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That's really strange. I wonder what's going on there. After all this time, would they really have messed up the aspect ratio?

Has anyone received the set from Amazon.de? Mine was supposed to ship a while ago but it's just been sitting there, says it's "in stock" and "shipping soon" but nada.

They sent me an e-mail on mine telling me that they were out of stock and shipping was delayed.

Pinakotheca wrote: After all this time, would they really have messed up the aspect ratio?

It seems they have. The difference between Episode 1 and 2 is immediately apparent on my TV, it's not a problem with the screencaps. What's more annoying than the stretching is the cropping at the top that goes with it. The framing simply looks too 'tight', like one of those old 1.19 films erroneously rendered in 1.33.

andyli wrote:No. I think you forgot to resize the captures from the native PAL resolution (720x576) to the display resolution (720x540 in this case). They look much better after the adjustment.

EDIT: Upon closer examination, it does seem the first episode of Out 1 is stretched even after resizing. The rest look normal though.

To get the correct Display Aspect Ratio for PAL-material you have to re-size the grabs to either 768x576 (for 1.33 sources) or 1024x576 (for 16:9 sources).
(For NTSC the numbers are 640x480 and 853x480, respectively)

Okay, I think here's more evidence. Please forget about resolution and size for a moment, and just look at the caps.

This is from the dvd of the first episode, followed by almost the same screenshot from an avi of an age-old Italian TV transmission:




The camera is not moving in this sequence. Now look at the window on the left, and you'll see that the dvd version is considerably cropped at the top. What's lost is made up for by stretching.

Now the same for the second episode, again with unmoving camera.



While the dvd still might be more stretched, or perhaps the avi is flattened, the dvd might show even a little bit more on the top, and in any case these two shots look much more similar than those from the first episode.

Indeed. Episode 1 is noticeably stretched. (What a shame!)

To feckless boy: Thank you for correcting me. Didn't realize you have to keep the vertical resolution when re-sizing.

The question is only at which point the mistake happened. If arte/absolut medien f'cked it up they should recall the set and correct it. But if the stretching is already on the digital master they were provided by WDR, then there's little hope, especially as that master probably is already a few years old and god knows what might have happened to the original materials in the meantime.

Probably a dumb question but, so it wouldn't have been possible to correct the digital master?

I'm no technical expert, but even if the master is stretched, is there really no way that they could squeeze it back to acceptable proportions for the purpose of a DVD transfer, even if this means having slight black bars at the top and bottom of the image?

I see, so there is actually a chunk of image missing at the top of the AM/Arte discs?

Indeed, as my above comparison with the old TV transmission (almost certainly from an earlier analog master of around 1990) clearly demonstrates.

Yeah I didn't look that carefully but you're right,

What a cruel world.

Man, that's just f-ed. Waited forever for this?!

But but but but we were all going to wait for the Criterion anyway, right?

I guess this explains why no one else is putting it out (if this is the only source available).

Well, any other interested label could certainly put a disclaimer before the start of that episode explaining the situation, if the cause should indeed be the master and nothing can be done about it. I guess the reason why nobody else is putting it out is the extreme length and, face it, the complete uncommerciality of the whole thing. In this respect I'm still glad about this release in spite of this unforgiveable blunder. I'd rather watch that one episode stretched than ever again play that awful avi of the Italian transmission again which for years was the only way to see the film at all. So unless we really get an announcement from CC or someone else in the near future, I'd say it's crazy to bypass this release.

Definitely.

Has anyone contacted AM about this? Surely black bars would have been the way to go if the image was already cropped when they got to it.

Presumably it would be possible to rip the DVD and make a custom one with the image resized to eliminate the stretching (albeit with cropping still intact). Something similar happened to the Spanish and UK DVDs of José Luis Guerín's In the City of Sylvia: the image was horizontally stretched out to 16:9 when it should've been 1.66:1, but it is possible to correct that with the right software.

I wouldn't compare much with the RAITRE rip (I feel that one's slightly flattened).
The easy way to see it is comparing with Spectre. In the screenshot I provided of Berto in her room just look at the windowframe and her boot: there's missing space at the top and bottom (Once you see the stretching it's constantly noticeable, though as Tommaso said, the worst comes from the framing feeling 'off').
Like I already said, it's only the first episode, aside from this, the set is real quality (looks better than I anticipated).
Someone who can speak German (I can't) should contact Absolut Medien about it, though.

I have just sorted out a set of English subtitles for Spectre. PM if interested.

Re Arte box- Is it correct that the german subs are fixed?

SPECTRE: removable german subs
OUT 1: engl/german/off
(at least at my regular region fixed sony)

Thanks - apparently it's on the bonus items that they are fixed.