THE WAR DEVILS (R0, Italy) ADDED

[Davy_Lee]

Title: The War Devils a.k.a. I diavoli della guerra (Italy) a.k.a. Los diablos de la guerra (Spain)
Country: Italy
Region: 0
Distributor: Cecchi Gori Home Video
Case Type: Keep case
Aspect Ratio: 1.66: 1*
Anamorphic?: Yes
PAL or NTSC?: PAL
Soundtracks: Italian DD 2.0 mono
Subtitles (are they optional?): Italian HoH (optional)
Cuts: Yes (83:46)
Extras: Biographies of Adalberto Albertini (3 pages), Guy Madison (3 pages), and Venantino Venantini (2 pages)

Notes:
- The title on the cover is "I Diavoli Della Guerra".
- The film is presented not in its OAR, which is 2.35: 1.
- The back cover incorrectly states the run time to be 99 minutes and the DVD to be Region 2 coded.
- The opening credits are in English.
- The film has different cuts: 96:45 (YouTube, US version), 99' (IMDb, Italian theatrical version), 75:09 (http://www.ofdb.de/view.php?page=fassun ... vid=291670, German DVD version). Confusing

Source: My collection

*This is what the aspect ratio looks like on the screen. Shouldn't 1.66:1 have black bars on the left and right?


Why do the black bars appear on the top and bottom?

[James-Masaki_Ryan]

I'm also confused by your screenshots. If this were anamorphic, the image should be 1.78:1 including the black bars, but these screencaps measure about 1.66:1 WITH the black bars - something that seems to be impossible.

Are you sure you didn't crop the image? This is the exact dimensions without any stretching or squeezing?

[Davy_Lee]

I'm also confused by your screenshots. If this were anamorphic, the image should be 1.78:1 including the black bars, but these screencaps measure about 1.66:1 WITH the black bars - something that seems to be impossible.

Looks like the info on the back cover is inaccurate. The OAR is 2.35:1 and this video was cropped to 1.78:1, wasn't it?

Are you sure you didn't crop the image? This is the exact dimensions without any stretching or squeezing?

Nope. That's what is shown on the screen.

Another puzzling thing is the run time. This film has different cuts. I can confirm one which is the longest (the US version) on YouTube that clocks in at 96:45. Then there's the shortest version of the German DVD. So, we have:

The longest version --> US DVD
The shorter version --> Italian DVD
The shortest version --> German DVD

[James-Masaki_Ryan]

Are you sure you didn't crop the image? This is the exact dimensions without any stretching or squeezing?

Nope. That's what is shown on the screen.

I'm having a hard time understanding because those pictures don't make sense.
Widescreen TVs are 16:9 (aka 1.78:1), but your pictures above are 15:9 (aka 1.66:1). I'm under the assumption that 1.66:1 TVs do not exist. How did you take those shots?

[Davy_Lee]

I'm having a hard time understanding because those pictures don't make sense.
Widescreen TVs are 16:9 (aka 1.78:1), but your pictures above are 15:9 (aka 1.66:1). I'm under the assumption that 1.66:1 TVs do not exist. How did you take those shots?

No magic involved Those shots were taken from my laptop. However, the black bars are not seen on my widescreen TV. The picture fills up the whole screen (no black bars on all the four sides). So, what does that tell you about the aspect ratio, 1.78:1 or 1.85:1 ? It's not 1.66:1, is it?

[James-Masaki_Ryan]

Here's my assumption and correct me if I'm wrong:

Those screenshots are NOT directly taken from screencapping directly from the disc but taken from a camera pointed at the computer monitor, and then cropped. That must be why those two screenshots are not exactly the same size. There are thin white borders on the left and right of the second capture making it seem like you cropped before uploading.

As for seeing / not seeing black bars on one monitor and not the other: Televisions are sometimes equipped with overscan cutting off the edges of the frame as default. This setting must be turned OFF to see the entire image. Computer monitors do NOT have overscan issues so if you play a DVD or Blu on a computer, you should be seeing the entire image with no cropping.

If as you said there are black bars on the top and bottom of the frame on the computer monitor shots which I can see. But what bothers me is that the screenshots you provided are seemingly cropped from your original pictures taken, so I'd rather see what is missing to make an assessment.

[Davy_Lee]

Here's my assumption and correct me if I'm wrong:

Those screenshots are NOT directly taken from screencapping directly from the disc but taken from a camera pointed at the computer monitor, and then cropped.

They were exactly the pictures displayed on my laptop. No cropping at all. I always do that when checking a DVD on my laptop. See my Commandos screencaps.

If they had been taken from a camera pointed at the monitor, we would spot flicker (horizontal stripes), overly dark or light image, and whatnot.

I only take pictures from a camera when taking them from my TV screen as I haven't known how to screencap directly from a TV screen. Remember the Five Element Ninjas BD menu screenshot I uploaded a few months ago? That was taken by a camera.

That must be why those two screenshots are not exactly the same size. There are thin white borders on the left and right of the second capture making it seem like you cropped before uploading.

About the non-identical size and thin white borders, what I did was:
1. Press printscreen key at a specific scene and paste it onto a Word document.

2. Convert the doc to pdf, and then to jpeg.

3. Open the jpeg in Office Picture Manager. Crop the whites (not the picture) of the jpeg to enlarge the picture. It wasn’t a neat cropping, so you see the non-identical sizes and thin white borders in the second screenshot.

4. Upload the jpeg via image hosting, copy the image address and paste it on the space provided.

5. Highlight the image address, click img, and load it.

Done

[James-Masaki_Ryan]

Understood. Thanks for the info. Will add once I compile all the info about the film.

[James-Masaki_Ryan]

Measured the pictures and it's the 1.85:1 aspect ratio.

Added it, thank you.

[Davy_Lee]

Missing info --> Notes: The back cover incorrectly states the aspect ratio to be 1.66:1.

This misleading info was the cause of our confusion

Link to Amazon.it --> https://www.amazon.it/I-Diavoli-Della-G ... lla+guerra

[James-Masaki_Ryan]

Updated about the mistake with the aspect ratio. I guess that explains things, but I'm still unsure why the images were displayed in 14:9 rather than 16:9.