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Widescreen (Finally) Winning 540

Posted by CmdrTaco from the film-fans-rejoice dept.
Yort writes "There's a little blurb over at the IMDB about customers at Blockbuster now generally preferring the widescreen, or letterbox, format over full-screen. This after Blockbuster tried to only stock full screen versions of movies a few years ago. I guess now the wife will have to let me buy that new widescreen TV, right?"
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Widescreen (Finally) Winning More

Widescreen (Finally) Winning

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  • It is a superior format (Score:3, Insightful)

    by revmoo ( 652952 ) <<sw.peem> <ta> <todhsals>> on Wednesday May 07, 2003 @05:59PM (#5906064) Homepage Journal

    Widescreen is undeniably a lot better way to watch a movie, and I'm sure that TV makers like it, because no one wants to watch a widescreen movie on a small TV

    I think it will be really nice in a few years when widescreen TV's are the norm.

    • Very true, but unless you have a widescreen TV then the letter box format can be very poor.

      • Re:It is a superior format (Score:5, Insightful)

        by mwolff ( 594593 ) on Wednesday May 07, 2003 @06:23PM (#5906266)
        I saw a short clip on letterbox vs. full on Turner Classic movies. I was shocked at how much was lost when it was converted from the original format to the full screen format. Entire characters would disappear sometimes. Since then I have only watched letterbox. It is the way the director intended you to view it.

    • Re:It is a superior format (Score:5, Insightful)

      by gilesjuk ( 604902 ) <giles@jones.zen@co@uk> on Wednesday May 07, 2003 @06:14PM (#5906194)
      Only because film makers shoot in widescreen, they haven't always. It was a gimmic to stop the decline of the cinema when TVs became popular.

      Perhaps they will revert to a squarer image when all TVs are widescreen?

      Widescreen is popular in the UK, go into an electrical store and you'll see rows of big widescreen TVs and only a handful of 4:3 tube sets.

      Problem is the UK sets aren't HD yet and are unlikely to be for many years.

    • it will be really nice in a few years when widescreen TV's are the norm.

      I'm a fan of wide-screen TVs and always rent the letterbox version because I know what it means when it says "This has been formatted to fit your TV."

      The problem I see coming in the future is watching old 4:3 aspect TV shows on the wide screen. We'll have vertical black bars in the letterbox format of the future.

      Well, I have heard that widescreen TV's will do a nonlinear stretch of the image to help fill up the space - I don't know

    • I've got a pathetically tiny TV, but I still rent widescreen whenever possible. Why? Because it looks a million times better, that's why. I never understood how people can be bothered by two little black bars but not by the fact they're missing a third of the frame...Bizarre.

  • Widescreen (Score:4, Insightful)

    by obotics ( 592176 ) <remline@hotmail.com> on Wednesday May 07, 2003 @05:59PM (#5906067) Homepage
    The problem with widescreen at the moment is that TV is not broadcasted in widescreen. This means that quite a lot of your $10,000 TV is not being used when watching regular broadcast tv. Granted, I love widescreen for movies, but I also would like to see televion broadcasts switch over.

    Still, I have to admit that those plasma TVs look darn nice!

    • That depends... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by raehl ( 609729 ) <raehl311&yahoo,com> on Wednesday May 07, 2003 @06:02PM (#5906092) Homepage
      SOME TV is not broadcast in wide screen. Some is. I'm pretty sure all of the late-night shows are filmed in wide screen now for example.

      Now, whether the broadcaster in your area is broadcasting that wide-screen signal, or your cable provider is carrying it, is another matter entirely.

    • Re:Widescreen (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Surak ( 18578 ) *
      Actually, I've been seeing several broadcast TV shows being shown in letterbox lately...couldn't tell you which ones because I don't watch TV that much, but I think one of them was like Law and Order or some program similar to that.

    • It depends where you are (Score:5, Interesting)

      by EnglishTim ( 9662 ) on Wednesday May 07, 2003 @06:07PM (#5906127)
      Here in the UK quite a lot of the digital channels are broadcast in widescreen, and all the free-to-air digital channels are.

      Seems like almost all the TVs in the shops are widescreen now, as well.
      • America lags behind in consumer adoption. I hear the Japanese are pretty much all widescreen too.

        On a side note, I was just noticing how widescreen TV is utterly dependent on flatscreen technology of varying kinds. Too bad widescreen films didn't appear until 1953, after 4:3 TV format was established.

