OPEN MATTE - Master List

[SpaceBlackKnight]

Regarding the 1997 George of The Jungle, the LD, R2 DVDs and streaming versions are 1.85 of course, but they're obviously masked to that ratio (which is correct for most flat films shot this way) as the US full screen VHS and DVD is opened up all the way, even the CGI shots with the animals IIRC!

The VHS and fullscreen DVD of Flubber (1997) is only cropped for the VFX/optical shots, but unmatted for most of the interior and wide shots. FYI, the Fullscreen versions of E.T and Harry and the Hendersons were also done this way as well.

[Colek]

There's a lot of different open matte releases available on Polish Netflix-like platform - Showmax. Just quickly looking I've noticed 8 Mile and Fast and Furious there in full 16:9. The bad thing is they use DRM and the only way to rip this would be by recording screen using OBS or something alike.

[X5gb]

Both 8 Mile and Fast and Furious Open Matte are available as top quality AMZN WEB-DL's so no need fo grab these ones.

[spoRv]

Both 8 Mile and Fast and Furious Open Matte are available as top quality AMZN WEB-DL's so no need fo grab these ones.

This is a dilemma of mine since years... is it better a (very good) WEBdl "as is", or is it better a combination of that one, merged with a (very good) HDTV - with a welcome addition of a grain plate?
I think that usually the second solution is a tad better; sometimes may be a bit softer than WEBdl alone, still it improves the details using two different sources (each one with its own quality), averaging eventual compression, posterization, color problems; the film grain helps, too. Of course, this comes at the price of higher file size, but it's usually the only downside. It all depends on both sources, though.

This is only my opinion, given by the experience, but I'm curious to know what you guys think about this.

[X5gb]

I agree, some hybrids can look better, especially Open Matte ones when combined with Bluray, but as you say not always, some hdtv's are at a lesser bitrate than the AMZN WEB-DL and there is little to be achieved with all that extra encoding. Above I was talking about Showmax which will not be any better than an AMZN WEB-DL.

[deleted user]

Just checked your list searching for Home Alone 2. You have the VHS listed, but from what I can tell that is actually a VHS TV recording (at least that's what I found). There's also an actual TVRip, but unfortunately it also has a logo on the right side. I hope to find some fullscreen version of this movie without logo on the right side.

[spoRv]

Just a thing that I'm pretty sure I posted somewhere, but can't remember where...

There could be VARIOUS open matte releases around; we know that usually BD versions are OAR, while WEBdl sometime could be (also) open matte, and the most widely available versions are capped from HDTV; but I found that sometimes you could find a real open matte, and a cropped version - basically, the OAR with cropped sides; other times, you could find one version full open matte (hence with no or few details cropped), and another "normal" open matte (with more details top and bottom in comparison to OAR, but cropped on the sides) - and they could also have different color grading.

So, keep "studying" the various versions of your preferred movies, you could be surprised to find out a version you weren't aware of!

[spoRv]

Another thing I want to add: there are VERY RARE fullscreen 1.33:1 versions in fullHD - I'm talking about movies released in widescreen in theaters!

Keep an eye (or, better, both) open and, if you spot one, just grab it!

EDIT: always check if it's a real fullscreen version (read: the same as found as on DVD, for example), or just cropped on all sides, as the following...




OK, maybe the HDTV could be of some use, having more resolution than upscaled DVD, but as it's so cropped, probably the BD included the same portion of the image, with much more quality.

[spoRv]

LIST UPDATED - 3092 entries now!

http://blog.sporv.com/open-matte-master-list/

[Beber]

Battle Los Angeles, TMC, 1080i: