WHAT DO THE INDEX DETAILS MEAN?

Here's a sample entry from the 'A' index. All the President's Men (1976) Directed by Alan J Pakula DVD (Original) Warner Home Video 73401 (buy) 1.77:1 Anamorphic The first column is obviously a thumbnail (GIF) of the title screen capture. The second column is the film title, year, and director. If the title in the capture doesn't match the title in the box, that just means something was retitled somewhere along the way. Occasionally you'll even find entries under both titles. The third column details, step by step: First is the format from which the capture is taken. In this case, it is a DVD. You will also find DVDR, Laserdisc, VHS, Beta, BD (Blu-ray disc), 4K, File, and others. Second (in parentheses) is the type of recording. "Original" means the capture is from a store-bought, commercially released copy. Another common designation is "Premium Cable TV" which usually means I recorded it off of Turner Classic Movies. "Secondary source" could mean downloads, YouTube, or the like. Other designations are pretty self-explanatory. "Original" does not mean that the title screen is the original title screen for the film - you will find many silent films in my collection that no longer have their original title screens, for example. Third is the label/distributor. The above example is Warner Home Video. "Home Recorded" is self-explanatory. Fourth is the catalog number of the specific release, in the example it is 73401. This lets you compare different DVD editions. You can ignore catalog numbers for "Home Recorded" entries, those are just for me. Fifth is a link to Amazon.com - if it says "(buy)" it should link directly to the exact edition represented. If it says "(seek)" it should automatically search for the title; who knows what you might get but it might help you find a copy. I don't get any commission from US Amazon links, only from amazon.co.uk links. A lot of them don't work any more anyway. Sixth is the measured aspect ratio of the copy, in the example it is 1.77:1. Most movies made before 1954 will be 1.33:1. When I do these captures, I leave black borders around movies that are 1.33:1, but I crop tightly to widescreen transfers in order to get an accurate measurement of aspect ratio. Sometimes you will see a widescreen title capture, but the aspect ratio reads "1.33:1". This is typically when a movie is presented in pan & scan format but the opening titles are widescreen. In short, the aspect ratio I show is the measurement for the presentation of the film, not just the title screen. Some HD broadcasts crop 2.35:1 movies to 1.77:1, and as such (if I have any examples) you'd see an obvious 2.35:1 title screen with a 1.77:1 value listed for the aspect ratio. It makes sense when you get used to it. Some movies that are 1.66:1 will have black bars on the side. These and other examples of widescreen movies that still have some black bars happen because I crop the title screen to the dimension of the film to make it accurate - sometimes title sequences are actually transferred at a different aspect ratio than the rest of the film. If you ever have a question about a specific release, just email me or ask on the Facebook page. Seventh is the designation "anamorphic" or "non-anamorphic". If a title is 16:9 enhanced, it will be listed as anamorphic. I am reasonably confident that every title I list is accurately designated. Finally, the color code: if the third column box is yellow, the large screen capture is a full 4K. If blue, the large screen capture is 1080p. If green, the large screen capture will be at least 640 pixels wide. If the background is white, it will only be 320 pixels wide. I might never go back and re-do those old captures, but I'll keep them up nonetheless.

©1997, 2007 Steven W Hill

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