        In any case, I don't think you'll see greater adoption of 16:9 until they're comparable in price to 4:3, which may follow the death of the CRT.

        • Re:As usual... (Score:5, Informative)

          by geekd ( 14774 ) on Wednesday May 07, 2003 @06:43PM (#5906409) Homepage
          Too bad widescreen films didn't appear until 1953, after 4:3 TV format was established.

          Films went widescreen in response to TV:

          "Oh, crap. People can watch moving pictures in thier home now. What are we gonna do?"

          "We'll make the show really wide so to differentiate ourselves, and continue to make money"

          • Re:As usual... (Score:5, Informative)

            by Sycraft-fu ( 314770 ) on Wednesday May 07, 2003 @08:15PM (#5906925)
            Well there is also the issue that we see more horizontally than verticly, about twice as much. Also films have no one standard for widescreen. 1.85:1, 2:1 and 2.35:1 are some common anamorphic lense formats, but they aren't the only ones. Also some films are shot with spherical glass and then hard matted to the desired ratio (Fight Club for example).

            I'm also not sure when the concept of anamorphic lenses came about, which is how widescreen is generally done. In case you don't know, anamorphic lense are squashed, so the image on the film is also squashed. You then hook the same kind of lense to the projector which unsquashes the image. Gets better resolution than doing the same shot with aspherical lens and cropping it since you use more of the film, but has trouble with some aspects of focus. Look at lights in teh distance in Fight Club and contrast them to other movies and you'll see the difference.

            It may be that the move to widescreen was partially motivated by TV aspect ratio but I think it was more due to the natural percetion of humans and also perhaps the invention or refinement of anamorphic lenses.

            • Re:As usual... (Score:3, Interesting)

              by Waffle Iron ( 339739 )
              Gets better resolution than doing the same shot with aspherical lens and cropping it since you use more of the film, but has trouble with some aspects of focus. Look at lights in teh distance in Fight Club and contrast them to other movies and you'll see the difference.

              The first rule of filming Fight Club is: You do not use a low f-stop.

              The second rule of filming Fight Club is: You do not use a low f-stop.

      • Re:It depends where you are (Score:4, Interesting)

        by El Cabri ( 13930 ) on Wednesday May 07, 2003 @06:31PM (#5906329) Journal
        In Europe TV broadcasted movies and VHS were universally letter-boxed even before 16:9 TVs appeared. Maybe it's because the higher vertical resolution in the PAL and SECAM standards compared to NTSC makes the waste of scanlines less painful for picture quality (which is not an issue now with anamorphic DVDs anyway).

    • Re:Widescreen (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      A lot of the BBC output in the UK, and some of 5's esp films, is now broadcast in widescreen. I can't comment on ITV or Ch4, my freeview arial can't pick them up :)

      Since I got Freeview a few months ago I have been converted totally to widescreen. I have a normal TV, so it's letterbox only, but even that is so much better. I would not have believed it until I'd got used to it.

    • Re:Widescreen (Score:5, Informative)

      by Osty ( 16825 ) on Wednesday May 07, 2003 @06:28PM (#5906306)

      This means that quite a lot of your $10,000 TV is not being used when watching regular broadcast tv.

      That may suck if you paid $10,000 for your TV, but when you can get good widescreen RPTVs for under $2000, it's not so bad. Modern TVs have ways of combatting the burn-in you'll see from the 4:3 sidebars (mine has grey sidebars, to at least get even burn of the phosphors since the problem with black bars is underburn rather than overburn of the phosphors, and it shifts the position of the 4:3 box to try to minimize burn-in from the bar edges). As well, you can change your format to fullscreen and learn to live with slightly fatter/shorter people and objects, or some TVs even come with a second stretch mode that stretches the edges more than the center. It can make for a fisheye view on some shows, but it's not too bad on most shows. Since most shows have all of the action in the center of the screen, that's the least-distorted part of the picture.


      So, other than burn-in, what issues do you have with not using the full width of your TV? Plasma screens are very prone to burn-in, though, so aside from movie or strictly 16x9 HDTV viewing, they're pretty worthless (which would also help explain why the price is still so high -- their utility is limited, so demand is low and price stays high).

    • That's funny, a lot of the TV around here (over the air, at least) is 1080i widescreen. Even Fox and WB are getting in on the action, albeit only with 480P.

