from Hacker News

‘Seinfeld’ fans upset that Netflix’s aspect ratio cuts out jokes

by 74d-fe6-2c6 on 10/3/21, 12:19 PM with 108 comments

• by foob on 10/3/21, 2:13 PM

  There's a great blog post by David Simon on the conversion of The Wire from 4:3 to 16:9 [1]. It goes into a lot of depth about some of the trade-offs and considerations as well as the lack of communication from HBO. Unfortunately, the video examples don't seem to work anymore. I can't help but wonder if HBO sent YouTube a DMCA takedown for David Simon's clips from the post (or they got taken down automatically). It's pretty sad if the creator of a show can't even post short clips from it to illustrate some of the design decisions behind them.

  [1] - http://davidsimon.com/the-wire-hd-with-videos/

• by flotzam on 10/3/21, 2:50 PM

  Just to put a bit of competitive pressure on the butchers at Netflix, for Seinfeld S01-S04 there are 1080p torrents with the correct 4:3 aspect ratio:

  https://thepiratebay.org/search.php?q=seinfeld+aspect

• by iso1210 on 10/3/21, 1:19 PM

  This was the case with Simpsons when it came onto Disney Plus - they took the 4:3 and didn't just blow it to 14:9, but 16:9 -- throwing away a quarter of the original image.

  There's now an option to show the original aspect ratio, I didn't discover it for a long time though.

  Amazon prime on my phone blows up 16:9 material too, chopping off the top and bottom to fit the wider aspect ratio, unless you're careful to 'zoom out'

• by krispyfi on 10/3/21, 2:23 PM

  It's times like this that I think that piracy is the only way to preserve pop culture.

• by whitehouse3 on 10/3/21, 1:50 PM

  This isn’t unique to Netflix. The replays in syndication are also 16:9. As are the blu-ray releases. I finally bought the full series on DVD as I’d rather the original aspect ratio.

• by NelsonMinar on 10/3/21, 2:18 PM

  Cropping is never the right choice for media presentation. Ever.

• by dada78641 on 10/3/21, 9:47 PM

  If I had done directing or camera work during the 4:3 era and saw my work cropped to 16:9, I'd probably be furious. A lot of thought goes into framing a shot just right, making sure it has the right balance and composition.

  Even in cases where nothing too important goes missing, cropped video just looks really off. Oftentimes you'll see the tops of heads cut off at the top of the frame, or small details just on the verge of being visible. If something is framed just off center, the cropped version will show it very off center.

  Just look at this shot, for example: https://imgur.com/KKiMbWP - nothing is missing, but the right character's bottom half is completely out of frame and it just looks incredibly weird. The floor also is totally invisible so you lose your sense of grounding.

  It's just a complete lack of respect for the hard work that went into creating these shows.

• by vadfa on 10/3/21, 1:51 PM

  I watched this in 16:9 on Amazon Video (it's been available for years) and I disagree it's a problem. I think they did a great job. Yes, some things were cut out, but you could count them on one hand. Having said that they should've offered a 4:3 version. I would have watched that one version had they offered it.

• by tofukid on 10/3/21, 2:04 PM

  Almost all TVs have an option to zoom to fit 4:3, so there’s no need to stream a cropped version. At least they should provide an option to view the original.

• by gandalfian on 10/3/21, 2:31 PM

  First world irritation - when I finally got a 16:9 television they started making TV shows even wider so still letterboxed! Why? Grrr.

• by I-M-S on 10/3/21, 1:38 PM

  I was under the impression the series will be digitally remastered and resolution upscaled, which doesn't seem to be the case?

• by ericpauley on 10/3/21, 2:48 PM

  16:9 reframes of Seinfeld have been around a long time. Did Netflix reframe anything or are they using these existing versions? For what it's worth the reframed version is not a simple crop, and in fact sometimes previously-unused parts of the film are used[1]. It's not just a crop/upscale of the original broadcasts, though perhaps the same effort didn't go into this reframing as The Wire, which as others have noted is excellent.

  [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/seinfeld/comments/17xn28/original_v...

• by bananamerica on 10/3/21, 2:48 PM

  Longtime fan since the 90s. Have rewatched in 16:9 many times. I don't care. Seinfeld is just not this kind of show.

• by gwbas1c on 10/3/21, 2:59 PM

  Back when the show broadcast for the first time, I didn't understand the big "Filmed in Panavision" logo at the end of the credits.

  Now I do: The producers filmed the show using equipment that would allow remastering for HDTV.

• by baobabKoodaa on 10/3/21, 4:33 PM

  This serves as another reminder that you get the high-quality product by pirating content, not by paying for it.

• by pessimizer on 10/3/21, 2:29 PM

  I have to believe that this has been rigorously tested, and that a lot of viewers are lost when they see black bars on their television.

  I remember back in 4:3 when it was far harder to find letterboxed VHS tapes, and when filmmakers often would make sure their scope movies also worked in 4:3 by filming in 4:3 and cropping to scope (with the exception of a few hundred accidentally revealed boom mics.) I have to believe that people would just get angry if they got home and realized that their tape wasn't going to utilize their entire television, so that's how the market shook out. The funny thing about movies from that period mentioned is that really both versions of a film were incomplete.

  I also remember my grandparents watching DirectTV streams that were clearly stretched out horizontally on the screen, and how they didn't notice at all. They'd notice black bars.

  Now that TVs are somewhere midway between 4:3 and scope, the problem has reversed itself. I've seen it solved by zoom, I've seen it solved by horizontal stretch, I've seen it solved by half-zoom and half-stretch, I've seen it solved by either half-zoom or half-stretch combined with half-black bars, even. Just showing it in 4:3 with black bars on both sides isn't significantly more popular than any of these options. And I have to believe that there's research, because, as this story shows, zooming can be expensive. You can do it automatically, and lose everyone's feet and the tops of their heads (or their whole heads in the right shots), or go over everything manually, moving individual shots that turn out badly up and down in a way that might depend on story. Also reducing the number of vertical scanlines makes old tv look like shit, so you might have to spend effort doing something about that. For that last, you can be saved if the series was shot on film and you have access to original materials...

  All of this is good, because it is an impossible problem for industry to solve, therefore it will encourage piracy by purists, and piracy for things that aren't Seinfeld episodes will get a free userbase and attendant infrastructure. Also good for piracy are geoblocking and delayed broadcast times between countries. Here's hoping that the next Game of Thrones-type blockbuster series airs a day later in the UK:)

  The funniest thing about 4:3 on 16:9 is that everyone's tv is the size of a bus now, and a black-barred 4:3 picture is certainly going to be a lot larger on those than the LP-sized screens families would have been watching the original broadcasts on.

• by 74d-fe6-2c6 on 10/3/21, 12:22 PM

  For me as a huge Seinfeld fan this is practically painful to watch.

  Just yesterday some folks have been bragging about how Netfilx proactively matches compensation of their emps - great - maybe that's a mistake. Because given how stupid such a decision is, how bad their recommendations are, plus their home grown productions getting worse with every week passing by, I wonder if it isn't time to weed out a little. Seems like this company is a cesspool of ignorance and incompetence...