Question:
There are in fact several releases of this film available on DVD. We are still awaiting the definitive release though.
R1 Canada:
This is a fairly bad 1.66:1 non-anamorphic transfer with DD 2.0.
Extras are theatrical trailers, a 9-minute featurette and cast & crew filmographies
R4 Australia
Again a fairly bad 1.66:1 non-anamorphic transfer with DD 2.0. However there are quite a few extras:
Audio Commentary with Director, Music Trailer, International Trailer, Interviews with Cast Members, Biographies and six Music Videos
R2 UK
Horrible pan&scan with no extras
R2-France
This is a two-disk release of "Once Were Warriors" and "What Becomes of the Broken Hearted" together in a nice cardboard digipack.
The films are in their proper aspect ratios: 1.66:1 and 1.85:1 respectively and are anamorphic. Audio is English and French dub in 2.0 for Warriors and 5.1 for Broken Hearted
Extras are quite good: an informative interview with the director and a documentary about aborigines in Australia.
Sadly this DVD does have forced, player generated French subtitles.
The criterion laserdisc contained an audio commentary track with director Lee Tamahori. What are the chances of this seeing the light of day on an anamorphic DVD release? I don't know. Maybe Criterion will reissue this disk on DVD sometime soon? I'm not holding my breath. I have therefore gone for the French anamorphic release even if it does have forced French subtitles.
There's an R4 2 pack with "What Becomes of the Broken Hearted" as well, but the "...Warriors" disk is the same as the single one...
Surely you can't have 1.66 anamorphic as the TV squashes any 4:3 image to 1.85.
:Quote: Extras are quite good: an informative interview with the director and a documentary about aborigines in Australia. :End Quote:
If that's correct it's a shame as the movie involves New Zealand Maori, not Australian aborigines.
I must say I haven't seen a version of it here in NZ (R4) with commentary, and we get the same as Australia. I'll need to look around a bit more as that is my only reason I haven't picked it up yet.
Cheers
:rocker:
Hi Tom. Let's see if I can answer your question
Technically all anamorphic pictures are the same: they are 16X9 images at the aspect ratio of 1.78:1. So whether the picture is in 2.35:1 or 1.66:1 your WS telly will handle them the same way, filling the entire screen with the transferred image. However some of that image may consist of black bars appropriate for the particular aspect ratio. Your TV does not generate these particular black bars; they are part of the transfer.
So anamorphic 1.66:1 will fill your 16X9 screen and part of that picture will consist of very thin black bars on left and right side of the screen. The black bars on the side are part off the transfer.
As for non-anamorphic pictures, be they full frame or letterboxed; how a TV handles this varies between different TV sets.
My Sony WS TV allows me to view any 4/3 images in either of the following modes:
*Regular 4/3: with black bars on the side.
*14/9 zoom in: used to zoom in on slightly letterboxed non-anamorphic films like Barry Lyndon. This results in loss of resolution but lets you use more screen realestate.
*16/9 zoom in: also used to zoom in on letterboxed non-anamorphic pictures. This also results in loss of resolution. Almost ALL TV's have this function.
*Wide: stretches the 4/3 picture horizontally to fill the screen. People become fat, this however does not result in loss of resolution.
*Finally most WS TV's have some sort of compromise function that uses a combination of stretching and zooming to make the picture fill the entire screen. Exact results are slightly different between models and manufacturers but all result in distorted geometry, cropping of picture and loss of resolution. Sony calls this "smart" mode. Different TV manufacturers have different names for this function.
I have seen cheap widescreen TV's which does not allow any adjustment in viewing mode at all for 4/3- non-anamorphic images. My mate for instance has a Thompson; this particular set always stretched non-anamorphic pictures regardless of aspect ratio. Watching anything other than anamorphic films was very annoying on this TV.
However the VAST MAJORITY of wide screen tellies have several functions to enable the viewer to choose how he wishes to watch non-anamorphic DVDs and TV.
Mind you, Because of the overscan settings of most televisions, you may not see the difference between 1.66:1 Anamorphic and 1.78:1 Anamorphic. This is because of the resulting loss around the border off the image. This "cropping" effect is very common and if you find it bothersome, a TV technician is usually required to change it.
