Talk:Anamorphic format

Graphic
Although somewhat pedantic, it is worth noting several things about the current graphic -
 * 1) 35mm film prints are four perfs long per frame
 * 2) Non-anamorphic prints usually are soft-matted (ie 4 perfs per frame of image, which is then masked down to 1.85 or 1.66 in the projection gate), although hard-matted prints are not completely uncommon
 * 3) If dealing with a hard-matted print, the image space per frame will be roughly the equivalent of 3 perfs, although centered within the 4 perf frame.

I hope this all makes sense to someone who has the wherewithal and time to make the necessary corrections.

Thanks.

--84.65.127.251 06:51, 26 Feb 2005 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the info! When I made the illustrations, I mostly wanted to show how an image might be situated on a piece of imaginary film. I agree that it would be better to have a more accurate representation of real film, though; I will work on a better rendering. -- Wapcaplet 19:02, 26 Feb 2005 (UTC)


 * Also, the two pictures should (probably) be flipped around. It's not really a big issue b/c film obviously is transparent and double-sided, but the convention tends to be to have the sound on the left side (ie emulsion out). --Girolamo Savonarola 05:17, 2005 Feb 27 (UTC)


 * Got it. Other than that, do they look OK? I added the audio as an afterthought, and realized it changes the aspect ratio, so I'm not sure if I've placed the pictures correctly. -- Wapcaplet 06:00, 27 Feb 2005 (UTC)


 * Well, I don't think that it needs to be quite so exact as far as aspect ratio goes - people will get the idea, even if the picture isn't exactly 1.85, you know? I work as a projectionist, and the one thing (which I don't recommend you try to imitate) is that most of the prints I see are soft-matted. That means that the frame is 1.37, but in the projector we mask it down to 1.85 by covering the top and bottom. However, I think to illustrate that would be confusing. Plus, there are sometimes prints that come in which actually are hard-matted (meaning that they have the black bars like in your graphics). So for the sake of simplicity, I'd say just flip the pictures around, and don't worry too much about the rest. I mean, I could bug you about DTS tracks, Dolby Digital, and the rest, but honestly they don't make much of a difference. The optical sound track area, though, is pretty fundamental, which is why I mentioned it. Either way, thanks for spending the time on it! :) --Girolamo Savonarola 06:13, 2005 Feb 27 (UTC)

Recent changes
Just wanted to note all this for clarification about my most recent edit:
 * 1) There is no such thing as 2.35. It's based on a long-obsolete definition of anamorphic production (see the section 2.35, 2.39, 2.4?). There should be no question on this matter, so please don't change anything back to 2.35 - it's an old ratio that simply stuck around as a synonym for 'Scope despite no longer being accurate. All anamorphic films from 1970 onwards are categorically 2.39.
 * 2) VistaVision (1954) did not preceed anamorphic widescreen (1953). It is also a widespread misconception that VistaVision was projected horizontally. VistaVision prints were always optically converted to standard flat vertical prints matted to 1.85.
 * 3) Cinemascope is an image origination system, not a projection system (although it is true that very little substantial has changed since the time of Cinemascope). Hence "shot on Cinemascope", not "projected on..." Basically it meant that a film was shot with Fox's lenses; this system fell by the wayside due to Panavision's improvements in modern anamorphic cine lens design that were rapidly adopted industrywide.
 * 4) Anamorphic and 2.39 are the same thing - therefore calling one the standard of the other is quite redundant.
 * 5) Techniscope section clarified and placed somewhere more appropriate. Basically the system was a predecessor to Super 35 in the theory of using a non-standard format and optically converting it to a standard.

