What's the difference between...
 

They cut out half of the picture from the sides when they adjust it to fit on normal television screens. Pan & scan movies are the devil. :laugh:

Anyone who would want to watch half of a movie needs to be slapped.

Um, huh? :o

You must've forgotten that I'm blonde. Are you referring to wide screen editions with that comment?

:laugh:

http://www.moviesbystarlight.com/wid...widescreen.htm

Full screen DVDs are in a 4:3 (1:33 to 1) aspect ratio and you miss a lot of the image that is intended to be viewed. They "blow" the image up to fill the screen, and you miss things that are happening on the "side". I caught Ghostbusters in full frame the other day and buddy, there is some vital stuff going on to the left/right of the characters that is totally left out. Full screen DVDs are a complete waste of money.

A Widescreen DVD (16:9 format) can be in a 1:85 to 1 ratio or 2:35 to 1 ratio, depending on the type of camera the director uses to film the picture. All movies are shot "wider" than most TVs to get more of a viewing angle (hence the black bars on the top and bottom of your screen). You never see the "bars" in a movie theater because of the screen size. Your typical home TV set you will see the "black bars" at some point. If you have a widescreen flat panel TV (an LCD, or Plasma, or DLP or even some of the projection TVs) they can eliminate a lot of that.

It's cool. Glad I could help. I work with installating home theater equipment for a living, so I'm used to the "dumb" questions. It can be confusing and even I'm not an expert on it, but I think what I said above is about all you need to know. Just wait until they start releasing hi-definition DVDs...! It never ends, I tell ya.

Yeah I use the Live in Boston Fleetwood Mac disk for a demo a lot, because it was shot in Hi-def and it looks really sharp on plasma Tv's, etc...Technology changes so damn fast now, it's pretty frustrating.

Actually, though, widescreen really irritates me, even though I know I'm getting more picture. Those black bars at the bottom and top drive me to distraction. They really make me feel like I'm not getting the full picture. Sad, but true.

*high five!* :)

If you don't like the black bars that preserve the actual ratio of the film, you can use the zoom button on your DVD remote to make the image fit your TV.

And I just discovered the coolest thing about my player. When it's zoomed, you can hit the right or left arrows and make the image pan left or right. And it's a cheapo...

Mid-90s, when I first discovered the difference between widescreen & pan&scan, I remember looking for months and months for a widescreen version of Gone With The Wind. :laugh: And I was *furious* that one wasn't in production - how dare they cheat me out of "the rest" of one of my favorite films (and one of the most beloved of all time)???

Finally, a very nice videophile explained to me that the first films were shot in the 4x3/1.33:1 ratio. Then TV came along, and adopted that format out of necessity. When the movie moguls realized how much of their audience was being stolen, they widened the screens so people would be enticed back into theaters. And for artistic reasons too - if you've ever seen a true Cinemascope or 70mm movie, you understand - your entire field of vision is taken up (without having to sit on the first few rows).

that's cool. Mines on my computer, but I'll look for that. :nod:

Do you watch DVDs on your computer, or do you play them on your DVD drive and export the image to your TV? (I've never understood how to do that...)

Well even if full-screen dvds are a "waste of money" I HATE widescreen - it's the most annoying thing ever ...

And I've never once felt like I've missed some vital part of a movie because it wasn't in widescreen :rolleyes:

Many computers have an S-video jack in them - some even have the other, better jacks - in fact, many come with a remote control like a stand alone DVD player. The trend is moving to a desktop (or even laptop) as your media center as evidenced at Gateway.com, dell.com, hp.com, etc. It makes sense because you can record onto a HUGE 250MB hard drive (and add two or three more in the actual computer and then there are always the USB ones) and manipulate the image and then burn the DVD. It really is a cool thing once you get the hang of it.

I used to think that until I saw a doc. on wide screen. So much is missing, esp. in epics and large production films. So, I am glad HD widescreens are available now.

I watch them on my computer.

I totally agree. Widescreen is the devil. It's bad enough trying to watch movies on my small tv, but when half the screen is taken up by those stupid black bars it's just ridiculous.

Thank you!! I agree....

I don't care what anyone says - I DO NOT like widescreen.

:nod:

I watched Cold Mountain in the theatre, then rented the pan & scan video when it came out on video because all of the other copies were gone. And let me tell you, when Nicole Kidman's breasts and Jude Law's ass are both lopped off from the side so that you can't even see them, you know full screen is the devil. :laugh:

Not to mention how absurd the opening battle was with half of the picture cut off.

I think you people should all just buy Widescreen TVs! :laugh:

It's hard to buy anything else here in the UK. Even the BBC broadcasts a lot of its stuff in widescreen these days.

I love widescreen personally.

It takes a little getting used to.
It all depends on how you approach your film-watching, Deanna. Those who tend to have more of an interest in the artistic side of cinema -- in the framing, the composition, the formalistic elements of directorial & cinematographic style -- generally demand seeing films in the state in which they were intended to be seen, & that always means in the aspect ratio that was originally filmed. If you're watching on a typical TV screen or monitor, that means you need to watch a widescreen aspect ratio for most films made in the past 35 or 40 years or so.

I would imagine that, for the majority of TV watchers, who just want to see a movie on their boob tube & don't really care whether the integrity of a director's or a cinematographer's vision is retained, a pan & scan or a lopped off frame (which is standard on TV broadcasts) is no big deal.

Here's how I first dealt with the weirdness of the black spaces across top & bottom of TV screen: Use your imagination while watching a film. Pretend you are a tiny person (like 6 inches tall) sitting in a theater properly sized to your imaginary height, with a huge theater screen (your TV) in front of you in proper theater screen ratio (a long rectangular box). Those black spaces on your TV screen will, in your mind's eye, just disappear. Concentrate ONLY on the film frame in front of you, & just keep imagining you are in a Lilliputian theater, watching a gigantic movie screen.

There's even a sort of fetishistic pleasure in the idea of having your own miniature theater in front of you; it gives you a stronger sense of "ownership" of the image.

I love and hate widescreen. We have a widescreen plasma TV...it is great (In Australia we don't have HD yet but quality is still awesome) but what I hate is that with widescreen TV's if you watch a widescreen movie...somehow it still shows up in letterbox (with black bars on top and bottom) or with pan and scan it appears stretched! It is so frustrating but the only draw back to having a $5,000 TV :p