Super8 Transfer and Cropping.Aspect Ratio

[littlebanana]

Hi! I recently had several rolls of Super8 film transferred to digital. Up until now, I had only ever had a standard definition transfer done on Super8 footage, since I was too cheap to pay for high quality. This time, someone else was footing the bill, so I decided to go with a high def transfer.

In the past, the standard definition transfers I had done preserved the general aspect ratio of the film--that is, it was a pretty square frame that was pillarboxed in my editing program. With this high def transfer however, they have instead cropped my frame so that it is rectangular, and pillarboxed it as well.

My question is: is this cropping just standard procedure when it comes to high definition Super8 transfers? Should I have just known and assumed they would do this? I'm kind of upset that I didn't, seeing as I've lost a good chunk of my image, and definitely was not composing my frames while shooting with this new sizing in mind. Do I have reason to be pissed, or is this just my lack of expertise biting me in the ass?

Thanks for any insight!

[Alex]

If the frame was rectangular, and pillar boxed as well, they should have been able to give you a full frame, no?