The Last Samurai was wide screen SD.

Well, the summer is almost finished.
I guess that also means the end of "Summer Movies on CBC".
I wonder, though, what ever happened to "Milion Dollars Baby" (that wasn't shown, and I don't see it on schedule until end of August) as it aired in promo clips for this summer along with all the other ones already shown.
All in all, this summer's few HD movies were great.

mystic river shows as HD for tomorrow (saturday) night

Did anyone notice that strange thing with picture format last night at Mystic River.
There was a few scenes, actually a few camera shots within scenes where one of the cameras was not 16:9, but a wider format (with black bars up and down) while the entire rest of the movie was in full-screen 16:9. It looked very strange and I can't believe that a movie studio could release a movie like that.

Mystic River aspect ratio is 2.35:1, which will not fit on a 16:9 screen. There should have been black bars for the whole movie if it was shown in the OAR.

Either CBC cropped this movie, or more likely the studio sent it this way.

Either CBC cropped this movie, or more likely the studio sent it this way.

Most likely they did a pan and scan to fit it to 16:9, but were unable to get satisfactory results doing this for some scenes and thus letterboxed them.

Most movies are filmed in 4:3 with the intent of cropping the top and bottom in the theatre to obtain the desired aspect ratio, thus they can often zoom out to not loose any of the picture as long as there isn't anything in the cropped region that the director doesn't want the audience to see (such as the floor or ceiling of the set).

Most movies are filmed in 4:3

this isn't true. There is no way film would be cropped in the theatre, and filmed natively to fit best on a 4:3 TV screen. This wouldn't make any sense. Films are usually filmed at a super-wide aspect ratio, 2:35:1 which is about two 4:3 Screens beside each other. When being shown on TV, the sides are cropped off, or the film is letterboxed so the entire film can be seen on TV.

You will notice however, if you watch a film in a theatre, they always leave room on the sides to crop off, there is never scenes in which something important is seen on both the left and right sides of the picture

2:35:1 = Gorgeous and epic
16:9 = best for TV
4:3 = out-of-date and boring

Actually, most moves were filmed in 4:3, however, that was 50 years ago. Here's a link to the various aspects.

http://www.imdb.com/Sections/DVDs/AspectRatios/

Since the 1950s most moves have been widescreen - which encompasses all the aspects wider than 1.33:1.

To generalize a bit, today many of the "action" movies are 2.35:1 while many of the "non-action" are 1.78:1 - of course there are many exceptions as well.

My guess is that this had nothing to do with CBC, must have been delivered like this.
Here is a snapshot of the image with black bars:
http://img72.imageshack.us/img72/7933/cbutdtsep01002mysyz9.jpg
(only total of about 20 seconds of the entire movie looked like this)

The rest of the movie looked like this (this is the same scene, just different camera/angle):
http://img150.imageshack.us/img150/3889/cbutdtsep01002mys02em5.jpg

this isn't true. There is no way film would be cropped in the theatre, and filmed natively to fit best on a 4:3 TV screen.
Not so fast... ;) See the "Letterboxing, Pan & Scan, & Soft Matte" section on this page (http://gregl.net/videophile/anamorphic.htm) for details on the different ways a wide screen film is achieved from 35mm film stock (which has an aspect of about 1.37).

While not focused on theatre projection, How Film is Transferred to Video (http://www.modeemi.cs.tut.fi/~leopold/AV/FilmToVideo/) contains similar details about "Anamorphic", "Hard Matte", and "Soft Matte" techniques for filming. Additionally, it touches on "Super 35mm":
Notice that Super-35 prints can't been shown in movie theaters. For theaterical prints, one of the three processes mentioned before must be used. In this case, the desired aspect ratio being 2.35:1, an anamorphic print would be the best choice.

Looks like the theatre's projector is involved in the proper display of a film.

there is never scenes in which something important is seen on both the left and right sides of the picture
I must be misunderstanding your point, because wide screen films do have visual information across the width of the screen, not to mention composition (if it's part of the picture, it's meant to be there). If that wasn't the case, 4:3 conversions of films wouldn't lose anything.

One more link... :)

"Widescreen Information Page" (http://www.twowiresthin.com/aspect/) discusses the various film techniques and the impact of each when converted to "television" format (4:3). Good nuggets of info in there as well, not to mention interesting screen shots. In a few, key info on the left or right is lost.

I'm currently watching "The Hour" on CBUT-DT (OTA) and it's letter & pillar boxed. Guess the upconversion settings were wrong.

The 11 pm episode was repeat material, wasn't it? So presumably it would be SD. The 9 pm episode was certainly HD here.

Marc,
The closed captioning lines are appearing again on CBUT-DT. I noticed it today during the 11:00 pm 5 minute news segment.

Thanks.

I was talking about the 9pm episode in Vancouver. The entire show was clearly shot in HD or WS but was broadcast with black bars on all 4 sides.

I was talking about the 9pm episode in Vancouver. The entire show was clearly shot in HD or WS but was broadcast with black bars on all 4 sides.Ah, would have been a mistake by CBC then. It was HD in Toronto! You should put your Location in your profile, to aid people assisting.

That was a CBC problem. It's a long story about a new facility and a chain of down converts and aspect ratio converters. In the end, the aspect ratio was different depending on your location.

Another aspect ratio flub:

Watching tonight's "The National" in HD from Toronto (on BEV channel 802), I noticed that a commercial for Doctor Who, like all the other commercials, was shown in a 4:3 aspect ratio with black bars on the sides. Unfortunately, the Doctor Who ad was originally widescreen (16:9), so it ended up being squished ("tall, skinny people syndrome").

I recorded the Women's World Cup soccer game between Canada and Ghana on CBC HD Toronto from Shaw Ch 209 here in Kelowna last night. The channel lost sound about half way through the game. When I checked about an hour after the game the sound was still missing. I won't be able to check again until later today as my cable box is busy recording a bunch of soccer from various sources now.

Fortunately I had the game recorded from the local SD CBC channel as well so I could capture it to DVD and so was able to watch that version.

Shaw had problems with their CBC HD Toronto feed a couple of days ago when the picture was freezing for significant periods of time although the sound was usually okay. I called Shaw and complained because I was concerned that it was a problem with my feed but they told me it was at least a BC wide Shaw problem. It was resolved later that day but I am very disappointed with the problem this morning.

Mean Girls pq actually looked very good tonight, probably best i've seen movie wise on CBC-HD

It's not on the web yet, but next week's schedule (http://www.cbc.ca/hdtv/) looks interesting. I haven't counted them, but at a glance it looks like the combined HD and widescreen hours exceeds the number of 4:3 program hours.