The "Incorrect Aspect Ratio" Thread

[diamond204]

Re: The "Incorrect Aspect Ratio" Thread

Can "9 1/2 Weeks" be added to the master list?

It is supposed to be 1.78:1, and VUDU has it as 4:3. This is the original with Kim Bassinger, and it is only available via Ultraviolet, and it not for sale at the moment.
Here is the link : http://www.vudu.com/movies/#!content/10136/9-12-Weeks

Ironically, the trailer is 16:9. But the film itself is not.

[tbdave]

Re: The "Incorrect Aspect Ratio" Thread

New to VUDU. Enjoying watching a nice collection of movies. Today I purchased the Lakia bundle. Paranorman is showing at the correct Aspect ratio but Coraline and Boxtrolls are not! Pretty bummed about this. These are beautiful handcrafted stop action movies - it's not fair to the artists who developed these films or the consumer who is not getting what he's paid for. Can this be fixed? If not, can I be refunded?

???

All 3 movies look fine to me. Coraline and Boxtrolls are both 1.85:1, and ParaNorman is 2.35:1. Those are the correct aspect ratios.

Are you seeing a different aspect ratio for those movies?

[chachajoe]

Re: The "Incorrect Aspect Ratio" Thread

New to VUDU. Enjoying watching a nice collection of movies. Today I purchased the Lakia bundle. Paranorman is showing at the correct Aspect ratio but Coraline and Boxtrolls are not! Pretty bummed about this. These are beautiful handcrafted stop action movies - it's not fair to the artists who developed these films or the consumer who is not getting what he's paid for. Can this be fixed? If not, can I be refunded?

[atlantafella]

Re: The "Incorrect Aspect Ratio" Thread

Freaks (1932) is window-boxed for the first few seconds in the opening scene immediately following the credits, then suddenly "pops out" to 4:3.

[Surfs2]

Re: The "Incorrect Aspect Ratio" Thread

I have also recently joined Vudu and I have been converting several movies using the Disc to Digital feature and for the most part it's been good, but I have a couple of movies I just recently converted from DVD and while I was willing to accept the SD versions of some of the movies I purchased a few recently which have the wrong OAR and this annoying and unacceptable in my opinion since I basically have repurchased them to watch in the cloud and they look terrible I might as well stick with my DVD's of the movies and I will until this is fixed. I have to say I really disappointed in so many movies being in the wrong aspect ratio. I will just have to keep watching my Discs until you get around to fixing these one day. I have noticed also a great inconsistency in quality of transfers also disappointing. If you purchase HDX it should be somewhat close to the quality of the Blu-Ray counterpart, but in many cases they aren't even DVD quality. Really sad! Anyways, I will keep updating my list over time.

1.The Man From Colorado 1948 with Glenn Ford SD should be 1:33 and its stretched to 1:85 to fill up the screen and looks terrible.
2. Santa Fe 1951 with Randolph Scott same as the other should be 1:33 and its stretched to 1:85.
3. The Shadow Riders 1982 with Tom Selleck and Sam Elliot should be 1:33
4. The Stranger Wore a Gun 1953 Randolph Scott should be 1:33
5. Hangman's Knot Randolph Scott 1952 should be 1:33
6. Destry Rides Again 1939 Jimmy Stewart Should be 1:33 but it's HDX stretched
7. Battle Cry 1955 Van Heflin and Aldo Ray should be 2:55 like my DVD, but again its stretched to 1.85 full screen
8. The Power of One 1992 Morgan Freeman and Daniel Craig supposed to be 16x9 1:85 but it's non-anamorphic 1:85 so it's squashed letterbox right in the middle of the screen and picture looks horrible to say the least. VUDU please fix all these ASAP. I don't even bother watching them until they are fixed since they look so bad!
9. Dillinger 1945 Lawrence Tierney it should be 1:33 but again it's cropped and stretched to fill the screen. I can understand the studios sending an inferior print, but they don't control how they are encoded and the aspect ratio in which they are presented digitally. I think Vudu could use some better QC. I don't see these issues on Amazon with Aspect Ratios etc, but I don't really want to switch, but I hate 2 things poor prints and movies being presented in the wrong aspect ratio it's annoying.
10. Star Kid 1997 It's supposed to be 1:85 Aspect Ratio but instead it looks 2:35 because it's non-anamorphic and it looks really bad.