      Part of the reason for slow adoption is that the cable networks do not want to alienate their customers with SDTVs. And a surprising number of people have cable. Satellite is no different.

    • Re:Widescreen (Score:5, Informative)

      by YetAnotherName ( 168064 ) on Wednesday May 07, 2003 @06:45PM (#5906426) Homepage
      US TV is broadcasted in widescreen:

      * Alias (widescreen high def)
      * Smart Travels (widescreen high def)
      * My Wife and Kids (widescreen high def)
      * George Lopez (widescreen high def)
      * Star Trek Enterprise (letterboxed standard def)
      * Law and Order (widescreen high def)
      * Jay Leno (widescreen high def)
      * Crime Scene Investigation (widescreen high def)
      * Manor House (widescreen standard def)
      * Animals Behaving Badly (widescreen standard def)
      * E.T. (ABC commercial presentation, widescreen high def)
      * Dragnet (widescreen high def)

      You want more examples? There's a lot more!
      • I don't care, I'm not happy until America's Funniest Home Videos is in widescreen HD!!!

        Why are you looking at me like that?

        OH!!! Duh. Uh, nevermind.

      • Re:Widescreen (Score:3, Informative)

        by Bishop923 ( 109840 )
        One small nit on some of the standard def "letterbox" shows like Enterprise and West Wing, they arent "really" 16x9, they are usually ~14x9, (My HDTV has a 14x9 zoom mode with small grey bars on either side, Enterprise fits it almost perfectly).

        I suppose its a way to give the widescreen look while still offering enough of the 4:3 screen so the majority of viewers dont raie hell about only getting "half" a show.

    • Re:Widescreen (Score:3, Insightful)

      by MillionthMonkey ( 240664 )
      The problem with widescreen at the moment is that TV is not broadcasted in widescreen.

      Which only makes sense, given that widescreen owes its existence to the invention of television in the fifties. It was a typical fearful Hollywood reaction to advancing technology. They were scared green that people were going to stay home and watch TV instead of going out to the movies. By making the screen wider, they figured they had a selling point over television- you're getting "more movie" along the edges! Not to

      • Re:Widescreen (Score:5, Interesting)

        by drudd ( 43032 ) on Wednesday May 07, 2003 @07:20PM (#5906635)
        There's no inherent reason why a wider aspect ratio is any better in the first place.

        I disagree... I think we're used to seeing the world in a pretty wide aspect ratio... compare how your peripheral vision compares left to right as up and down. I can see ~40-60 degrees more left to right (just a quick approximation).

        I think the wider view is more immersive... not necessarily as good as having an IMAX type screen where you can't see the whole screen unless you turn your head, but we can't all afford that :)

        Doug

        • Re:Widescreen (Score:3, Informative)

          by Eccles ( 932 )
          I disagree... I think we're used to seeing the world in a pretty wide aspect ratio..

          I looked it up once, and came up with the conclusion that 5:3 was our "natural" aspect ratio. Clearly wider than 4:3, but a little narrower than 16:9 (since 5:3 would be 15:9.)

          I think the wider view is more immersive... not necessarily as good as having an IMAX type screen where you can't see the whole screen unless you turn your head, but we can't all afford that :)

          How about using a projector like a Dell 2100MP? $13

  • Good comparison site (Score:5, Interesting)

    by teko_teko ( 653164 ) on Wednesday May 07, 2003 @05:59PM (#5906071) Homepage
    This site has some samples of movies in widescreen format and the result that one will get in the full screen format. widescreen.org [widescreen.org].
    The full screen version of LoTR is really bad because of its original screen ratio.
    • This site has some samples of movies in widescreen format and the result that one will get in the full screen format.

      It would be more useful if the pictures were shown at the same width. Showing them at the same height is like comparing a 27" full-screen TV (~$500) to a 32" wide-screen TV (~$1,500).

  • Yeah! (Score:3, Funny)

    by sg3000 ( 87992 ) * <sg_public@nosPAm.mac.com> on Wednesday May 07, 2003 @05:59PM (#5906072)
    The masses choose wide screen over full screen! Next, we have to wean them off of pro wrestling, Brittany Spears, and lite beer and the 2000s won't end up being an embarrassment to history! Or at least we'll be cooler than the 1920s, with their flagpole sitting and zootsuits.

    • Re:Yeah! (Score:3, Funny)

      by Bendy Chief ( 633679 )
      My friend, we have nothing to fear. We came after the beat poets of the late fifties/early sixties, and no one can ever put them to shame for lameness, daddy-o.

