Could some one clarify various issues involving 35mm film prints and Projection Lenses:

35mm film:

1) Are immages with AR of 1.33:1, 1.6:1 1.8:1, 2.35:1, 2.55:1 supposed to be squeezed on a 35mm film (Printed image stretched vertically)?? Note that a 1.33:1 projected image planned to be stretched 2:1 in width, will have half of the film as black on the sides. Why waste 50% of film area??

2) How do they print normal, common in North America, projection 1.8:1 films?? Is the film area wasted as black bars on the sides??

Projection Lens:

1) Are there various expansion ratio (sideways) lenses or only one or two standard ones, 2:1 or 1:1 sideways??
What is a Scope Lens, Flat Lens, ----??

2) I remember seeing projected image being stretched to the sides in a contineous motion. Vertically stretched pic in the beginning changing to proper image as the pic is expanded sideways. Is this type of adjustment/ lens available??

Thanks.

I changed the title of this thread. I started this thread to discuss/ clarify/ report the restored MEA. Knowing the answers to the above post would have helped in coming to some conclusions and phrasing proper questions.

First, to start off, here is what critics have been saying about restored MEA. All are ga ga about MEA restoration.
http://www.indiafm.com/scoop/05/apr/0404mea/index.shtml

beautifully restored at a cost of $1 million has garnered praises worldwide after its screenings in UK and U.S.A. lately.

The world press has showered the film with positive reviews; here is what a few of them say - "Waiting another four decades for Mughal -E-Azam to be restored in appealing candy-colours and high quality sound has certainly been worthwhile. Retaining all its original charm, Mughal-E-Azam's themes of love, loyalty and sacrifice remain as relevant as ever - a true testament to director K Asif's vision and commitment" quotes BBC.Co.UK.

LA TIMES illustrates the power of the restoration: "Now Mughal-E-Azam has been lovingly colorized - not good idea for most black-and-white classics but perfect in this particular instance."

http://www.indiafm.com/boxoffice/overseas/06apr05.shtml
Weekend: April 1 - 3, 2005

K. Asif's classic MUGHAL-E-AZAM has met with a better response in U.S.A. than U.K. But, all said and done, for a revived film [Bollywood] to gross such figures is incredible.

U.K. BOX-OFFICE

MUGHAL-E-AZAM has debuted at No. 24 position. In its opening weekend, the film has collected £ 16,989 [approx. Rs. 13.97 lacs] on 13 screens, with the per screen average working out to £ 1,307.

U.S.A. BOX-OFFICE

MUGHAL-E-AZAM has debuted at No. 44 position. In its opening weekend, the film has collected $ 60,258 [approx. Rs. 26.40 lacs] on 32 screens, with the per screen average working out to $ 1,883.

----------------------------------------------

But, I had some, still easily fixable, serious issues with the MEA. And, how come no one noticed or reported these?? I'm not talking of cutting from the top and/ or bottom or the coloring. Cutting from top and bottom was not noticeable and the coloring was excellent wherever they put effort.

Then where is the problem?? Read on.

(BTW, I'm writing this after watching restored MEA in theatre, and then comparing with Restored MEA on prhaps pirate DVD and original MEA on Shemaroo DVD)

This Saturday, I saw MEA at Albion in Toronto. As I entered the theatre, (film had just started) I noticed distorted picture. Picture was aprox 1.7:1 AR. It was visibly squashed vertically (like many DEI anamorphic DVDs). Obviously, I approached the management/ projectionist about the problem. They said that's the way prints are. They could use either a 'Scope' lens that they are using, or a 'Flat' lens in which case picture will be too narrow (stretched vertically).
(For this reason, I had asked in the first post, wheather some other lens could have fixed this problem.)
The projectionist co-operated with me and after the show, even gave me 3 film frames for further investigation.

Although I didn't buy the projectionists reasoning in the beginning, later picture convinced me otherwise.
Vertical squash problem was not there in the 'Pyar Kiya To Darna Kya' and the last 4 (out of 22) reels starting with song 'Yeh Dil Ki Lagi Kam Kya Hogi'.
Recall, these are the portions of the film that originally were in color.
What does it imply?? MEA restorers have stated that even the original color portions have gone through the same process as the B&W now colored portions. I don't think so. How can these two portions of the film be different in geometric proportions?? Looks like, B&W was colored using computers and the pic squash problem crept in because of 720x480 vs 640x480 or similar confusion, and original color film was processed using different process.