Hope this was helpful.:)
Originally posted by erlryd
I have seen cheap widescreen TV's which does not allow any adjustment in viewing mode at all for 4/3- non-anamorphic images. My mate for instance has a Thompson; this particular set always stretched non-anamorphic pictures regardless of aspect ratio. Watching anything other than anamorphic films was very annoying on this TV.
Thomson TV do handle non-anamorphic picture properly. The problem is certainly coming from the DVD player not giving the info of the aspect ration to the TV set. In such case setting the TV to 4/3 instead of Auto solve the problem.
On my Thomson the 1.66 are reframed 1.78 (ie I am loosing part of the picture above and below). Again this is coming from the player. If I set the DVD player to 4/3 the aspect ration is respected. But then the picture is pretty small.
:o - Once again I have to mention the existence of a Korean version - it's anamorphic but I can't remember the rest of the details. Subs will be removable - may have some of the extras from other regions even though they'll be useless for the non-English speakers who buy it.
The symptoms you describe do seem to be related to the overscan settings on your telly. It has nothing to do with your DVD player. Same thing happens on my Sony 32" widescreen, it chops of so much on all sides of the picture that I cannot tell the difference between 1:66:1, 1.77:1 and 1.85:1. This happens regardless aspect ratio i.e. a 2.35:1 picture looks like 2:20:1.
As far as your DVD player is concerned, it does not distinguish between a 1:66:1 and a 1.77:1 anamorphic picture. All anamorphic pictures are 1.77:1 16X9 (and all non anamorphic are 4/3) regardless off how much of the transfer is used to show the actual film.
If you were to connect your DVD player to a video projector or a PC with video-in you would indeed see the "whole" picture. LCD's and plasma displays also do not overscan.
You may notice that some DVD's try to compensate for overscan by having extra space around the picture, like for instance "Criterion's Hidden Fortress or Beauty & the beast R1.
This is just one if the inherent limitations of picture tube technology.
I hope this sorts out the confusion. You can check this out your self if you have a DVD compatible PC.
By the way. I didn't mean to say that Thompson TV's where crap in general. I'm sure some of the medium and high-end models have a lot of picture modification features. I was referring to a cheap low-end set.:)
R1 Canada:
This is a fairly bad 1.66:1 non-anamorphic transfer with DD 2.0.
Extras are theatrical trailers, a 9-minute featurette and cast & crew filmographies
R4 Australia
Again a fairly bad 1.66:1 non-anamorphic transfer with DD 2.0. However there are quite a few extras:
Audio Commentary with Director, Music Trailer, International Trailer, Interviews with Cast Members, Biographies and six Music Videos
R2 UK
Horrible pan&scan with no extras
R2-France
This is a two-disk release of "Once Were Warriors" and "What Becomes of the Broken Hearted" together in a nice cardboard digipack.
The films are in their proper aspect ratios: 1.66:1 and 1.85:1 respectively and are anamorphic. Audio is English and French dub in 2.0 for Warriors and 5.1 for Broken Hearted
Extras are quite good: an informative interview with the director and a documentary about aborigines in Australia.
Sadly this DVD does have forced, player generated French subtitles.
The criterion laserdisc contained an audio commentary track with director Lee Tamahori. What are the chances of this seeing the light of day on an anamorphic DVD release? I don't know. Maybe Criterion will reissue this disk on DVD sometime soon? I'm not holding my breath. I have therefore gone for the French anamorphic release even if it does have forced French subtitles.
Answers:
There's an R4 2 pack with "What Becomes of the Broken Hearted" as well, but the "...Warriors" disk is the same as the single one...
Answers:
Surely you can't have 1.66 anamorphic as the TV squashes any 4:3 image to 1.85.
Answers:
:Quote: Extras are quite good: an informative interview with the director and a documentary about aborigines in Australia. :End Quote:
If that's correct it's a shame as the movie involves New Zealand Maori, not Australian aborigines.
I must say I haven't seen a version of it here in NZ (R4) with commentary, and we get the same as Australia. I'll need to look around a bit more as that is my only reason I haven't picked it up yet.
Cheers
:rocker:
Answers:
Hi Tom. Let's see if I can answer your question
Technically all anamorphic pictures are the same: they are 16X9 images at the aspect ratio of 1.78:1. So whether the picture is in 2.35:1 or 1.66:1 your WS telly will handle them the same way, filling the entire screen with the transferred image. However some of that image may consist of black bars appropriate for the particular aspect ratio. Your TV does not generate these particular black bars; they are part of the transfer.
