a way (same was done with the LORD OF THE RINGS trilogy) in that the WIDESCREEN version and the FULL SCREEN version can be dramatically different. This is difficult to explain but the FS version can sometimes have more information (on one or all sides) than the WS version OR the FS version can have less information ... depending on how the full screen version is processed. How is this possible? Well the actual film frame has more visible than what is in the theatrical or home video widescreen version.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[ishtar1138]

i think this lawsuit is bogus. these are open matte films. return of the living dead, spinal tap, phantasm, amittyville horror, etc. i own alot of the MGM dvds listed.
check out widescreenreviews web site on these titles and there is a section of the review that has the theatrical release info for the aspect ratio. Princess bride i have read about the butchery, this seems to be the only valid title. the lawyers for this case should have researched this before getting involved. its probably some rookie lawyer.
look at stanley kubrick's films, he never wanted them cropped for the home releases. the Shining looks scarier in 1.85 ratio.