Now, coming to Restored pirate DVD; in this case the orig B&W now in color portions are OK, but the portions originally in color (PKTDK and last 4 reels) have a vertically stretched picture.
This again backs up my finding that originally B&W and originally Color portions were processed using different processes.

Obviously, lens used for DVD transfer was OK for most of the film where as lens used in theatre was suitable for a small portion of the film.

(For this reason I had asked, in my first post, if adjustable lens or process is available??)

MEA on Shemaroo DVD is OK all the way.
-----------------------

Later if someone interested:
What's the AR on the three frames that I picked up and how much of it is picture or black bars.

MEA is showing in Ottawa Mayfair theatre next weekend. Mayfair projection system is tops. I'll watch it again to see if there is any difference. The projectionist at Mayfair is a pro with at least 30 yrs of experience. He sure will figure it out where the squash problem is and how to fix it if fixable.

Original DVD should need no lens at all. It should come from the digital files.
Any aspect ratio problems should be solved by resampling.

Hi I saw MEA (colour version) this weekend at Cineworld in Feltham. It was projected in the academy ratio. Aside from a very warped image (the there were diaganol black bars on either side of the screen) the picture looked like a bad (very bad) pirate DVD. Interestingly there was a significant amount of print damage that stretched on to black bars on either side of the print.

The picture was continuosly out of focus for some scenes then it was okay and then it was out of focus again. No one else in the cinema seemed to mind ... I was the only person to complain

The manager told me that it was an old film and the colorisation process has made the film image softer than the original. Of course - I wasn't buying that cr@p ... I've seen the original version 3 times in the cinema about 12 months ago in London. The original was crisp so I don't know what was happening at Cineworld.

The colours seemed okay ... the sound was very distorted ... but it seemed like it could have been good. I was very very annoyed about the bad quality print and about the major change of the beginning credits from the original stone sculptures to some computer game-esque images. Also - background music was added to scenes where there was no music originally ... this was not good at all.

So - I now wonder if sub-standard prints have been released in the UK ... or I wonder if the UK Cineworls cinemas are projecting the pirate version of MEA?!

I noticed the stretch problems ... and I also noticed that the movement in some of the scenes was very jerky and looked very computer generated. Also I noticed that there were flashes of frames where the colour broke down into computer atrifacts. Very strange. I guess I was watching this with a very critical eye ... despite it being out of focus, a shoddy print, having bad sound, missing 3 songs etc ... the film is superb and shone through all of these problems.

After reading some of the reviews I am sure that other prints mist be better quality ... I am planning on complaining to Cineworld - it would help me if people could let me know if the prints that you guys saw were devoid of the problems listed above.

Thanks,

Muz.

Muz, your observations and experience is exactly the same as mine in Toronto. Somehow, this discussion got duplicated (or may be triplicated) in different threads. One of them is:
viewtopic.php?t=7589

I'm glad that someone else too noted the same as I did. It bothers me that they spent crores of rupees to be first in the world, to color a film and got the Aspect Ratio of the image wrong AND NO REVIEWER NOTICED IT/ REPORTED IT AND THE THEATRICAL RUN OF THE FILM IS ALMOST OVER having made enough PROFIT.

Same problem here in New Jersey.

Thanks for confirming this!

Rana - you said that you managed to get some frames from the film. How much of the frame is the image taking up? I ask because I noticed print damage on the black areas of the screen (!) and I am trying to work out how the projectionist set-up the screening of this movie. Also - how bad was the focussing when you saw it?

I checked the trailors for MEA again and they say that the new image is wide-screen. The version I saw was projected in the academy ratio (1.37:1) so I did not notice any cropping. This is very evident from the trailors of the movie and I maged to catch Mohe Panghat Pe on B4U the other day - it looked 16:9 and the cropping was noticable! However due to the warped image in the cinema I couldn't work out exactly what the aspect ratio was. For the first 30 minutes of the screening the bottom of the screen (and most of the subtitles) was chopped off this was corrected after I complained.

I really do not understand how any reviewers have praised this effort. Ofcourse the movie is excellent ... but the processing is not. The colours are pleasing but the low quality image is not. The processing has removed all of the depth from the image ... Maybe it will look better on a small screen ... I would say that it not worth the headache of watching it in the cinema.

Muz.

