Chimes DVD

[jaime marzol]

in case any one is not sure about anamorphic, here is a dandy explanation

http://gregl.net/videophile/anamorphic.htm

[DexyMan]

Okay so I checked on the bottom of the box and it does say that Trial and Chimes are 16/9 compatible 4/3. So that is good at least. But I have 3 settings on my DVD player; 4:3 Pan and Scan, 4:3 letterbox, and 16:9. The first two did nothing different from each other and the third made the image even worse. Does this mean that I am screwed?

[Jeff Wilson]

You don't want to use the 16:9 setting if you have a fullscreen (4:3) set, so ignore that one. If the box says that the films are 4:3, then fullscreen is what they should be, though why they would do that is a mystery, given the previous release of THE TRIAL. Do you have a DVD-ROM capable of screen caps? No one has posted any further info on this set anywhere I've found, so I don't have any other info to go on.

[DexyMan]

According to the digital bits.com 16:9 means that it is in anamorphic widescreen, is that what you thought it was originally?

[Jeff Wilson]

My copy of THE TRIAL, as produced by Studio Canal in France, is in 16:9 anamorphic widescreen. Both versions are, the original and 1984 version. It really makes no sense for this new version to be fullscreen, is the point. Because they already had a great version, and they seem to be conscious of putting their films out in the correct aspect ratios and such. The Milestone edition of the film, and the Spanish CHIMES disc are not 16:9 enhanced, meaning on a widescreen TV, they'll only fit in a 4:3 sized box in the middle of the frame unless zoomed in, which will only make the picture look worse. On a regular 4:3 TV, all three discs should look the same, given the down conversion of the 16:9 disc and the already 4:3 nature of the other two.

[jaime marzol]

but dexy said it's not only full screen, the image is compressed. a manufacturing defect?

(send it back, send it back)

[Roger Ryan]

Dexy - The "4:3 letterbox" setting is the one your DVD player should be set at regardless of the disc your putting in there (provided you're viewing on a standard 4:3 TV). That setting allows a 4:3 image to play full-screen on your set and anamorphic widescreen discs to play in the correct ratio with varying degrees of black bars at the top or bottom (depending on the widescreen ratio of the film). If the image looks wrong in this mode, something is indeed wrong with the disc. "16:9 compatible 4:3" doesn't make sense; that's saying the image is in 4:3, but will play on a 16:9 TV (of course it will...in the middle of a widescreen TV with gray or black bars framing the image at the left and right). The notation should read "4:3 compatible 16:9" which means the image is in anamorphic widescreen but will play in its correct ratio on standard TV screens if one's DVD player is set on "4:3 letterbox". Hope this helps.

[Roger Ryan]

in case any one is not sure about anamorphic, here is a dandy explanation

http://gregl.net/videophile/anamorphic.htm

Thanks for the link, Jaime, although I should point out the info is somewhat outdated (Jan. 1999); virtually all 1:66:1 films (think Disney's "Lion King", Welles' "F For Fake") are now produced as anamorphic discs.

[tadao]

Hi Dexy,

your problem with the "squeezed" images is probably down to the processing your DVD player is doing to the PAL format DVD. A DVD player will normally electronically convert a 16x9 anamorphic image to 4x3 letterbox if you're watching on a 4x3 monitor. However, if your DVD player has to convert a PAL image to NTSC, it may be unable to convert the image to letterbox (unsqueeze it) at the same time, and the 16x9/4x3 settings on your player most likely won't make any difference. This is probably the problem that you and Jaime are having. My first DVD player had this same problem, so it's probably not a manufacturing fault of the discs.

You can bypass the problem if you have a TV set capable of displaying native PAL images without converting them (this is unlikely in North America), or alternatively, if your set is recent enough to have a 16x9 button or setting (where the TV will unsqueeze the image and create the letterbox bars itself).

On the issue of subtitles, many French DVDs have "forced" (ie you can't turn them off) player generated subtitles. They aren't actually burned into the image, so they won't display when watching the movie in the French dub, but will display when watching in English (and can't be turned off). The way around this one is to watch the movie on a computer with some of the widely available software to bypass region control and UOP prohibitions. Then you'll be able to surf these subtitles off during playback. Some set-top players are also hackable to remove UOP prohibitions, if this is a big issue to you.

(btw "16/9 compatible 4/3" is the way French DVDs usually describe anamorphic. Read it as "16x9; compatible with 4X3")

[DexyMan]

Tadao- What are UOP prohibitions? I would very much like to hack into my player to get rid of the subtitles. I was reading about the vertical squeeze issue on Jaime's link. Will that make it so the DVD is played correctly or is that not the same issue?