Thanks, Bob

I have added more to the list and will keep adding, but I am really requesting for Vudu to please fix the Aspect Ratio of its movies which are wrong. I really don't think it's too much to ask to watch the movie the way it was originally shown. Especially when the DVD was already correct to begin with and I all I want to do is watch the movie in the cloud the same way I enjoyed the DVD. I am finding more and more and it's starting to turn me off from staying with Vudu. Which is a shame because I like the concept for ease of access and being a space saver and of course other places, but I can't stand certain things.

1. Incorrect Aspect Ratio
2. Poor Transfers
3. The stupid Ultraviolet Account required error even though I have one and I have already tried the link and unlink trick which didn't work. It happens in the middle of a movie very annoying.

Vudu please do your best to resolve these issues or I will leave which I don't want to to do really

Thanks again,

Bob

[Surfs2]

Re: The "Incorrect Aspect Ratio" Thread

I have also recently joined Vudu and I have been converting several movies using the Disc to Digital feature and for the most part it's been good, but I have a couple of movies I just recently converted from DVD and while I was willing to accept the SD versions of some of the movies I purchased a few recently which have the wrong OAR and this annoying and unacceptable in my opinion since I basically have repurchased them to watch in the cloud and they look terrible I might as well stick with my DVD's of the movies and I will until this is fixed.

1.The Man From Colorado 1948 with Glenn Ford SD should be 1:33 and its stretched to 1:85 to fill up the screen and looks terrible.
2. Santa Fe 1951 with Randolph Scott same as the other should be 1:33 and its stretched to 1:85.

Thanks, Bob

[Tim000]

Re: The "Incorrect Aspect Ratio" Thread

CURSE OF THE DEMON is 1.33, should be 1.66.

[tbdave]

Re: The "Incorrect Aspect Ratio" Thread

Here's a couple more that are now fixed:

Congo is now 1.85:1

The Dukes of Hazzard is now 2.35:1

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 2 is now 2.35:1

[tbdave]

Re: The "Incorrect Aspect Ratio" Thread

Has Mars Attacks! been fixed? I checked the 2 minute preview this morning and it was showing in its OAR and the last time I checked the preview it was full screen. Any help would be appreciated.

Looks like it's been fixed. I just checked the movie on my Roku and it's now 2.35:1.

[musacfreak73]

Re: The "Incorrect Aspect Ratio" Thread

Has Mars Attacks! been fixed? I checked the 2 minute preview this morning and it was showing in its OAR and the last time I checked the preview it was full screen. Any help would be appreciated.

[CT-Scott]

Re: The "Incorrect Aspect Ratio" Thread

Second, I agree completely that Vudu should state the AR in the info. section. (That said, Vudu does already provide way more information than their competitors.) FYI, the 2 min. preview option may give you a clue to the AR, but ridiculously, the previews are the first 2 mins. of the film, which is often just credits, etc., which is useless for any purpose Further, there are cases where the film's intro in the preview shows the correct OAR, but then switches to an incorrect AR!

Yeah, I had read that watching the first 2 minutes of the movie might be deceptive for the reason you mentioned, so I kind of discounted the value of that. Also, I don't simply want to "not purchase" a movie that is isn't in the OAR, I want to make sure my displeasure is made known to VUDU/UV. I guess I should just send an email to them about it.

As far as "the competition" I just jumped over to the iTunes store to see if they publish the aspect ratio. Nope, they don't either. The *do* list movies as being "Widescreen" but that's not particularly useful.

Off-topic for this thread, but related: The number of movies on VUDU which are listed as stereo instead of 5.1 is also of major concern to me. I spot-checked a couple of those and found their iTunes counterparts to be 5.1.

iTunes also lists the filesizes of the movies which, due to the nature of variable compression algorithms, doesn't necessarily provide a perfect indicator of picture quality, but it would be useful to know how the corresponding versions on VUDU/UV compare.

[mjmbond]

Re: The "Incorrect Aspect Ratio" Thread

I can fully appreciate the situation. I guess I'd like to see more openness about the subject, though. Does VUDU have an official position where they are "committed" to providing OAR and "fighting" for it? I'd like to see something like that stated somewhere on the official website.

One of the movies I tested the other day was the first Spider-Man (directed by Sam Raimi). I believe this is a 1.85:1 film that has been cropped to 16:9 (1.78:1). That sort of thing doesn't bother me *too* much, but I did go out of my way to set up my front projection setup with a 2.35:1 screen, so it means that I'm actually filling *less* of my screen for that cropped version. Again, that sort of mild cropping doesn't bother me too much, and I can appreciate that many people (even movie enthusiasts and videophiles) who own 16:9 screens might be willing to accept that amount of cropping in exchange for filling their 16:9 screens completely. But even here, I'd like to know what VUDU (and UV's) "official stance" on the subject is. If what you're saying is true and VUDU has little control over any of this, maybe what I'm looking for is the official position of UV, or even the official positions of each individual movie studio.

Or maybe none of them *have* an official stance on this topic? If so, that's sad and inexcusable, IMO, seeing as Blu-ray discs are nearly always presented in the OAR, so they seem to know that that's an expectation when creating Blu-ray transfers. Perhaps UV or the studios' official stance is that UV is a downgraded "for the masses" format and their studies have shown that this group of customers largely doesn't care about OAR and cares more about filling their 16:9 screens. That would be disappointing and a deal-killer for me, but I'd like to know it now before I invest too much effort and money into building a UV collection.

But this is where I place a bit more blame on VUDU again...why don't their movie listings indicate the aspect ratio? Surely they're already doing some minimal testing of a movie file that is sent to them from UV. It would take minimal effort for them to determine the aspect ratio of the transfer and include that information on the movie details page, so that interested customers like us can take an extra minute to cross check that info against IMDB and then make a determination as to whether it's been severely cropped. Instead, it feels far too much like a crapshoot to me. The original post of this thread is great, but I'm sure it's not a complete list. I imagine there's a good chance that I might happen upon an older movie with the wrong AR that is not listed in this thread. And what about brand new movies that come out? If any of those are wrong, I might have bought it before anyone else had added it to this thread. Let's face it...no one should have to monitor this thread to know what the AR is for a movie being offered on VUDU.

A couple points. First, to this day, there is still a lot of push-back from the unwashed masses who can't stand the horrific "black bars" on their screens. Viewing migration to small, portable devices is perpetuating this "problem" for a lot of viewers. Enthusiasts like us will always want the OAR, but we're still a minority. I'd guess that a lot of the encodes provided by the studios to the streaming services were originally made for cable networks like HBO, Showtime, etc., where the 16:9 AR is still used regularly. I don't know the impetus for the studios to re-encode, but I'd guess at this time it's not very strong. Retailers like Vudu can push for OARs which could help our cause, but again, given the viewing demographic, I doubt the studios are champing at the bit to spend the money to do so.

Second, I agree completely that Vudu should state the AR in the info. section. (That said, Vudu does already provide way more information than their competitors.) FYI, the 2 min. preview option may give you a clue to the AR, but ridiculously, the previews are the first 2 mins. of the film, which is often just credits, etc., which is useless for any purpose Further, there are cases where the film's intro in the preview shows the correct OAR, but then switches to an incorrect AR!

