I wonder what is the original AR of Aradhana. I do have a few EVP titles, all are 4:3. The other day while watching Aradhana, in one shot, cropping from the sides became very evident. Then I checked the EVP cover which clearly stated "Pan & Scan" on all of their DVDs. I alwas thought, Aradhana OAR was 4:3, but now I am not sure. May be some movies were 1.66:1 in those days??

Rana

The OAR of Aradhna is 4:3 The reason for your thinking or feeling that the film was being cropped is probably due to overscan. Overscanning is common due to the innacuracies of various televisions which may cause the edges of the film to be visible. So to prevent that from happening the television and video industry as a standard practise overscan the films. Sometimes the overscan is higher than other times thus resulting in the presentation looking like it has been cropped. As for the labeling on the DVDs, these companies would not be able to correctly tell their asses from their faces, let alone correct terminology. What should be stated on the DVDs is that the presentation is in 'Full Screen OAR' and not Pan & Scan. By the way I don't think to date any Indian film has actually been presented Pan & Scan. What I mean by that is, even when a film with a wider aspect ratio is presented in full screen, they unlike hollywood don't bother to actually Pan 0r Scan. All they do is center the film and crop the rest, in other words butcher it beyond recognition, even more so than it would be if they actually Panned & Scanned it.

Aradhana looks to be correctly framed at 1.33:1. EVP probably didn't know at the time that "pan and scan" meant that a wider film was cropped to fullscreeen and panned and scanned. Hence, the "pan and scan screen" logo on the back cover.

I believe EVP "Amar Prem" also says pan and scan on it.

By the way, the EVP "Aradhana" is one of the best looking DVDs of an older Hindi movie I have. Will DEI improve on this one like they did with "An Evening in Paris"?

EVP "Aradhana" also has a "CC" (Closed Caption) logo on the back, hehe.