--Girolamo Savonarola 00:41, 2005 Jun 26 (UTC)


 * Item 2: "It is also a widespread misconception that VistaVision was projected horizontally. VistaVision prints were always optically converted to standard flat vertical prints matted to 1.85." Not true. I'm afraid. See http://www.widescreenmuseum.com/widescreen/vvproj.htm 81.136.202.93 (talk) 13:38, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

External links vs References
The External links are used for "websites related to the topic that might be of interest to the reader, but which have not been used as sources for the article." WP:CITE Shawnc 03:47, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

Artifact image?
I think an image illustrating an example of anamorphic's blue lens flare artifact (which, for some reason, I really like) would be good for the article. Unfortunately, even though I've seen plenty of anamorphic films and have lots on DVD, no particular film springs to mind. :P My DVD drive is broken so I wouldn't be able to get screenshots anyway. Anybody agree/have suggestions? - DoubleCross 05:46, 7 July 2006 (UTC)


 * It's a good idea, but you're going to run into copyright issues. It doesn't fall under "Fair Use." Perhaps someone can upload their own work with an anamorphic flare or replicate one? LACameraman 16:53, 7 July 2006 (UTC)


 * It would be fair use if you can find a promotional still from the film. Of course that would have to be an actual cine film still used, not a still photographer's picture (unless they've suddenly started using anamorphic lenses too!).


 * Actually, no. The promo image might be fair use for an article discussing the film itself (or the actor, but that's a grey area) but as the article is discussing anamorphic flare and using the image to illustrate that, it would not fall under "fair use" (unless the image was significantly cropped to include just the flare). Fair use is a very delicate thing. LACameraman 05:17, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Anon IP edit reversion
I've just reverted all recent edits by the last anonymous IP to edit the article. The reasons why are straightforward - overlinking of unnotable words within the article, breaking up the discussion of the anamorphic film technology by moving the anamorphic video section in between the film sections, considerable factual inaccuracies within the new text, and superfluous sentences re-stating what is already discussed in the article. Please let me know if you have any questions or comments. Thanks, Girolamo Savonarola 19:40, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

Girolamo Savonarola, my apologies if this is not where we make posts of this nature, but this is a new process to me and if this is not how it is done I will be happy to listen. My name is Richard Langlois and my professor for a college editing class askjed us for an assignment to pick an article to pick to edit and present to the class (the history is there, so that is not my issue). While I may not be as knowledgable about anamorphic widescreen or lenses, which I am happy to do, what I am confused about is how some of my changes, which seemed ligitimate, were so easily cast aside and reverted back to the old version of the article simply because of an error. I am refering here to my 'overlinking' of words that are trivial. I am cruious as to what person would know what 'matting' is in the film world if someone is doing research? This is one of the link changes that I made that seemed reasonable to me, but I am confused how this information is innate, as it seems to be since you were so quick to change the article back. Now if you want to get rid of the General Information section I added then I have no problem, I did so simply because while reading the article I had a hard time reading and comprehending what was said, so I tried to make things more clear for readers like myself. This is also why I spaced out the section of "2.35, 2.39, 2.40?" because the section seemed to be too cluttered and I found myself getting lost in the the paragraph, so I spaced it out for the reader's convienance, which the article seems to ignore in terms of presenting new information to a less-than-credited reader. If someone truly wanted all this information I am rather confident you could make recommendations to texts to use, but what baffles me is that when someone who has honest intentions of editing an article cannot do so when a group of people are watching and preserving an article to how they see fit. It does not seem to be the reason Wikipedia was even created and if someone makes changes, even the most minute, that seem to be correct, as in linking something that they believe should be linked because even they themseves were confused why not leave it becuase others will most likely also have the same confusion. Yes, If some of my information was wrong, then change or get rid of it, but only that section, not all of it because you assume all of it is wrong. I will be happy to further discuss the issue with you if you would like.

Take care,

Richard Langlois

The use of "horizontal" and "vertical" causes confusion.
In the second paragraph of the article appears:

"To make full use of the available film, an anamorphic lens is used during recording; this lens effectively squeezes the picture horizontally so that (in the case of the common 2x anamorphosis lens) a frame twice as wide fills the available film area (Figure 2)."

I am confused by the use of the words "horizontally" and the linked use of "wide". Take the first. To all English speakers everywhere the word "horizontal" means "in a left/right, or East/West" direction. As in "the surface of a liquid is always horizontal", or "lie down on the bed in a horizontal position". Yet, in Figures 1 and 2, the image is manifestly being squeezed in a vertical direction. That is, the "force" doing the squeezing acts in a vertical (up/down, North/South") direction, from the sky to the ground, as when you put a "Jack-in-the-box" toy back in his box by squeezing him vertically. The only explanation for this bizarre way of description is to consider the strip of film in the figures as having been turned round 90 degrees and thus shown vertically in the Figures (from your head and dangling on the floor), it being perhaps the normal practice in the film industry to view film laid out left to right, in which case a film-maker would consider Figure 1 as being squeezed horizontally. But that way of looking at it follows merely because of the way in which he was holding the film and totally without regard to the fact that the image (the landscape) as presented in Figures 1 & 2 has undoubtedly been squeezed vertically (sky to ground). There can be no doubt about that. To state that such squeezing of the image, as you present it in the article to viewers of Wiki, is horizontal is incredibly confusing for non-experts trying to grasp the way in which the word "anamorphic" is used. People like me shooting widescreen video for DVD and TV display have no need of historical terms protruding from the age of film. I urge you to revise the use of these words in this article to make it more intelligible.

The beginning of the later section DVD Video may need amendment in the same way. The present wording "the player will send an anamorphic (horizontally squeezed) signal to the TV, which will compress the scanlines of the displayed image vertically !!! As it stands, this sentence is internally inconsistent and very confusing.

Steve Kirkby, 03/12/2006


 * This is somewhat confusing, especially since a vertically stretched image and a horizontally squeezed image may appear to be the same thing without appropriate reference.


 * In filmmaking, an anamorphic lens horizontally squeezes the image. There is no doubt about that - the vertical dimension remains unaffected while the horizontal field of view is expanded by the power of 2. This will, however, cause images which are not de-anamorphozed to look very thin, which the eye can mis-perceive as vertical stretching. However, the vertical dimension maintains itself while the horizontal is squeezed and unsqueezed. In other words, a 40 mm 2x anamorphic lens will have the same vertical field of view as a 40 mm spherical lens, but the horizontal field of view will be equivalent to a 20 mm spherical lens.


 * In the case of DVD anamorphic compression - which is an entirely digital process involving pixels, not optics - the image is vertically stretched in order to maximize the frame resolution by not wasting vertical resolution on black bars. The picture is then digitally scaled back to its correct aspect ratio when it goes out to the TV. There is no change in the actual horizontal resolution - only the vertical has been recompressed. This should result in higher picture quality, because more vertical resolution is given to the frame image instead of the black bars.


 * The truth is that these are two totally different concepts which only share the property of anamorphism (image stretching), and it might be a good suggestion to split these into separate articles, as they do not really have anything to do with one another directly. Girolamo Savonarola 01:09, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Thank you. It seems clear now. Splitting the article in two is an excellent idea. The confusion seems to flow from what the eye perceives, as you mention. Squeezing or stretching an image horizontally has the same perceived effect respectively as stretching or squeezing it vertically. The confusion seems to lie in the actual, practical, historical (I am thinking of celluloid film here) way in which these alterations are made. In the video world the terms often used include (my definitions) "anamorphic image or clip: an image or video clip that is designed to be displayed in widescreen format but which is by default displayed in the 4:3 format unless the displaying device is instructed otherwise." "anamorphic flag: an item of data attached to or embedded in a video file used to instruct a displaying device to stretch the file's images from its 4:3 format to widescreen format". I often think that formal definitions of terms are not helpful in promoting understanding, being of more use to those who already understand the subject and are looking for guidance on the exact, expert, use of the term or to settle disputes. To promote understanding (that is, for newcomers) additional descriptions are better, especially those which use more words* and give examples, and also those which look at the matter from more than one angle as in the "definition" of software: "anything that you can drop on your foot"! an enlightening, additional, way of describing it which instantly lights the recipient's lamp of understanding. *May the patron saint of students protect them from the elegant brevity of an expert's description. Wiki does not fall into that trap.

