[Kamen Rider Lucha]

Quote:

Originally Posted by tomos

I must confess, I never get why some 'upscaled' YouTube videos I found are still in 4:3 because imo if the aim is to make it look 'modern' then widescreen would make a bit more sense. Maybe it's just for nostalgia. I also like how some old Doctor Who DVDs had an option to have updated effects lol

Alright, this relates to my professional field of expertise, so buckle up...

The Goranger, BFJ, and Denjiman HD remasters are not "upscales." Upscaling is the process of enlarging an SD video file to HD, without going back to the film print or to a higher resolution native video file. It almost always results in a crappy looking picture, with tons of artifacting and pixelization and other visual grossness (see: the HD upscale of Faiz on Blu-Ray). These new Sentai releases are "remasters." Remastering is the process of rescanning, recoloring, and otherwise restoring the original film prints and outputting a higher resolution video file (in this case, HD). This is an important distinction because film can be mastered to resolutions between HD and 4K without degrading in quality. Video files are limited to their native resolution. Using the example of Faiz, it was shot in 720x480... and any attempts to "upscale" it to any aspect ratio larter than 720x480 will result in picture degradation. By contrast, Sentai series from Goranger-through-GoOnger were shot on film, which means they can be blown up to 1920x1080 (or perhaps even larger) without losing any picture quality.

Also, please be assured, the 4:3 aspect ratio is not maintained out of nostalgia. I can't emphasize that enough. It's maintained because these shows were shot and composed with a 4:3 (square-ish) aspect ratio in mind, and if you change that to widescreen/16:9 (rectangular shape), you change the shape and composition of the frame -- and this results in the cropping out of important visual information (or, heaven forbid, the horizontal stretching of the original square image to fill a rectangular frame), which dramatically alters the creative intent of every single shot.

Remember the uproar, a few years back, when The Simpsons' HD remaster was released in 16x9 widescreen? Important visuals were cropped out, resulting in dozens of jokes no longer making any sense. And remember how Fox had to release a 4:3 version that maintained the entire original frame?

Or remember, even further back, the debacle with the HD remaster of Buffy? It looks like utter crap because it was zoomed in and cropped to force a 4:3 image into a 16:9 frame. You never see the HD remaster of Buffy anywhere these days because it completely changes the framing, composition, and visual impact of every single shot.

Remastering 4:3 shows into 16:9 generally doesn't (and absolutely shouldn't) happen anymore. When you see an HD video with vertical black bars on the sides (called pillarboxing), just think of them the same way you would letterboxing. You're preserving the creators' original intent by not altering framing and composition of the image.

Hope that makes sense.

Quote:

Originally Posted by rw1997

Shirakura said that Sentai through Magiranger were shot in 16mm/4:3.

Sentai was shot on 16mm film up through Go-Onger. They composed for 4:3 up through Magiranger, and started composing for 16:9/widescreen with Boukenger. With Shinkenger onward, they continued to compose for 16:9, but switched to shooting digital.