Firefly

Due to confusion caused by conflicting DVD specifications posted by Amazon and other online retailers for the Firefly DVD set, Chris Buchanan posted the following message on the FOX forum to clear matters up a bit:

Quote:

To give you a quick response to a complicated subject... The Firefly DVD will be in the 16:9 format (1.78:1).

I know that there are a multitude of issues surrounding the definitions of "letterbox" "widescreen" & "anamorphic" etc, but I’ll be real practical here:

We shot the show on 35mm film in an aspect ration of 1.78:1 with a 1.33:1 (or 4:3) box to enable us to deliver both a "regular" TV version and a "widescreen" TV version to Fox Broadcasting. (Firefly was always conceived as a 16:9 show, but Fox, as a policy, does not broadcast any letterboxed shows. That being said, their HDTV broadcasts do go out widescreen.)

As for any differences in what you’ve already seen, we might have rendered some of the title work in 1.85:1 (anamorphic) but I really can’t remember.

The bottom line is: What you are getting on DVD is what Joss intended: 16:9. No fake letterbox bars on a 4:3 show, no "panned and scanned" anything, just Serenity and her crew in glorious widescreen!

Hope that clarifies things.

Best, Buchanan