Anybody have these Corner Gas and TPB DVDs?

[cfraser]

Corner Gas S3
Trailer Park Boys S7

Can you tell me if these display in your system as *WS letterboxed to 4:3*. This bugged me when I first got them, and I never saw a single other person who mentioned it. Not that there's lots of info about Canadian DVDs on the web. They are supposed to display as 1.78 WS and fill your whole screen of course, and not just a small fraction. I can't make them do it without zooming...my only DVDs out of thousands that behave this way. Am I surprised they're Canadian, one from Alliance? Note that it's specifically the mentioned discs, no other seasons.

I played them in an Oppo BDP-83, PS3, and a Seiki, no diff. No TV mode compensates for it properly either (Pio 151).

Thanks for any report. This has bugged me for months LOL, well, whenever I watched these. I am basically trying to establish it's the way the discs are authored, as opposed to some setup thing here that only gets triggered by these discs.

[topherpaquette]

just check and that is exactly what I have for TPB

cheers

[57]

A fair number of early DVDs were non-anamorphic. Many of the TV series DVDs are also non-anamorphic (even today). If they are WS, then you have to zoom. If zooming doesn't fill the screen completely, then either they are not exactly 1.78:1 (certainly possible), or perhaps you're on a zero overscan setting on your TV, or both.

Most recent movie DVDs are anamorphic. Many DVD players provide an option of what to do with "4:3" (non-anamorphic) DVDs, with the default usually being to stretch, some may have a "zoom" option and of course the "normal/do nothing" option.

http://www.digitalhome.ca/forum/showthread.php?t=76070 Anamorphic FAQ.

[cfraser]

^ These DVDs are not that old, and I can't say whether or not they're anamorphic because of how they look LOL. They don't look like a known non-anamorphic DVD, like The Abyss say. They look like a lot of TV commercials in Canada do: WS all scrunched up into a 16x9 window inside a 4:3 frame = goofy. The DVD producers probably think this is OK because Canadians are "used" to seeing it on TV. What surprised me in customers' DVD reviews (by Canadians) is that noone mentioned it, that's how used to seeing this they are. They are labelled as WS etc. on the packages, though actually display as 4:3 and that's what the players report they are.

I think it's just incompetence and lack of customer consideration...don't get the cranky old man started... At least they fixed CG on the S4 and later DVDs, but for TPB the S7 was the last (unfortunately, the possibly best IMO season looks the worst).

So we have one vote for it's the DVD authoring. Doesn't make me happier with the product, but at least I could say "that's just the way it is" and stop fiddling with stuff. Every time I throw these in I fiddle again, thinking *this* time I'll solve it. I don't like zooming because pic and (mostly) player info gets lost off the top and bottom of the screen.

[topherpaquette]

^^^
what I don't understand about TPB season 7 is that they did film it in 16:9 for tv, yet the dvd releases don't reflect that at all (again WS to 4:3). maybe they used the ratio for HD only... i don't know. then again never looked to see if they offered it on BD

[cfraser]

TPB S7 DVD was a total screwup. It *was* filmed and televised WS like the DVD package says, but the DVD does that wrong. Oh, and to top it all off, they reduced the audio back to stereo on the DVDs from the 5.1 on S6.

57: I probably have at least a thousand TV DVDs. Of course not all are WS. But, as I mentioned, these are the only two titles EVER that displayed this way. So IME it sure isn't "many" WS TV DVDs that are like this, certainly not American ones; thus my question here, I am hardly a "beginner" at this. But then again, I have extremely few Canadian TV shows on DVD, and extremely fewer that are (allegedly) WS so I can't speak to that.

TPB S7 does not say it is enhanced, neither does CG S3. Normally I do NOT buy WS movie discs that are not enhanced, but since this was TV and with my (above mentioned) experience they caught me off guard...not again now that I know.

[57]

These DVDs are not that old, and I can't say whether or not they're anamorphic because of how they look

1 You can tell if they're anamorphic by how they react in the DVD player/TV combination, based on the DVD player/TV settings. (If you need to zoom (instead of stretch) 16:9, then it's non-anamorphic)

2. They don't need to be old. A lot of newer TV stuff, as I mentioned, is non-anamorphic.

3. Many WS DVDs that are non-anamorphic usually say "widescreen" or 16:9, or show the aspect 1.78:1 instead of saying "enhanced for widescreen" or "enhanced for 16:9" or "anamorphic". I believe all 4:3 (Pan and Scan) DVDs are non-anamorphic.