    • except (Score:3, Funny)

      by geekoid ( 135745 )
      in 30 years there will be a new generation of geeks telling us about all the advantages of this new "SquareScreen"(tm) movie format.

  • Upgrading (Score:5, Interesting)

    by darkov ( 261309 ) on Wednesday May 07, 2003 @06:00PM (#5906076)
    While I think releasing DVDs in widescreen is the way to go, I've noticed that more and more programs on my TV are being letterboxed, probably becuase programs are increasingly being distributed and broadcast in HD.

    Meanwhile the effective size of my TV screen is being erroded beacuse of this letterboxing. Damned progress.
    • Sit closer.

  • No need to buy a widescreen (Score:5, Interesting)

    by joeflies ( 529536 ) on Wednesday May 07, 2003 @06:00PM (#5906079)
    Considering that the cost of front projection DLP is falling fast, I'd skip the widescreen tv route entirely. You get whatever aspect ratio you need.
    Even if you do go rear rear projection or tubes, I think I'd still go with a bigger 4:3 (as long as it supported 16x9 compression, like the Sony's or JVCs)
    • Agreed. One reason I'll rather have front projection is the ability to put the center speaker right at the center where it belongs (i.e. behind the screen).

    • Re:No need to buy a widescreen (Score:5, Informative)

      by Jeff DeMaagd ( 2015 ) on Wednesday May 07, 2003 @06:44PM (#5906419) Homepage Journal
      Just about every new TV set larger than 27" sold in the US has a 16x9 squeeze mode. A scarce few of them autodetect the anamorphic flag and autoswitch, but not all DVD players send that flag either.

      Most projectors can adjust aspect ratios to fit the available panel.

      Even so, I think my next projector will be a 1366 x 768 widescreen so it will take 720p HDTV without down scaling. I haven't decided if it will be DLP or LCD, LCDs are cheaper, still get a decent contrast ratio (some at 900:1) and don't have DLP rainbows.

      DLPs do have better contrast ratio, sometimes up to 2000:1 but I think I might be bothered by rainbowing.

  • Widescreen = Bedda! (Score:5, Funny)

    by CyberBill ( 526285 ) on Wednesday May 07, 2003 @06:00PM (#5906080)
    My parents always watch DVDs in pan-n-scan, because my dad says "We bought a big tv and that widescreen doesnt use it, what a waste!", but I personally ONLY watch DVD's in widescreen unless not available. You can see a lot more of whatever is going on, I feel. :)

    -Bill

  • Do Not Underestimate Customers (Score:5, Interesting)

    by thatguywhoiam ( 524290 ) on Wednesday May 07, 2003 @06:00PM (#5906081)
    I remember buying American Beauty last year on VHS, as a gift for my sister. The clerk asked me 3 times whether I was sure I wanted widescreen. When I assured her that I most definitely did and asked what the hell the problem was, she replied "We get at least 10 people a day in here returning widescreen movies because they think something is wrong with them. They say they 'don't fill up the TV screen.'"

    I find, generally, that when you say 'aspect ratio' to your average layperson they say 'gesundheit'.

    • Reminds me of what a Suncoast employee said once.. (Score:5, Funny)

      by D'Arque Bishop ( 84624 ) on Wednesday May 07, 2003 @07:00PM (#5906504) Homepage
      "Pan-and-scan is formatted for the small-minded."

    • Re:Do Not Underestimate Customers (Score:5, Insightful)

      by _|()|\| ( 159991 ) on Wednesday May 07, 2003 @07:12PM (#5906589)
      I remember buying American Beauty last year on VHS, as a gift for my sister. The clerk asked me 3 times whether I was sure I wanted widescreen.

      You have to admit that wide-screen VHS is a small market. Wide-screen anamorphic DVD is popular because it displays at a high resolution on a decent TV. Wide-screen VHS looks bad on any TV.

  • HD tv (Score:3, Insightful)

    by mjdth ( 670822 ) on Wednesday May 07, 2003 @06:02PM (#5906089) Homepage
    isn't HD tv's native format widescreen? wouldn't this help to get every type of TV media on the same page?

  • How?! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by limekiller4 ( 451497 ) on Wednesday May 07, 2003 @06:02PM (#5906093) Homepage
    Call me a snob, a bigot, whatever. But I cannot fathom how people stomach non-widescreen. I mean, it's cutting off sizeable chunks of what the director intended you to see. With competent editing it is a disaster. With incompetent editing it's unwatchable.

