Restoration tips: UAR - Ultimate Aspect Ratio

[spoRv]

UAR - ULTIMATE ASPECT RATIO™

What is the UAR - Ultimate Aspect Ratio™?

It is an unconventional aspect ratio to represent a motion picture, using sources taken from different media, in an axis-aligned polygon enclosed inside a conventional aspect ratio screen.

How does it work?

If a motion picture is displayed in a screen with a different aspect ratio than the original – e.g. a film on tv, a 4:3 show on a 16:9 tv – there are different methods to do it. Of course, if the aspect ratio of both screens are the same, nothing will (should) be done, and the motion picture will be displayed “as is”.

Letterbox



Display A/R: 1.78:1 (or 16:9) < Source A/R: 2.35:1 If the display A/R value is lower than the source A/R, black bars will be added on top and bottom sides of the picture. This method preserves the whole image AND the original intended aspect ratio.

Pillarbox



Display A/R: 1.78:1 (or 16:9) > Source A/R: 1.33:1 (or 4:3) If the display A/R value is higher than the source A/R, black bars will be added on the left and right sides of the picture. This method preserves the whole image AND the original intended aspect ratio.

Pan & Scan



Display A/R: 1.33:1 (or 4:3) < Source A/R: 2.35:1 If the display A/R value is lower than the source A/R, the only way to avoid black bars is to choose the most important part of the actual shot, and discard the rest. This method does NOT preserve the whole image NOR the intended aspect ratio – as you can see in the bottom picture…



Open Matte (or Full Screen)



Display A/R: 1.33:1 (or 4:3) < Source A/R: 1.85:1



Display A/R: 1.78:1 (or 16:9) < Source A/R: 2.35:1

If the display A/R value is lower than the source intended A/R, but a full frame version exists, is it possible to show the whole picture to “fill” the screen. This method preserves the whole image BUT NOT the original intended aspect ratio. Sometimes the full frame version is not available in the consumer market, but only at production level; with it, it could be possible for example to produce several versions with different aspect ratios; if someone would like to see as much picture as possible, there are two possibilities:

1. Obtain the original full frame version – if still exist, and is possible to obtain it
   
2. Make a “patchwork” using different versions that exist in the consumer market.
   

This is the aim of the UAR - Ultimate Aspect Ratio.

Theoretical examples

“Ideal” UAR – both versions fill the horizontal and vertical space:



More real example – one source fills the vertical space, while the other leaves black space on the left and right sides:



Here one source fill the horizontal space, and the other leaves black space on top and bottom of the image:



Wrong application of the UAR method; all four sides have black spaces, while only one axis should have them:



Practical examples:























It is possible to get UAR using not only two, but also three different sources!





(all images are 640 pixel wide only to be visually uniform, but some have the wrong UAR)

More examples here: http://ultimateaspectratio.ga/comparisons

Conclusion

Albeit there is any movie released in UAR, there are many fan projects in progress using this fascinating new aspect ratio; main problem is that the aspect ratio of each source is not fixed, but variable, and it will be really hard to adjust a whole movie scene by scene or shot by shot or, in the worst cases, frame by frame!

(note: of course, colored thin lines will not appear in the final version of a movie release in UAR...)

A “good reason” to use this technique:

http://www.avsforum.com/forum/34-hdtv-pr...ost3926009

EDIT: From the end of February 2018, I'll stick with the UAR acronym instead AAP-AR (but it's just the same thing, of course), because it's shorter and easier to remember - I decided that "U" stands for Ultimate, but can stand also for Unified, Unhortodox, Unreliable and so on...

[spoRv]

Battlefield Earth
DVD:

bigger version: http://caps-a-holic.com/hd_vergleiche/co...lossless=1
BD:

bigger version: http://caps-a-holic.com/hd_vergleiche/co...lossless=1
AAP A/R:

bigger version: http://s3.postimg.cc/6f3tquln5/BE1_composed.png

[spoRv]

Oblivion
BD:
[Image: Oblivion_BD_small.jpg]
(image link: http://s30.postimg.cc/z00vh5vqp/Oblivion_BD_small.jpg)
HDTV:
[Image: Oblivion_HDTV_small.jpg]
(image link: http://s17.postimg.cc/8za7enx2n/Oblivion_HDTV_small.jpg)
AAP-A/R:
[Image: Oblivion_Axis_aligned_Polygon_Aspect_Ratio_sma.jpg]
(image link: http://s30.postimg.cc/teegd3v1t/Oblivion...io_sma.jpg)
Screenshot comparison:
http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/111725

[spoRv]

Terminator 3
DVD full screen:
[Image: t3_1dvd_small.jpg]
(image link: http://s1.postimg.cc/v4f8dk7nj/t3_1dvd_small.jpg)
HDTV open matte:
[Image: t3_1hdtv_small.jpg]
(image link: http://s1.postimg.cc/to3pvf4qn/t3_1hdtv_small.jpg)
AAP-A/R:
[Image: t3_aap_ar_small.jpg]
(image link: http://s1.postimg.cc/up3ykjlq7/t3_aap_ar_small.jpg)
Screenshot comparison: http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/111917

[PDB]

Looks great Andrea. That's a cool way to great the most picture possible. It also looks like an incredible amount of work. You doing this via an AVIsynth script?

[spoRv]

Thanks! Yep, all done with the ol' good avisynth... this software continues to amaze me everytime, I think there is nothing that it could not do!

[Stamper]

I could replay this shot of T3 over and over for anywhere from 8 to 72 hours and not get bored by it.

Who cares about the rest of the movie?

[spoRv]

I could replay this shot of T3 over and over for anywhere from 8 to 72 hours and not get bored by it.

Who cares about the rest of the movie?

AGREE!!!

[Tylerdurden389]

One movie worth mentioning in this thread is Top Gun. I watched the full screen vhs version a thousand times as a kid and knew there was something wrong thhe first time I popped in my brand new, newly released "Widescreen" dvd back in 2004. I knew for sure something was wrong when I couldn't see Tom's cowboy boots in the scene when Viper tells Maverick how his father died.

So recently I went and bought an older dvd that has both fullscreen and widescreen. It's also worth noting that the new blu-ray has altered color timing as well.

[jerryshadoe]

@ tylerdurden389 - top gun is an interesting one. It has a total of FOUR (!) different aspect ratios: 1.33, 1.85, 2.0, and 2.35 according to this post: http://www.dvdcompare.net/comparisons/film.php?fid=185

I own the "open-matte" 2.0 AR French DVD (of course it has English audio too, LOL) as well as the HDDVD and Bluray editions, plus (of course) a VHS copy of the film. The one I'm trying to track down is that 1.85 AR Japanese DVD. Also, was curious if you'd be willing to share that 1.33 full-screen copy by any chance? I would be happy to share the 2.0 AR "open-matte" copy with you once I find the disc

Eventually, once I have all four of the different aspect ratio copies, I would like to do an AAP-AR version for this film.

EDIT: Here's an interesting comparison between the 2.35 and 2.0 AR on the DVD editions:
http://sd.caps-a-holic.com/vergleich.php...eichID=367