Steve Kirkby 03/12/2006


 * Well, for simplicity's sake, you can think of it from the perspective of which dimension is considered more flexible: in film projection, all films tend to be projected at a constant height - the variation in aspect ratio is created purely by the width of the image displayed. So you'd compress the image along the horizontal axis. In video, however, the immobility of the screen edges means that the image width is kept constant and the aspect ratio is created by the height of the image (hence letterboxing). Therefore you'd compress along the vertical axis. This is all assuming that you're trying to keep the original aspect ratio and resolution, so things like pan and scan or zooming the image on a widescreen TV don't count, since they lose information - which is what anamorphic DVDs try to avoid. Girolamo Savonarola 16:36, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Thank you. Steve Kirkby 03/12/2006

I agree with Steve's initial remark as to the confusion a reader might have looking at the images and reading the corresponding legends. Girolamo, you say "In filmmaking, an anamorphic lens horizontally squeezes the image. There is no doubt about that - the vertical dimension remains unaffected while the horizontal field of view is expanded by the power of 2.". True, but there is also no doubt that what is depicted in the second image is a vertically streched version of the first, as opposed to horizontally squeezed that the legend describes. This can be confusing to the readers. The problem is that the reader thinks:

Image 1 -> anamorphic lens -> Image 2

which is not the case. What is true is:

Image 1, the problem is we don't use all the film area

Image 2 (missing), film area problem solved, but the new problem is the image is not widescreen

Image 3, widescreen problem solved (by use of anamorphic lens)

So there needs to be one more image, one that shows what the picture on the film would be like, if we had full use of the film area without the anamorphic lens. That of course would be a non-widescreen image. But it is from this (missing) non-widescreen image that the anamorphic lens takes us to the (currently) second image.

Elias Papanikolaou 30/12/2009 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.251.108.231 (talk) 23:16, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

Not Academy 1.37?!
According to my knowledge, your diagrams and also the Widescreen Museum, anamorphic is NOT squeezed 1.37 Academy - Academy aperture has fat frame lines, anamorphic uses the full frame except for the optical sound portion. Therefore it seems to use the old original 1.19:1 sound aperture (which neatly unsqueezes to 2.38, instead of 2.74). Is it so? 89.138.93.198 02:50, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
 * More or less. It's all in the article. Girolamo Savonarola 04:23, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

home theatre lens manufacturers?
Is it really useful to be listing these at all? jhawkinson 18:17, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

I've just come by this page because I am interested in anamorphic lenses in home cinema. There are a few available and many recent medium to high end home projectors have vertical stretch designed to work with an anamorphic lens for Constant Image Height projection. I'm a little surprised that there is no section for anamorphic lenses and set ups in respect to home cinema. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.59.114.70 (talk) 12:57, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

Anamorphic lens - de-merge ?
I came here via Anamorphic lens. I wanted to add a link to one of many anamorphic lenses that have nothing to do with cinematography ! I haven't added it, because it is not relevant to the narrow topic of this page.
 * The 'Pericentric' lens - makes anamorphic circular images from cylindrical objects

--195.137.93.171 (talk) 04:54, 8 March 2008 (UTC)


 * You might want to read WP:EL first, though. Girolamo Savonarola (talk) 05:40, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

expand "2.35, 2.39 or 2.40?" to include 21:9 (64:27)
The new digital home and computer screens coming out called "21:9" (technically 64:27) are designed specifically to display the 2.35-2.39 aspect ratio. 64:27 = almost exactly 2.37, which is the precise average of 2.35 & 2.39. It's so precisely in the middle of these numbers that a mention of it might fit in well into this section.

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opening line
I haven't edited, yet, but my initial reading was like (my added comas): "Anamorphic format is the cinematography technique of shooting a widescreen picture, on standard 35 mm film or other visual recording media, with a non-widescreen native aspect ratio." i.e. the "with" can relate to the shooting, rather than the media. The whole sentence could be rearranged, but a simple change might be "Anamorphic format is the cinematography technique of shooting a widescreen picture on standard 35 mm film or other visual recording media having a non-widescreen native aspect ratio." Or maybe "Anamorphic format is the cinematographic process of shooting a widescreen picture on standard 35 mm film or other visual recording media having a non-widescreen native aspect ratio." 49.185.184.214 (talk) 10:55, 13 May 2022 (UTC)

Anamorphic capture compresses the image rather than stretches it
Figures 1 and 2 show the anamorphic format on 35mm to stretch the image vertically on capture and squeeze the image back down on projection. This is incorrect. Anamorphic capture in actuality compresses the image horizontally, and on projection the image is stretched back out horizontally. 67.198.76.196 (talk) 04:28, 9 August 2022 (UTC)