XPost: alt.tv.seinfeld
On Mon, 26 Aug 2024 19:55:34 -0700, Pluted Pup wrote:
The complete Seinfeld has been released on DVD and I've
talked about the DVDs to ardent fans of the show why
they don't buy the DVDs instead of relying on TV channels.
The complete Seinfeld is only available on 1.33 DVD, not in
any syndication or download or streaming: nearly
20 years ago the show was pan and scanned to fill the screen
of a widescreen TV, showing only the 70% of the picture that
is in the upper middle of the screen. This was also done
before the old analog cable days ended and those channels
actually chopped the sides of the already chopped up
picture to only show a 1.33 miniscreen with all four sides
sharply cut off: this is perhaps the origin of the myth that
Seinfeld was filmed in widescreen.
New releases are announced of Blu-ray and UHD. The
Blu-ray is in the same fake widescreen as is shown
on all TV channels, streaming and downloading the last 20
years, removing 30% of the picture at the top and bottom.
The UHD discs are in the same original aspect ratio
as is the DVDs.
So the scorecard is that the complete seinfeld is
only available on DVD and soon UHD discs, and not on
any TV channels or streaming.
Seeing the way channels handle older 1.33 material,
it makes sense to buy favorite shows on DVD if they are
cheap enough for you and not butchered by Mill Creek or
the like. So far, of every native 1.33 material I've seen,
which is more sitcoms than is good for me, I've never
found that chopping off the top or sides to be tolerable,
or to stretch the screen or to put an advertising logo on
the corner: usually it has to be channels, cable or otherwise,
that abuse their customers that way.
Of course it has happened that TV style revisionist engineering
hasruined sitcoms on DVD, like the UK sitcom "My Hero": of the
3 of 6 seasons released they went like this:
First series: has the appearance of a widescreen show that
has the sides cut off, but not sure. British show only
released in America.
Second series: widescreen show in anamorphic widescreen,
the only proper release, and restricted to America.
Third series: 10 episodes divided into two separate releases
as a widescreen show in a non-anamorphic widescreen, as a
windowbox with the sides partly cut off, for a TV channel like
presentation, region locked to Region 2.
Perhaps the two video companies responsible for this took
every technical complaint about the first and third series as a
complaint against the show itself, as if it were not plausible
for revisionist engineering to offend a viewer.
--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)