One thing I did not mention yet is that the projected image was Pi Shaped, where I saw it. I attributed it to the location of the Projector that was not in front of the screen but outside the four corners of the screen. I assumed that the projection (other films) always must have been like this and was un-noticeable because for 2.35:1 films we don't get to see the edges of the screen because of black curtains. I may be wrong??

Using Flat lens everyone will be stretched vertically and using scope lens everyone is too stubby (picture stretched sideways excessively/ squished picture). I have asked 3 projectionists, all said that there are only two lenses, Flat and Scope.

FILM FRAME:

Total Film Area = 35mm horizontal overall X 18.5mm vertical. (4 sprockets)

Film Area is Utilized as following (May be off by +/- 0.2mm):

Vertical:
Full Height is utilized by picture and audio signals.

Horizontal:
Starting from one edge of the film:

0-2mm = Clear

2.0-4.5mm = sprocket holes

4.6mm to 10.6mm Black Area (No Picture) that has 3 audio tracks
At 5.25mm = Audio Line #1
At 6.25mm = Audio line #2
At 7.0mm = audio line #3

10.6mm to 26.5mm = Picture (15.9mm) (Same width at top, bottom and elsewhere in the frame)

26.5mm to 30.3mm = Black Area (No picture)

30.3mm to 32.9mm = Sprocket Holes

32.9mm to 35.0mm = Clear

So, the ananmorphic type picture is 15.9mm in width and 18.5mm in height. How much of vertical height is meant to be masked (if it's intendedto be masked), I have no clue.

http://www.lesna.com/pdf/ImageAnalysis. ... PE%20FLAT'

Came across this site that solves/ deepens the MEA puzzle.

This site clearly shows
Flat Lens used for 1.85:1 screens
and
Scope Lens used for 2.35:1 screens.

Assuming that there is no sideways expansion for 4:3 screenings, implies that 1.85:1 (Flat), as well as, 2.35:1 (Scope) both pictures are stretched sideways by different amounts. Any confirmation??

We all know, restored-colored MEA theatrical aspect ratio is 1.85:1.
What I saw at Albion was vertically squished picture and they were using scope lens, which points to the right direction.
Don't know what to make of projectionist's claim that using Flat lens gave vertically stretched picture.

Did any one see MEA where they used Flat Lens and the picture was stretched vertically??

One problem still exists that the portions of film (20%) that were OK using Scope lens will come out vertically stretched if Flat lens is used.

Another thing: Perhaps MEA is supposed to be screened using Flat lens. But, this may be giving them 4:3 picture and Projectionist knowing that AR is 1.85:1 uses Scope lens. As MEA restorers mentioned, full 4:3 frames were colored but only 1.85:1 out of that will be shown in theatres. Implis required matting at top and bottom??

So far everything I have read about MEA stated very clearly that the aspect ratio has been converted to 1.85:1 ... but our experiences are that it has been incorrectly projected somewhere around the academy ratio.

The PI type effect shouldn't be seen on a 1.85:1 projection so the cinemas have got it wrong. I don't know how this has happened so the assumption is that the distrbuters have screwed up producing the prints.

Putting aside the shoddy quality of the images ... these could be attributed to using technology that is experimental or in it's infancy ... the problems that cinemas in the US and UK have had when screening MEA shouldn't have occured.

I saw the restored versions of Mother India and the original MEA in a couple of cinemas when the were on general release in the Uk. There were no problems at all ... and watching them on the big screen was a pleasure. The cinemas projected a crisp 4:3 image with no warping at all. If they can do this for those prints - why is it so different this time?

The Cineworld cinema in Feltham claimed that the film has been released in the academy format ...

Surely more Zulmis must have seen this in the cinema ... did anyone see it projected in 1.85:1?

The mind boggles at what a mess this is ... would love to see a scan of the frames to work out how squashed / streched the image is on them and what type of re-sizing should be applied to make the image correct.

Let's see if any one can get any response from Mughal-e-Azam US-UK distributors UTV (contact Lokesh Dhar??):
http://www.utvnet.com/about_contact_1f.htm

USA

UTV Communications (USA) LLC
255 West 36th Street, 8th floor,
New York, NY 10018
Tel. No.: +1 212 300 2013
Fax. No.: +1 212 300 2036

UK

UTV Communications (UK) Ltd
51-53 station road,
Harrow, Middlesex,
HA12T4, United Kingdom
Tel. No.: +44 (0) 20 8861 3355
Fax. No.: +44 (0) 20 8515 7055

you think, those guys are even educated rana?