Andromeda NOT widescreen

[Daz]

Got this from kult-tv about andromeda:

Hello

I'll give you the honest answer - no it won't, because to do a transfer to
widescreen cost in excess of £12,000 and we decided to spend that money on
some fantastic extras instead. As a result, the discs are absolutely packed
full of stuff!

I hope you can see the trade-off - you wait, it'll be worth it!

With thanks and kind regards



What do you think, I would rather have the widescreen.

[GregB]

I've never watched Andromeda so don't know how much difference a Widescreen version would make but I can fully understand Kult TVs reasons for not doing the transfer.

I'd imagine the market for Andromeda would be difficult to guage so £12,00 is an awful lot to fork out if you only end up selling a few hundred copies. Having said that many fnas might not buy it simply because it isn't in Widescreen. It's kind of a Lose-Lose situation

[Chris]

kult-tv pan&scammed Bad Girls as well. They said it's because a survey that they had shows that consumers prefer 4:3 dvds over widescreen dvds.

[Desk]

I hope this isn't the start of a trend. :(

Kult TV's a small company and I can understand the need to spare expense, but by settling for 4x3 they're not only denying Andromeda's fans a chance to own the series in the best format, they're also sending out the signal to other companies that they don't need to bother with widescreen for TV releases.

We've done pretty well so far, with titles such as Spaced and League of Gentlemen presented in the proper format.

However, I can't help but worry that the glory days may be behind us, and as DVD becomes more popular and mainstream that companies aren't going to bother themselves as much.

Most UK shows and now major US productions such as ER, Enterprise and ANGEL (sign the petition and email Fox) are filmed and broadcast in widescreen - I just hope that's the way we get to see them on DVD.

Desk

[SvenL]

I got the following reply to the same question:

----------
Thank you for your email. The masters that were offered to us were in 4:3,
and to get a conversion into 16:9 would have cost in excess of £10,000. We
decided to spend the money on extras instead, and have packed the discs with
exclusive interviews and information.
----------


What is the "conversion" they talk about ? Cropping the picture into a 16:9 format ? If the masters they got are not in widescreen then they cannot be converted to widescreen.
And the show is shot in 16:9 - this was confirmed by one of the co-producers on the Andromeda newsgroup. She explicitly said that they shot it in widescreen for DVD and HDTV.
Makes me wonder about Farscape - maybe it's shot in widescreen too and they are also too cheap to get the right Farscape masters.

[John Nelson]

Originally posted by Chris
kult-tv pan&scammed Bad Girls as well. They said it's because a survey that they had shows that consumers prefer 4:3 dvds over widescreen dvds.

Oh for God's sake :mad:

This is in the UK, where most new TVs sold are widescreens?

Sometimes I think the great British public *like* seeing 4:3 images distorted to fit a W/S TV. They see a correct 16:9 picture, and think there's something wrong with it.

This country... :(

-- J.

[Ruskins]

Andromeda NOT good

[Chris]

Originally posted by John Nelson


Oh for God's sake :mad:

This is in the UK, where most new TVs sold are widescreens?

Sometimes I think the great British public *like* seeing 4:3 images distorted to fit a W/S TV. They see a correct 16:9 picture, and think there's something wrong with it.

This country... :(

-- J.

They must be reading results from the survey that MGM US did.


The email I got back from KultTV a while back said that they (and the production company) had decided to make widescreen releases for the Bad Girls dvds, but then they read the results from the survey which showed consumers prefer 4:3 over widescreen (the comment made was something like "consumers tend to choose the 4:3 dvd instead of the widescreen equivlent" sounds very much like a US survery as the US doesn't get separate 4:3 and widescreen releases)

[Xenole]

Considering most films are not 4:3, do consumers purchase about 10 films a year then???

[Chris]

Originally posted by SvenL
I got the following reply to the same question:

----------
Thank you for your email. The masters that were offered to us were in 4:3,
and to get a conversion into 16:9 would have cost in excess of £10,000. We
decided to spend the money on extras instead, and have packed the discs with
exclusive interviews and information.
----------


What is the "conversion" they talk about ? Cropping the picture into a 16:9 format ? If the masters they got are not in widescreen then they cannot be converted to widescreen.
And the show is shot in 16:9 - this was confirmed by one of the co-producers on the Andromeda newsgroup. She explicitly said that they shot it in widescreen for DVD and HDTV.
Makes me wonder about Farscape - maybe it's shot in widescreen too and they are also too cheap to get the right Farscape masters.

Well the price suggests that no PAL widescreen master exists, so a telecine would have to be done to create the PAL widescreen masters. At £12000 thats £545 per episode of season 1. As they will most proberly release it Farscape style thats 5 boxes at £25 each. Even with a £5 profit only 500 dvd sales of a season would cover the cost (they tend to use the cheaper SS-SL discs and only use Dual layer discs when they need to put 3 episodes on them. most replicated batches of dvds are in the thousands rather than hundreds)

Europe are getting a release of andromedia, why didn't kult join up to share the cost.

Not sure about Farscape, it seems to be correctly framed at 4:3

Lets hope that the R1 versions are released that they are widescreen.

[John Nelson]

Another question about these TV shows shot in 16:9 but released in 4:3 - is the 4:3 version actually 14:9 (like they show on the analogue channels), or is it 'true' 4:3?

Also, has it really been panned-and-scanned, or has just the centre of the frame been transferred (like if you have a digital cable box set to 4:3 mode)

-- J.

[Chris]

Originally posted by John Nelson
Another question about these TV shows shot in 16:9 but released in 4:3 - is the 4:3 version actually 14:9 (like they show on the analogue channels), or is it 'true' 4:3?

Also, has it really been panned-and-scanned, or has just the centre of the frame been transferred (like if you have a digital cable box set to 4:3 mode)

-- J.

14:9 shows on analogue normally mean it was shot in 16:9 then cropped to 14:9 for analogue (digital tv normally gets the 16:9 version)

With the Pan&Scan mode on dvd players it is possible to do a proper pan&scan but vectors have to be set for every single frame so most companies just set the vectors to the centre of the image (like the 4:3 mode on digital cable and ITV Digital).

Not all widescreen tvs shows get proper pan&scan done on them for the 4:3 version, instead they are just cropped.