    How the hell are you supposed to watch Kubrick or Kurosawa, for that matter, on a format other than they shot it in and not walk away with (almost literally) half the picture?

    • Re:How?! (Score:4, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 07, 2003 @06:03PM (#5906103)
      You are a snob, a bigot, whatever!

      Happy?
    • > With incompetent editing it's unwatchable

      Before we bought the DVD, the VHS for Pulp Fiction was pan/scan. The movie was unwatchable. The panning was so bad that we tossed out the VHS.

      In fact, the only version of the movie Babe [imdb.com] that is available on DVD is pan/scan, so my wife and I won't buy it. They released the sequal as wide screen, but not the original, which is very annoying.

    • Re:How?! (Score:5, Insightful)

      by farnsworth ( 558449 ) on Wednesday May 07, 2003 @06:15PM (#5906204)
      How the hell are you supposed to watch Kubrick

      Kubrick typically prints the entire film negative, giving you a 4:3 aspect ratio, i.e., "not widescreen". Almost everyone else cuts off the top and bottom of the film to give you 16:9.

      You make a good point, but keep in mind that "what the director intended you to see" does not always mean "widescreen."

      • Re:How?! (Score:5, Informative)

        by Belgand ( 14099 ) <belgandNO@SPAMplanetfortress.com> on Wednesday May 07, 2003 @07:10PM (#5906579) Homepage
        IIRC he saw one of his early films on tv at one point and was appalled at how it had been mangled. In order to be certain that this would not continue to happen from then on he set up his shots such that 4:3 would contain the full shot, but that nothing significant would be lost when it was matted for 16:9 to be projected in theaters. Thus the majority of Kubrick films are correctly in 4:3 on DVD and video, but actually slightly off in the theater. While not a "Kubrick film" Spartacus is a notable exception having a rather wide ratio, 2.2:1 (70mm) going by the back of the box for the Criterion DVD release. 1.85:1 (academy flat) and 2.35:1 (anamorphic scope aka Panavision/Cinemascope) tend to be the standard two widescreen ratios.

        Likewise films before the 1950s were largely filmed in 4:3 (academy standard). This is the main reason why televisions are also 4:3. When the NTSC chose an aspect ratio standard they went with academy standard. Films later went widescreen to offer something above and beyond television.
    • How? Life is short. Silly pedantic nonsense like this doesn't register. Priorities and all that. You probably rate movies high up on your priority list. Other people don't. I know I don't. My movie watching habits amount to randomly flipping into the middle of whatever happens to be on Cinemax at the moment. The last movie I actually saw in a theater was... damn, I can't remember. I can count all the movies I actually own on one hand.

      I do appreciate the fact that if the studios get their way in ev

  • Ok, so we're half way there (Score:5, Insightful)

    by decarelbitter ( 559973 ) on Wednesday May 07, 2003 @06:03PM (#5906097)
    Because most modern movies are recorded in Cinemascope, which is not 16:9, but 2.35:1. So cool movies like LOTR still have a nice black bar on the top and bottom when viewed on a Shiny! 16:9 plasma screen.

    • Because most modern movies are recorded in Cinemascope, which is not 16:9, but 2.35:1.

      The underlying suggestion being that movies should all be shot to the same aspect ratio? What on earth do you think we're halfway to? One binding aspect ratio for all visual media? Nonsense.

      Considering the back-catalog of film and television production and the range of screen dimensions they cover ... well, let's just say I still don't see a "halfway" to *anything* in this.

    • Not correct. (Score:3, Interesting)

      by MtViewGuy ( 197597 )
      Actually, most movies today are shot in 1.85:1 aspect ratio, NOT 2.35:1 aspect ratio. This is because the 1.85:1 aspect ratio is the hard-matted default aspect ratio of the large movie cameras from Panavision and Arriflex.

      It's only blockbuster movies that are shot in 2.35:1 aspect ratio, mostly to give a bigger sense of epic sweep. For example, the three Lord of the Rings movies are shot this way because we are talking three movies that we can easily call epics.

