I’ve been a movie collector for close to thirty years, and have seen the evolution of the home theater hobby across multiple video formats. During that time, I have bought into every new state-of-the-art format as it came along, and regularly upgraded my favorite movies hoping to gain some measurable improvement in quality. As a… Read More From DVD to Blu-ray, 4K, and More – Is “Good Enough” Ever Good Enough?
Almost two decades since Peter Jackson’s much-loved and Oscar-winning Lord of the Rings trilogy concluded, and just shy of one decade since his much less-loved Hobbit trilogy, Amazon Prime Video brings viewers back to J.R.R. Tolkien’s epic fantasy world in the new streaming prequel series The Rings of Power. Reportedly the most expensive television production… Read More Amazon’s Power Play | The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power (2022) Amazon Prime Series Premiere
If I have to be honest, I was never going to like any attempt to remake Dune. As I’ve mentioned previously, the 1984 film by David Lynch is my favorite movie. Given how little respect it’s typically afforded, I often feel protective of it, if not a little defensive. Also, the last time someone tried… Read More Fear Is the Mind-Killer | Dune: Part One (2021) 4K Ultra HD + 3D Blu-ray
David Lynch’s 1984 adaptation of Frank Herbert’s famed science fiction novel Dune is my favorite movie. This is, typically, not an easy thing to explain to people. The film was a tremendous critical and box office failure in its day. The fact that its recent remake (or re-adaptation of the source material, if you must)… Read More Long Live the Fighters! | Dune (1984) 4K Ultra HD Ultimate Edition
To say that the 1984 film version of Dune was not popular in its day would be a tremendous understatement. It’s still not very popular, to be honest. Nevertheless, Dune is my favorite movie, and I have obsessively collected copies of it on every home video format from VHS to 4K. I will continue to… Read More A Visual History of Dune (1984) on Home Video
Hardly all that long ago, all TV series were photographed in a common, standardized aspect ratio designed to fill a television screen. The idea that anything intended for home viewing on a TV might – intentionally – not fit the screen seemed almost inconceivable. Nowadays, however, we’ve experienced an explosion of shows shosiret in widescreen… Read More List of TV Shows with Aspect Ratios Wider Than 16:9
IMAX is neither the first nor the only film format to incorporate the concept of a variable aspect ratio. Filmmakers have toyed with the shape of their projected images at least as far back as Abel Gance’s 1927 silent epic Napoléon. In a separate post, I maintain a list of movies that alternate from a… Read More List of Other Variable Aspect Ratio Movies (Not IMAX)
This post contains a reference list of movies that played in IMAX theaters with either a Variable Aspect Ratio (VAR) or otherwise alternate aspect ratio presentation that differed from their appearance on regular cinema screens, along with details of each title’s availability on home video. As explained in Part 3 of my Philosophy of 2.35:1… Read More List of IMAX Variable Aspect Ratio Movies
In my article series The Philosophy of 2.35:1 Constant Image Height, I attempted to explain what Constant Image Height (CIH) display is, how it differs from watching content on a traditional 16:9 television or home theater screen, and why it’s important. For this first addendum, we’ll examine the mechanics of setting up a CIH system… Read More Best Practices for 2.35:1 Constant Image Height
Home theater can be complicated. As explained in the first two parts of this series, it’s not only as simple as putting a big screen on the wall. What shape should that screen be? Even after doing your research, just when you might think you’ve got this aspect ratio stuff all figured out, the IMAX… Read More The Philosophy of 2.35:1 Constant Image Height – Part 3, The IMAX Problem
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