[cfraser]

Doesn't address the issue that these specific titles are apparently *not* WS to start with, they are 4:3 video, but you couldn't know that unless you had seen these specific examples. Not WS as advertised. That seems to be the root of the problem. Oh yeah, and me being stupid for not expecting this... Only in Canada would 4:3 video be called WS because the actual picture part inside the 4:3 format box has a 16x9 ratio LOL...the only thing "wide" about it is my gullibility for buying it.

I forgot to mention how BAD this looks when you take the "few" bits actually dedicated to the 16x9 picture part of the 4:3 frame (and not the large black bar area) and zoom it. Doesn't look bad unzoomed, but so tiny...

Please don't compare this with non-anamorphic movies. This is NOT at all the same thing. You have to see it if my description was inadequate. I very well know what non-anamorphic WS movies look like, and am especially familiar with the Oppo BDP-83's inability to handle them even half-decently (mostly older Criterions). I originally thought this could be part of the problem, but same with PS3 which does non-anamorphic (movies) more neatly.

Edits: lots. Mostly to turn this into a "warning" for future purchasers. When DVDs have 4:3 video on them and advertise themselves as (1.78) WS, there's not really any good excuse. If the video is actually WS, just not enhanced and they don't say it is, that's another matter that doesn't apply here.

[57]

Only in Canada would 4:3 video be called WS because the actual picture part inside the 4:3 box has a 16x9 ratio

Not true at all. All non-anamorphic WS DVDs are like this. You may not have run across any because you've purchased or rented anamorphic DVDs, however, that doesn't negate the fact that many TV series (that are WS) are like this, as well as many older DVDs (by older I mean say close to 10 years). Suggest a reread of my previous post and the FAQ link provided.

See the following link regarding "packaging"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anamorphic_widescreen

[cfraser]

^ You are probably right. I hardly ever watch non-anamorphic DVDs anymore. And in the days that I did, it was on my Sony RPTV using a Panny player that *doesn't* display non-anamorphic WS like this; it displays them across the whole 16x9 screen, but they are all scrunched up vertically only, and they have a mode that specifically adjusts for that so didn't look so bad (compared to the Oppo->Pio). I shouldn't have said...

I guess I don't know what others are used to seeing when they watch non-anamorphic DVDs, my sense is probably warped. Thanks for letting me know though, I really do appreciate it. You can get into a rut from how you're used to seeing something, and when it's different it looks "wrong".

Edit: part of the problem why things don't look like from the Panny player is the Oppo output setting. It behaves a bit funny with this format when you have it in Auto. It detects the 4:3 video and displays accordingly. So do my other two players in this system (PS3/Seiki) so it's not just an Oppo thing. The Oppo works better in Wide for this case (rather than Auto, which is usually better). Zooming works OK except that icons and player info are cut off.

I have way fewer non-anamorphic WS DVDs than I thought, must have sold/given them away long ago, only a few sci-fi titles left, I had a hard time finding some after all. Anyway, yes, the Oppo at least does detect them all as 4:3 and displays them similarly to these topic DVDs.

So my fault, I didn't actually know how non-anamorphic WS looked with the Oppo/Pio (though I thought I did), seems these may be the only I ever played with this gear combo (in more than a year). The Sony/Panny setup, being component video, behaves quite differently with them (still hardly optimal though).

So I guess these DVDs are totally acceptable after all, if non-anamorphic WS is acceptable for a 2006 (CG) and 2009 (TPB) DVD. Well, at least I feel better knowing they are totally standard for the lower standard...I'll continue living with them (considering I've already watched them a few times...).

Amazing how much BETTER the old SD (for DVD) RPTV system looks with these non-anamorphic WS DVDs than the mighty Oppo upscaling the DVDs to the HD Pio panel...even the Oppo can do nothing with crap.

Still, it should not be obscured what a turd of a product the Alliance 2009 release of TPB S7 is (I am only giving CG S3 a tiny pass because it came out in '06 when 16x9 HD displays were not quite ubiquitous). We have a mixture of content that is 4:3 and anamorphic and non-anamorphic WS. Even the menus vary between discs. No QC, poor (but admittedly watchable) PQ. It is normally my policy to not buy Alliance movie DVDs (I get the U.S. version) strictly from old habit, but in this case no choice of source. Luckily this is the last one I'll ever need to buy since I'll never get another Canadian TV series on DVD, the two I like being complete and I've learned my lesson. Surely they won't put non-ana. WS on BD if I get any for new Canadian shows in the future? They might, I've seen plenty of it for movie extras on BD so if it's not unheard of and it's cheap, Alliance can be counted on to do it...yikes.