I know about the process of submitting a profile if I have the disc in hand, but sometimes I'll see a film represented as widescreen in the DVD Profiler database and just full frame / P&S from other sources -- for the same UPC.

How and where are potential discrepancies like this best identified for further research?

Our database says:

027616089779
Moonstruck: Decades Collection 1980s
Anamorphic Widescreen 1.85:1

Amazon Says:
ASIN: B000WC39YA
Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
(Same title)

Movie-List.com Says:
MPN: MGMDM108977D
UPC: 027616089779
EAN: 0027616089779
ASIN: B000WC39YA
Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1

How do I tell someone that there might be a discrepancy without actually submitting a profile update?

I'd do this if I owned the disc and could report it for certain, but isn't there another way?

I think that's the right thing to do, but since we have our personal movie profiles posted by Invelos, I thought there might be some mechanism of polling people that claim to have a given title and asking them if they could verify information for the benefit of us all.

Probably not, but it would be nice.

Sony Pictures sent the following e-mail to select DVD retailers. Of the 91 titles listed, 75 are being stripped of the Widescreen option, but only 16 are being stripped of the Full Screen option. It’s truly maddening.

April 8, 2005
Dear Sony Pictures Home Entertainment Customer:
Sony Pictures Home Entertainment is currently in the process of reworking the Aspect Ratios on select DVDs. These particular DVDs, which in the past have included both Widescreen and Full screen presentations on a single disc, are now being reworked to include only one presentation, Wide OR Full screen. A number of these have been completed and repackaged to reflect this change, and are listed in the table below.

Catalog numbers and UPC Codes remain the same. Please update your systems as necessary to reflect these changes.

We will continue to update you regularly as more DVDs are converted. Please contact your Sales Representative or Client Operations Associate with any questions.

Sincerely,
Client Operations

Title - New Aspect Ratio
3 Ninjas Knuckle Up - Full Screen
About Last Night - Full Screen
Adventures of Milo and Otis, The - Full Screen
Air Force One - Full Screen
All About My Mother - Widescreen
And Justice For All - Full Screen
Annie (30th Anniversary Ed ) in DTS 5.1 Full Screen
As Good As It Gets - Widescreen
Assignment, The - Widescreen
Bear, The - Full Screen
Beast, The - Full Screen
Big Daddy - Widescreen
Bite the Bullet - Full Screen
Black Dragon - Widescreen
Body Double - Full Screen
Body, The - Full Screen
Breed, The - Widescreen
Buddy - Full Screen
Buddy Holly Story, The - Full Screen
Chances Are - Full Screen
Cheap Detective, The - Full Screen
Cruel Intentions 2 - Full Screen
Dance With Me - Full Screen
Deep End of the Ocean - Full Screen
Desert Heat - Full Screen
Desperate Measures - Full Screen
Dick - Widescreen
Excess Baggage - Full Screen
Eye of the Beholder - Full Screen
Fan, The - Full Screen
Forsaken, The - Widescreen
Futuresport - Full Screen
Gattaca - Full Screen
Geronimo: An American Legend - Full Screen
Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner - Restored - Full Screen
Hard Times - Full Screen
Hero - Full Screen
Hideaway - Full Screen
High School High - Full Screen
Hollywood Knights - Widescreen
Homegrown - Widescreen
Hush - Full Screen
I Dreamed of Africa - Full Screen
Idle Hands - Full Screen
Iron Eagle - Full Screen
It Could Happen To You - Widescreen
Jackie Chan’s Who Am I? - Full Screen
Jawbreaker - Full Screen
Juror, The - Full Screen
Knock Off - Full Screen
Last Action Hero, The - Full Screen
Last Dragon, The - Widescreen
Lords of Flatbush -Widescreen
MacKenna’s Gold - Full Screen
Madeline - Full Screen
Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein - Full Screen
Mercy - Full Screen
Mirror Has Two Faces, The - Full Screen
Mixed Nuts - Full Screen
Mortal Thoughts - Full Screen
Moscow on the Hudson - Full Screen
Mrs. Winterbourne - Full Screen
My Life - Full Screen
My Stepmother Is An Alien - Full Screen
No Mercy - Full Screen
No Way Back - Full Screen
Nowhere to Run - Full Screen
Odessa File, The - Full Screen
Order, The - Full Screen
Peggy Sue Got Married - Full Screen
Revenge - Full Screen
River Runs Through It, A - Widescreen
Roxanne - Full Screen
Rudyard Kipling’s The Second Jungle Book - Full Screen
School Daze - Full Screen
Screamers - Full Screen
Sheena - Full Screen
Silent Rage - Full Screen
Sniper - Widescreen
So I Married An Axe Murderer - Widescreen
Spice World - Full Screen
Starman - Full Screen
Stepmom - Full Screen
Suspect - Full Screen
Sweet and Lowdown - Full Screen
Thirteenth Floor, The (Special Edition) -Full Screen
Toy, The - Full Screen
Two Moon Junction - Full Screen
Universal Soldier: The Return - Full Screen
Whatever It Takes - Full Screen
Whipped - Full Screen
Wild Things (Rated) - Full Screen