      The reason why every HDTV system around the

  • Wide vs Full (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Masem ( 1171 ) on Wednesday May 07, 2003 @06:03PM (#5906099)
    I realize that to provide both a widescreen and a fullscreen version, with 5.1 sound and little encoding artifacts, would generally require a second disk for most feature films, I don't understand the trend currently for many newer movies to have separate boxes for Wide and Full, particularly when the version info is not easy to pick out (Now whenever I get a DVD, I doublecheck the back of the box to get all the formatting information to make sure it's what I expect). The old Warner DVD titles were flippies in that one side was full, the other wide, but this means you didn't have a picture on the DVD media itself (oh, boo hoo!). It would seem to me that providing both versions of the movie on a flippy disk in one box would be cheaper than making up two distribution runs, particularly when the number of full vs. wide is still rapidly changing.

  • of course (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Darth Maul ( 19860 ) on Wednesday May 07, 2003 @06:04PM (#5906106)
    The widescreen version is better because it is the full frame as the cinematographer and director intended. Anything 'pan and scan' cuts out about a third of the frame. But we all know that.

    I bought a widescreen HDTV a few months ago and I must say there is no going back to standard 4:3. Even if you do not watch/get HD feeds, I highly recommend the new widescreen HDTVs for DVD watching. Even without my HD receiver, I'd still have purchased the TV just for the DVD experience. Now, of course, I'm an anamorphic snob [thedigitalbits.com] ;-).

  • I guess... (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I guess asking "Do you have this in widescreen?" every time I rented from Blockbuster actually made a difference, eh? (I mean the collective difference of thousands of movie fanatics all doing the same thing.)

  • I rented the Bourne Identity last week, and imagine my surprise when I got it home and realized it was the Pan&Scan version. Now, there's a reason why I have a widescreen TV -- I like widescreen. I don't want to spend $4.50 on a movie rental and then lose half of the image. This wouldn't be so bad if the DVD display case said in prominent lettering "Fullscreen Version" or "NOT Widescreen", but it said nothing. Since it didn't explicitly say it was the fullscreen version, I just naively assumed that

  • Full screen is vomitous and horrid. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by sulli ( 195030 ) * on Wednesday May 07, 2003 @06:05PM (#5906119) Journal
    It reminds one of craning one's neck to see the little TVs five rows ahead in a creaky old United 757 while wishing you had not turned down that black coffee they offered. Why anyone would prefer full screen, unless they were using an old Sony Watchman, is entirely beyond my comprehension.

  • DUH! (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    When you get the widescreen, they're totally chopping off the top and bottom of the picture! what a ripoff! Some people...
  • That's a really nice fucking TV. Their are movies I would actually enjoy on that that I would loathe on a lesser TV.

  • I will not be satisfied (Score:5, Funny)

    by zurmikopa ( 460568 ) on Wednesday May 07, 2003 @06:12PM (#5906176) Homepage
    Until my TV dimentions correspond EXACTLY to the Golden Ratio [friesian.com]

    Not this 16x9 crap.
    =)

  • We need more models of widescreen TV in stores (Score:5, Interesting)

    by grahamwest ( 30174 ) on Wednesday May 07, 2003 @06:13PM (#5906178) Homepage
    If only widescreen TVs would become more commonly available in the USA - last time I was back in Britain visiting family I found you were hard pressed even to find a 4:3 TV in stores. The little 10" TV/VCR combo units were about the only ones left, everything else was 16:9. This is because the upcoming DTV standard for Europe is 16:9.

    That said, Panasonic sell a nice 30" and 34" 16:9 HDTV tube TV in this country. Movies and videogames look phenomenal those sets and they're a lot cheaper than plasma displays.

  • Explanation is Simple (Score:3, Insightful)

    by tabdelgawad ( 590061 ) on Wednesday May 07, 2003 @06:15PM (#5906197)
    With decent (not great!) 27" TVs dipping below $200, the median size of TVs in US households must be significantly higher than it was a few years ago. This tends to resolve the tradeoff between letterbox and fullscreen in favor of letterbox.
  • Your DVD player has a zoom feature (most do, anyways). USE IT! That way we both win.
    • Your DVD player has a zoom feature (most do, anyways). USE IT! That way we both win

      That's what I do when find that 2/3 of my 29" TV's screen is doing nothing and the action looks like it's being viewed on a 19" set.

      Of course if you're ripping (I mean "backing up") your DVDs onto SVCD then you really need to crop the image before encoding. Widescreen and SVCD or VCD formats really don't work. Zooming an SVCD produces *real* bad pixelation.

