Talk:Open matte

Open matte on Widescreen TVs
With the advent of 1.78:1 television sets, soft matte format may become obsolete. If an open-matte DVD were to be played on a 1.78:1 television set, it would be pillarboxed (thus having vertical black bars on the sides of the screen) and have a lower resolution or squeezed image. Decimus Tedius Regio Zanarukando 22:02, 1 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Soft matte likely won't because from a production standpoint, it allows reframing in post if necessary - most films don't shoot with a hard matte anyway. Open matte as a video transfer method, I agree, seems to look closer to death with widescreen. That being said, a Super 35 2.39:1 film could transfer open matte to 1.78, so the process likely won't die out completely, but rather morph. Girolamo Savonarola 22:10, 1 October 2006 (UTC)


 * 4:3 open matte movies don't have to be pillarboxed on widescreen TVs. Some DVD players —— specifically, Samsung DVD players with the "EZ View" feature —— will, at the touch of a button, crop the top and bottom of the image to create a widescreen image that fills your widescreen TV.  The feature is also useful for non-anamorphic widescreen movies.  Frustratingly, after a great deal of research, I have been able to find no DVD recorder from any manufacturer that has this functionality.  There may be DVD players from other manufacturers that have equivalent functionality —— I haven't researched that —— but if you want a DVD recorder that plays non-anamorphic discs intelligently, you're out of luck.  Hell if I know why there are no DVD recorders that play non-anamorphic discs intelligently, but there aren't.  Many software DVD players can do the job if you have your computer connected to a widescreen monitor. Capedia (talk) 00:10, 28 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Any widescreen TV should have a zoom button which will simply zoom into the 4:3 image until its width is equal to a 16:9 one. If the 4:3 image is cropped, it will be very similar to an anamorphic DVD's one (albeit with less resolution); unfortunately, though, if it is an open matte, it will be 1.78:1 instead of 1.85:1 or 2.39:1. Girolamo Savonarola (talk) 07:14, 28 June 2008 (UTC)


 * The biggest problem with using the TV to do the zooming/cropping is that it crops off the subtitles. It can also render menus unusable (unless you change the TV settings when you go to the menu and change them back when you go back to the movie...  it's a major PITA).  It's important that the zooming and cropping be handled by the DVD player.  Many DVD players can do this correctly, but I have yet to find a DVD recorder that does. Capedia (talk) 11:37, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

4:3 open-matte fullscreen DVDs?

 * Someone needs to compile a list of fullscreen DVDs that make use of open-matte (as opposed to pan-and-scanning). Evan1975 08:30, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Compiling a complete list would be impossible. I see no benefit of including a partial list in the article, but if it makes you happy, I'll list a few here:
 * All of Me
 * Doc Hollywood
 * Dr. Strangelove
 * Duel
 * Eyes Wide Shut
 * Full Metal Jacket
 * Gia
 * The Last Days of Patton
 * The Man With Two Brains
 * Melody
 * Purple Rain
 * The Shining
 * Summer Lovers
 * Las Tentadoras
 * El Topo
 * Capedia (talk) 23:49, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Hollywood's dirty little secret
Many films are actually shot 16:9 (shorthand for that ratio that matches current TV sets). They are framed for this ratio by director/cinematographer. So why are these movies then butchered for their cinema release, by cropping the top and bottom of the picture?

Because the paying audience is so stupid, they think 'cinematic' means an 'ultrawide' picture- and the assumption of distributors is a film will make more money if its picture is thusly butchered.

The clue to fake ultra-wide is heads constantly missing their tops in most shots- something that vanishes with the so-called 'open matte' TV version.

Unlike the glorious true anamorphic movies from the 1960s, where the picture was even wider, and no head was ever chopped, fake wide is painfully obvious. But like the story of the missing emperor's clothes, today's audience actually thinks a cinema image is supposed to look badly cropped.

Sometimes the issue of fake widescreen by chopping the top and bottom renders a film literally unwatchable. I recall 'The Mummy 3' where only the 16:9 version of the film with VFX was prepared. The cinema crop version ruined almost every FX shot, since the FX work had been done assuming a 16:9 image.

Back in the day of 'Independance Day' and the fist Spiderman movie, three versions of the movie were prepared by the editors/VFX- namely cimema wide, 16:9 and 4:3. Amazingly, the VFX were redone for each version, and each version contained image data in the frame not shown by the other two. No version was a simple crop derived from the other two.

Today, now Hollywood is at peak cheapness (CGI standards even in blockbusters are rock bottom), only one version is shot and edited. All other versions are bad crops. 'Open matte' now means "as shot". The cinema wide version is literally a cropped butchered version.

I recall the horrific crop of 'No Country for Old Men' winning a cinematography oscar for the cropped butchered version. I saw an 'open matte' screener before the movie released, and various scenes only made visual sense without the cinema crop. In other words, the movie had been shot for 16:9 (ie., TV release)- not too surprising given the problematic BO of the brothers at the time- investors wanted a 'safe' version. Yet because the film was a 'hit', people raved about the badly cropped cinema version.

I wouldn't care, but Hollywood frequently won't release the true version (open matte) if the cropped version has seen good success in the cinema release. They wish to keep up the pretence that the badly cropped version is the true version- and only years later (when people have forgotten) will the real version suddenly turn up on TV. Let people have their modern day ruined 'pan and scan' equivalent if they wish- just allow those of us with a clue to see the version of the movie the director actually shot. 82.30.78.190 (talk) 18:08, 13 September 2019 (UTC)