Lasiter:

There are literally tons of these issues. The Original data is what the Online is interested in.

First allow me to try and clarify how this happens and the origin of the "problem". You can blame your driendly neighborhood Wal-Mart for it. Most titles that are involved were originally released with BOTH Widescren and FF versions on the Disc. Then Wal-Mart started their cheap DVD bin, you know the one that started out as 2 for $11 and I think is now $5. Of course, initially Wal-Mart cleared out their remaining stock, but when they went back to re-order the Distributor simply stripped out the Widescreen version and turned it into a FF relaese WITHOUT changing the UPC#. This is a lesson we all l;earned the hard way, it's called you get what you pay for. The Online at Profiler deals with the ORIGINAL release data and artwork, so if you have purchased  a version that is different chances are you have a re-release. You should maintain the data you have in your hand LOCALLY it is after all whart you own. but do not try and change an existing profile for those differences.

Now how could you know. All I can tell you is that more than a few of us have been doing this for YEARS, been down that road and sorted it out long ago and are pretty good at keeping things straight. We get caught once in awhile, but not often.

Skip

Quoting lasitter:

Quote:
This has been edifying.  I thought I could depend on UPC codes, but now I really do feel helpless.

Wonder if we could add a flag to the the database to identify the problem while we're previewing listings ...

It's only Sony that has done this as far as I can see. When they took over Columbia's distribution, this is what they did. I think it happened to few MGM titles a few years ago too, other than that, you can depend on UPC. (Almost positive Sony no longer distributes MGM, I think it's Fox now)
At least when Fox stripped the second discs from SE's they used a new UPC for the single disc. Using the same UPC is lazy and deceptive.
I'm surprised I haven't seen anything about a class-action lawsuit against them. I'd sign up if there was one. I mean MGM got one for the widescreen logo on the back making 1.85 movies look to be 2.35 due to how the box was drawn (and lost! you could either trade in the offending titles, or get a $3 credit per disc owned), this is far worse than that!

Quoting karlpov:

Quote:
Maybe we should look up that jackass attorney who sued his laundry for losing a pair of pants.

That jackass attorney was a judge, not merely an attorney.

Quoting cvermeylen:

Quote:
I've only seen this forr certain R1 releases. The original release was a dual sided disc, 1 side widescreen, the other side full screen. Upon re-release, the disc became single sided, retaining only the full screen side (why on earth they removed the good side is beyond me ) , while keeping the same UPC.

2 examples I can think of are:

Sheena        043396-065352
Solarbabies  027616-072436

The best way to check this out is searching for a review of the DVD.

The answer to that is easy:  Most of the two sided discs had the WS on the flip side.  On reissue, they just forget to burn the flip side version, so most end up as only FS.  These typically end up in the $5 bin at the discount stores.  Ironically, I see people cherry-pick the WS stuff out of those bins and leave the FS laying there, so any awful lot of that FS stuff ends up going back to the distributors to be destroyed.