      Ahem... "so I've heard" :-)

  • Viewing 16:9 movies on 4:3 TVs (Score:3, Informative)

    by Dwindlehop ( 62388 ) on Wednesday May 07, 2003 @06:18PM (#5906227) Homepage
    Sony 4:3 televisions have a feature that will compress the scan lines into a 16:9 format. You lose surface area, but you don't lose any of the pixels. Great way to get quality 16:9 movie playback on the cheap (less than a thousand bucks).

  • Mismatched solutions... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Zinho ( 17895 ) on Wednesday May 07, 2003 @06:18PM (#5906228) Journal
    The saddest thing I've seen lately is a letter-boxed widescreen movie played on a widescreen TV in a store display. The letterbox effect printed on the DVD shrunk the image vertically to accommodate the aspect ratio of most TVs. The widescreen TV, for some unfathomable reason, stretched the image it was given to fit the wider aspect ratio of the widescreen TV. The result was a short, elongated version of the original movie, and I don't think the implementation could have been further from the intent of its designers (the film makers). There's no way I was going to even consider buying that TV. Unfortunately, most of the "widescreen" TVs I look at (casual inspection only) seem to be pulling the same "stretch it a little and no one will notice" trick, so unless I hear that the industry is making an effort to coordinate solutions I'm not putting my hard-earned $thousands into the new technology.

    Two possible solutions:
    (1) sell widescreen format movies that look weird on normal sets because they'd be squished horizontally.
    (2) make the TV able to recognize the letterbox format and adjust intelligently.

    My vote is on option 2 - better backwards compatibility. I just hope that the industry picks soon and sticks with the decision.
    • Easy solution...

      The DVD player was set to 4:3 instead of 16:9. They all (most) have a setting to tell them what kind of TV you have. There is no way for them to tell automatically.

      In fact, a while ago a large number of DVD players defaulted to 16:9. That resulted in many returns by customers because they thought the DVD player was broken. So, now they default to 4:3. I guess they figure if you can afford a new 16:9 TV, you might be bright enough to read the manual.

      -Dubya

    • Re:Mismatched solutions... (Score:4, Informative)

      by Krokus ( 88121 ) on Wednesday May 07, 2003 @06:41PM (#5906403) Homepage

      The reason DVD imagery tends to look awful on widescreen TVs in shops is typically because they have the same signal running to multiple TVs, at least some of which are 4:3. For some odd reason, they tend to configure this shared display for the lowest-common (or perhaps better selling) denominator.

      The fact that each TV is showing an image that has been been split multiple times also tends to result in image quality quite inferior to what the TV is capable of producing with a single connection.

      This is why I don't judge a TV based on whatever it's displaying in a shop. I use the internet to find in-depth reviews carried out under more controlled conditions. I mean, if it's on the internet, it must be reliable, right? :)

  • Every now and then, a dead end technology pops up, only to disappear in the mists of history.

    As long as widescreen isn't filling the entire screen, beacuse it isn't, it will never conquer the home market. For cinemas it's an entirely different thing, of course.

    Those who tout widescreen as the next big thing, might be interested in the fact that there is not yet a single consumer widescreen camcoder on the market. Coincidence?

  • I was over at my cousin's place last week, and he bought one of those massive 60 inch wide screen tvs. I thought it was pretty damn cool, until I noticed something disturbing - even when we were watching something on ABC, NBC, or any other major network on TV in widescreen, we still had the black lines at the top of the screen like you would on a square tv. He has DirecTV, and all I could think is that this had something to do with the DirecTV feed, but I have no idea. I didn't get to see a DVD played on

  • here is an example. (Score:5, Funny)

    by geekoid ( 135745 ) <dadinportland@ y a h o o . c om> on Wednesday May 07, 2003 @06:26PM (#5906290) Homepage Journal
    The second [widescreen.org] example from the bottom is enough to sell me on widescreen.

  • Now that Widescreen format is winning, we can press for anamorphic transfers and get rid of letterboxing. The sun will shine, birds will sing, and there will be much rejoicing.

    (Using an anamorphic transfer fills the DVD frame with picture information - if any letterboxing needs to be done, it's done by the DVD player, and only for those displays that require it.)

    A.
  • You'll notice that more and more of the digital TVs that are coming out are more widescreen than previous generations. They're slowly trying to move everyone over to widescreen, because, well, it's just a better format to watch stuff in.

