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Date:         Wed, 16 Dec 1992 17:36:02 -0500
From:         FAC_JCLARK@JMUVAX.BITNET
Subject:      Re: Dracula

j-man,

About letter- and windowboxing:  You're right, they're not nearly as
prevelant in videocassette; in fact, they're quite rare.  It occurs on
specialty releases such as Ben-Hur, Spartacus (as you found out), and
even Cook, Thief, etc (whose title characters couldn't all get on the
same screen if they hadn't used letterboxing).  My best educated experi-
ence at the reason--while not authoritative--is probably on the money:
market considerations.  VHS cassette, despite having a lot of film
collectors working in that format, isn't the diehard film-buff cogniscenti
audience that laserdisc has.  Being more mass market, VHS bows to the
dictates of habit and expectation in its audience. It's been noted elsewhere
that, for example, that broadcasting lbx'd films in foreign countries such
as France is accepted practice; on American TV, the network or cable station
often gets calls as to "what's wrong with the picture/"  (As in: is the
picture *shrinking*, since that's what it sort of looks like.  In fact,
when I discussed "overscan" on TV sets recently, what I didn't mention is
that a prime reason why it's done is in case the voltage going into the
TV set drops and the picture does "shrink" a little, it won't shrink so
much that the dreaded black space will appear at the corners of the screen.)
But I don't mean to be terribly sarcastic about unsophisticate rube Ameri-
can audiences that have to be humored.  In general, we're growing more
sophisticated as we become more exposed to cable, I think.  Several stations
now transmit lbx'd films--American Movie Classics, TBS--and I even caught
a segment on AMC the other day with Roger Ebert explaining the purpose of
lbxing and what the viewer misses otherwise.  Still and all, the mass of
the videotape market is not--the marketers are convinced--going to buy
wholesale letterboxing. And it will remain a harder sell if you're normally
stuck with a screen 19" or smaller anyway.

Another good technical reason why letterboxing isn't attractive in VHS, though,
has to do purely with the resolution of the picture.  VHS has about 240 hori-
zontal "lines" of resolution; laserdisc, about 400-425.  So when you letter-
box, you're using only a portion of the reduced-resolution image in VHS, and
its defects (lack of overall detail, progressive erosion of what detail there
is as the tape is played repeatedly), can show up even on a small screen.  When
you blow up the image--letterboxed or not--on a large projection TV, the limi-
tations of VHS tape are most apparent.  Sometimes it's almost like looking at
the image through a layer of vaseline, though I have seen a few very good
looking VHS transfers that hold up decently ("ET" is one).  The only video
projection systems that make a large VHS image look half-way decent are the
current (and previous) general of LCD projectors (liquid crystal display panels
using halogen lamps to illuminate the projected image).  But that's because
they're limited in their image fidelity, contrast range, etc.: they tend to
make tapes look pretty decent, and great-looking laserdiscs look more mediocre
that they are--thereby chopping off the two extremes.  But that will improve
over time with new generations of projectors. ("general" above was supposed
to be "generation")

Now, about what happens to an image shot on 70mm and reduced to 35mm.  This is
a technical area I don't know a great deal about; there are so-o-o many varia-
tions of the film formats--more than I ever dreamed when I really started
looking into the matter (and gave it up for a later day...).  But I'd agree
with the comment kjf posted, which I think is: when the 70mm film uses a
squeezed or "anamorphic" process, it would be transferred and printed squeezed
on 35mm as well.  (Anamorphic process 35mm films are shot as well.)  However,
there's a bunch of 70 (and 65)mm widescreen processes, some of which use
an anamorphic process (Ultra Panavision, I think) and some of which don't
(Super Panavision).  My best logical guess, however, is that these formats
are transferred straight, however they started out: if it wasn't squeezed, it's
simply a straight "printing" of the film onto 35mm stock (or creation of a
35mm negative, more likely); if it was squeezed, it'd probably be printed
squeezed onto the smaller format stock.  But these technical processes can
get so bewilderingly complex at times, I've discovered, that they may have
roundabout ways of transferring the originals to another format when squeezing
was originally involved.  It's like the question you come across in audio
cassette dubbing I see in the periodical columns: in making a copy, do I do
it with the Dolby noise reduction off on both cassette recorders, or decode
and encode in the process?  Usually the latter answer is given (for good
technical reasons), but I don't really know if the same conditions apply
with film.

By the way, until recently the ability to transfer 70mm productions to video
in their original format was not technically available.  When Stanley Kubrick
supervised the Criterion transfer of "2001" to laserdisc, he had to use best
available 35mm print reduction.  (That film used Super Panavision, so it was
not an anamorphic original, though I'm not sure--come to think of it--whether
the process wasn't used in the 35mm print-down.  Otherwise, you'd lose more
resolution in the transfer than necessary, since the 35mm version, in order
to remain very widescreen, would have to be "matted" top and bottom, thereby
using less of each 35mm frame.  --With that thought, I've just realized how
unsure I am about under what conditions the squeeze process is likely to be
used.  If I ever find out this particular answer, I'll try to remember to
post it!)  Since Kubrick's effort, MGM has developed and/or adopted new
technology allowing a straight 70mm transfer of "2001" and other films (e.g.,
"West Side Story").  It's probable, though, that these same transfers from
70mm were used in the VHS cassette versions, whether or not they were
letterboxed.  I'll also bet that the lbx'd version of "Spartacus" you saw,
if it was the "restored version," was also a transfer from 70mm.  Anyway,
why bother at the humongous expense of restoring a film like that and then
not transfer from the best original revitalized elements available?

JC
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