[TheMcGuffin]

Tadao hit the nail on the head there Dexy. PAL Anamorphic DVDs are complicated to decode and only a select number of players can display PAL Anamorphic DVDs correctly on NTSC TVs. I remember reading about this issue back when i purchased my dvd player the Malata 525. http://www.hkflix.com/hardware/ has a good selection of all region DVD players and they specifically state whether the dvd play can handle the PAL anamorphic conversion. When i got my player 2-3 years ago, the Malata was the only player that did this, now there are quite a few more.

[tadao]

UOP prohibitions are programmed into a DVD at the authoring house where it's put together. UOPS are User OPerations, such as PAUSE, CHAPTER SKIP, AUDIO/SUBTITLE SURF etc, that correspond to buttons on your remote control. For any piece of video material on a DVD, the authoring house (at the request of the studio) allows (permits) or prohibits the user from pressing each of these of these buttons. UOP prohibitions are typically used for things like copyright screens and trailers (to make them unskippable); on menu pages (to prevent you from pausing, rewinding or fast-forwarding them); and sometimes during playback of the film (to prevent you from surfing audio streams or subtitles).

A lot of DVDs made solely for the French market use UOP prohibitions to stop you changing audio streams or subtitles during playback. So you can either watch the movie in French without subtitles, or in its original language with subtitles. It's a bit of a dog-in-the-manger attitude that stops fluent English (or other language) speakers from enjoying films without dubbing or subtitles.

Only a few set-top players can bypass UOP prohibitions (and it usually requires replacing your firmware with a "hacked" version). It's pretty easy to do on a PC software player using "region code" defeat software. Or as you suggested, ripping and reburning a DVD with a "Bypass P-UOPs" setting or suchlike would enable any player to surf to the "subtitles OFF" state during playback. Some ripping software is likely to be able to do this with only very minimal loss of quality.


UOPs have nothing to do with the reason that the image appears "stretched" on your monitor. All anamorphic DVDs store the image in this stretched way, and the DVD player will usually unstretch it and display it correctly. It seems your player isn't able to convert from PAL to NTSC and unstretch it at the same time.

The "vertical squeeze" trick described in Jaime's link is a clumsy but effective way to bypass the problem, but there are more convenient ways around it. Many 4x3 TV sets of less than about 7 years old have a 16x9 or "widescreen" button on the remote or in the menu - just press it and it'll unstretch the image for you. Otherwise you could play the DVDs on your computer; make sure your next DVD player can handle PAL anamorphic conversion, like the ones TheMcGuffin recommends; or buy yourself a shiny new 16x9 TV...

(if you need more tips, tricks or hacks for DVD players, www.videohelp.com is a good place to start)

[DexyMan]

Okay so it has all been figured out! I have a crappy DVD player that is specifically named as a brand that can't handle anamorphic PAL DVDs! So, Chimes IS anamorphic widescreen, has a beautiful image but it does have forced on subtitles that CAN be navigated around if you have a special DVD player. The same is all true for The Trial.

[tadao]

Don't be too harsh on your DVD player, if TheMcGuffin is right then up until less than 3 years ago there was only one machine on the market that could convert anamorphic PAL to letterbox NTSC properly, and there still may not be many. That's an awful lot of crappy and non-crappy players out there that will behave in the same way. It may be worth other Wellesnetters who are considering importing this set checking whether their equipment will be able to play the DVDs properly.

As I said, there are workarounds for the problem, some of which will cost extra money, some of which won't. As widescreen capable TVs become more widespread, and DVD players image processing chips improve, the issue may disappear. Hope you find a solution that works for you, or that at least it doesn't stop you from enjoying your DVDs.

[Jeff Wilson]

Incidentally, I played my TRIAL disc tonight (the Studio Canal one) and I found that selecting the English track rendered the subtitles on and unable to be switched off. However, by playing the film from the start menu in its default setting (French audio) and then switching once the film started to the English audio, the subtitles were left off. I think I mentioned this in the original thread way back when, but it might be worth checking, DexyMan. It might only be certain players that do that, but it's worth a try to watch without the subs.

Also, someone in this thread on the Criterion forum posted a screen cap of the CHIMES disc, and it looks better than the Spanish disc to be sure. The poster also mentions that the subs are forced. Hopefully a single disc version of this release will come out soon; it's been announced, but with no date yet.