So anamorphic 1.66:1 will fill your 16X9 screen and part of that picture will consist of very thin black bars on left and right side of the screen. The black bars on the side are part off the transfer.
As for non-anamorphic pictures, be they full frame or letterboxed; how a TV handles this varies between different TV sets.
My Sony WS TV allows me to view any 4/3 images in either of the following modes:
*Regular 4/3: with black bars on the side.
*14/9 zoom in: used to zoom in on slightly letterboxed non-anamorphic films like Barry Lyndon. This results in loss of resolution but lets you use more screen realestate.
*16/9 zoom in: also used to zoom in on letterboxed non-anamorphic pictures. This also results in loss of resolution. Almost ALL TV's have this function.
*Wide: stretches the 4/3 picture horizontally to fill the screen. People become fat, this however does not result in loss of resolution.
*Finally most WS TV's have some sort of compromise function that uses a combination of stretching and zooming to make the picture fill the entire screen. Exact results are slightly different between models and manufacturers but all result in distorted geometry, cropping of picture and loss of resolution. Sony calls this "smart" mode. Different TV manufacturers have different names for this function.
I have seen cheap widescreen TV's which does not allow any adjustment in viewing mode at all for 4/3- non-anamorphic images. My mate for instance has a Thompson; this particular set always stretched non-anamorphic pictures regardless of aspect ratio. Watching anything other than anamorphic films was very annoying on this TV.
However the VAST MAJORITY of wide screen tellies have several functions to enable the viewer to choose how he wishes to watch non-anamorphic DVDs and TV.
Mind you, Because of the overscan settings of most televisions, you may not see the difference between 1.66:1 Anamorphic and 1.78:1 Anamorphic. This is because of the resulting loss around the border off the image. This "cropping" effect is very common and if you find it bothersome, a TV technician is usually required to change it.
Hope this was helpful.:)
Answers:
Originally posted by erlryd
I have seen cheap widescreen TV's which does not allow any adjustment in viewing mode at all for 4/3- non-anamorphic images. My mate for instance has a Thompson; this particular set always stretched non-anamorphic pictures regardless of aspect ratio. Watching anything other than anamorphic films was very annoying on this TV.
Thomson TV do handle non-anamorphic picture properly. The problem is certainly coming from the DVD player not giving the info of the aspect ration to the TV set. In such case setting the TV to 4/3 instead of Auto solve the problem.
On my Thomson the 1.66 are reframed 1.78 (ie I am loosing part of the picture above and below). Again this is coming from the player. If I set the DVD player to 4/3 the aspect ration is respected. But then the picture is pretty small.
Answers:
:o - Once again I have to mention the existence of a Korean version - it's anamorphic but I can't remember the rest of the details. Subs will be removable - may have some of the extras from other regions even though they'll be useless for the non-English speakers who buy it.
Answers:
The symptoms you describe do seem to be related to the overscan settings on your telly. It has nothing to do with your DVD player. Same thing happens on my Sony 32" widescreen, it chops of so much on all sides of the picture that I cannot tell the difference between 1:66:1, 1.77:1 and 1.85:1. This happens regardless aspect ratio i.e. a 2.35:1 picture looks like 2:20:1.
As far as your DVD player is concerned, it does not distinguish between a 1:66:1 and a 1.77:1 anamorphic picture. All anamorphic pictures are 1.77:1 16X9 (and all non anamorphic are 4/3) regardless off how much of the transfer is used to show the actual film.
If you were to connect your DVD player to a video projector or a PC with video-in you would indeed see the "whole" picture. LCD's and plasma displays also do not overscan.
You may notice that some DVD's try to compensate for overscan by having extra space around the picture, like for instance "Criterion's Hidden Fortress or Beauty & the beast R1.
This is just one if the inherent limitations of picture tube technology.
I hope this sorts out the confusion. You can check this out your self if you have a DVD compatible PC.
By the way. I didn't mean to say that Thompson TV's where crap in general. I'm sure some of the medium and high-end models have a lot of picture modification features. I was referring to a cheap low-end set.:)
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