[CT-Scott]

Re: The "Incorrect Aspect Ratio" Thread

Actually, CT-Scott, some of the VUDU staff here on the forums are movie enthusiasts, and take things like OAR as seriously as any of us. I think part of the issue is that when a studio gives VUDU a movie that's been cropped, they have two choices: they can pull the movie and not let anyone watch it until it's available in its OAR, or they can request a new master from the studio and let people watch the cropped one while we wait (and wait, and wait....). I think we can all see, for both business and customer support reasons, why they'd want to go with the second option, as not every customer cares as much as we do.

I can fully appreciate the situation. I guess I'd like to see more openness about the subject, though. Does VUDU have an official position where they are "committed" to providing OAR and "fighting" for it? I'd like to see something like that stated somewhere on the official website.

One of the movies I tested the other day was the first Spider-Man (directed by Sam Raimi). I believe this is a 1.85:1 film that has been cropped to 16:9 (1.78:1). That sort of thing doesn't bother me *too* much, but I did go out of my way to set up my front projection setup with a 2.35:1 screen, so it means that I'm actually filling *less* of my screen for that cropped version. Again, that sort of mild cropping doesn't bother me too much, and I can appreciate that many people (even movie enthusiasts and videophiles) who own 16:9 screens might be willing to accept that amount of cropping in exchange for filling their 16:9 screens completely. But even here, I'd like to know what VUDU (and UV's) "official stance" on the subject is. If what you're saying is true and VUDU has little control over any of this, maybe what I'm looking for is the official position of UV, or even the official positions of each individual movie studio.

Or maybe none of them *have* an official stance on this topic? If so, that's sad and inexcusable, IMO, seeing as Blu-ray discs are nearly always presented in the OAR, so they seem to know that that's an expectation when creating Blu-ray transfers. Perhaps UV or the studios' official stance is that UV is a downgraded "for the masses" format and their studies have shown that this group of customers largely doesn't care about OAR and cares more about filling their 16:9 screens. That would be disappointing and a deal-killer for me, but I'd like to know it now before I invest too much effort and money into building a UV collection.

But this is where I place a bit more blame on VUDU again...why don't their movie listings indicate the aspect ratio? Surely they're already doing some minimal testing of a movie file that is sent to them from UV. It would take minimal effort for them to determine the aspect ratio of the transfer and include that information on the movie details page, so that interested customers like us can take an extra minute to cross check that info against IMDB and then make a determination as to whether it's been severely cropped. Instead, it feels far too much like a crapshoot to me. The original post of this thread is great, but I'm sure it's not a complete list. I imagine there's a good chance that I might happen upon an older movie with the wrong AR that is not listed in this thread. And what about brand new movies that come out? If any of those are wrong, I might have bought it before anyone else had added it to this thread. Let's face it...no one should have to monitor this thread to know what the AR is for a movie being offered on VUDU.

[MaxH]

Re: The "Incorrect Aspect Ratio" Thread

Actually, CT-Scott, some of the VUDU staff here on the forums are movie enthusiasts, and take things like OAR as seriously as any of us. I think part of the issue is that when a studio gives VUDU a movie that's been cropped, they have two choices: they can pull the movie and not let anyone watch it until it's available in its OAR, or they can request a new master from the studio and let people watch the cropped one while we wait (and wait, and wait....). I think we can all see, for both business and customer support reasons, why they'd want to go with the second option, as not every customer cares as much as we do.

[mjmbond]

Re: The "Incorrect Aspect Ratio" Thread

AFAIK, Walmart/Vudu have no axe to grind either way when it comes to aspect ratios. They are simply selling the encodes provided to them by the studios. Problems getting the OAR are not confined to just Vudu; Flixter, CinemaNow etc. have the same type issues, though sometimes the encode each retailer sells may vary. That said, there are a lot of encodes without the original OAR.

One thing to wonder about is that Walmart/Vudu's D2D conversion prices are way cheaper than other retailers, especially with the in home 50% off offer. The deals they cut with the studios that allow them to price this way may have some bearing on the encodes available for D2D, though again, other more costly retailers have the same problem. That said, if an encode is updated for OAR, etc. (The Fifth Element comes to mind as an example), Vudu will replace the earlier HDX one you purchased.