    Hopefully these TVs will come with an option NOT to stretch out regular sized stuff such as VHS and regular TV.

    Please excuse my blathering.

  • Comment removed (Score:3, Interesting)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Wednesday May 07, 2003 @06:37PM (#5906370)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • The idea behind widescreen is that it approximates the human field of view better than the standard mostly square picture on a 4:3 TV. I think it translates well to TV programming in ways that may take some time for TV producers to understand and take advantage of. For instance on 4:3, in a close up shot, notice it's often difficult to squeeze more then two faces into a single shot because of the aspect ratio, but on widescreen this is now problem. Some of the better TV commercials will even throw in let

  • 1.33:1 vs. 1.78:1 vs. 2.35:1 (Score:3, Interesting)

    by -tji ( 139690 ) on Wednesday May 07, 2003 @07:15PM (#5906605) Journal
    If at all possible, I don't watch anything in 4:3. Any widescreen movies converted to 4:3 are absolutely butchered.

    But an interesting thing I noticed recently was a movie that had different versions on both sides (The Truth about Charlie). But, rather than the 4:3 or native aspect ratio choice that many movies give; it had choices of 16:9 or native 2.35:1.

    I find that the "butchering" is much less severe when going from 2.35:1 down to 16:9 / 1.78:1. But, I chose the 2.35:1 side, to see the movie in it's full glory.

    BTW - The movie was less than stellar, except for the presence of Thandie Newton.. She is gorgeous.. which helps improve any action movie (she was the hot spy chick in Mission Impossible 2)

  • Fullscreen not always inappropriate (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Trogre ( 513942 ) on Wednesday May 07, 2003 @08:14PM (#5906915) Homepage
    Disclaimer: I prefer widescreen.
    Anti-disclaimer: But I can see why not everyone would.

    For low-resolution formats such as VHS, full-screen may still be preferrable, since you've only got so many pixels[*] to play with, and using up a third of the picture with black bars further lowers the effective vertical resolution of the actual picture.

    Of course I realise that strictly it's not 'adding black bars' but zooming out to see the full picture, but the result is the same.

    The big advantage with widescreen is being able to see the 'whole' scene, not just the centre of attention. There are some movies where what's happening at the periphery of the screen just isn't important (mainly chick flicks, I guess), but you want to see as much detail as possible in the foreground (auch as characters faces, or writing on surfaces). In these circumstances full-screen may be preferrable to widescreen.

    Another case is when you're a poor student and only have a 14" telly. Suddenly screen real-estate becomes paramount, and wide-screen just isn't an option unless you want to park your chair 1 metre from the set.

    [*] I realise that in the video industry the term 'pixels' is discouraged since measurements are done in 'lines'. Video signals are stored and transmitted in pixels nonetheless.

  • This is good to hear (Score:3, Informative)

    by rikkards ( 98006 ) on Wednesday May 07, 2003 @09:13PM (#5907260) Journal
    About 2 months ago I actually sat down and sent an email to Blockbuster saying that I was disappointed that they carried one movie in only Fullscreen. I did get a response back from them that sounded like they have received more than my email. I also said that if they didn't carry it in Widescreen I would go to Rogers (which is probably their biggest competition in Canada) since they usually did. Glad to see somethings do work by sending (constructive) feedback.

    The funny thing is they seem to be carrying sometimes both widescreen and full for the same movie (i.e Red Dragon) All the widescreen versions were mostly gone however only about 3 of 20 copies in fullscreen were taken.

  • This is the same Blockbuster that edits content (Score:5, Insightful)

    by gad_zuki! ( 70830 ) * on Thursday May 08, 2003 @12:36AM (#5908188)
    Great, now I can watched widescreen NC-17 and other films edited by the studio for "family-friendly" stores like Blockbuster and Walmart because these stores will refuse to carry content they find religiously/morally questionable. The studios don't want to lose money so there goes the penis scene from Bad Lieutenant. I can't remember any others from the top of my head, but the editing is quite real.

    They need to widen their tolerance not their aspect ratios.

  • UK leads the way with widescreen TV (Score:3, Informative)

    by rklrkl ( 554527 ) on Thursday May 08, 2003 @04:17AM (#5908731) Homepage
    Unusually for once in the realm of TV, the UK has a clear lead in the widescreen arena:

    • 16:9 sets have been outselling 4:3 sets significantly in the past 3-4 years, so much so that it's virtually impossible to find any set over 20" that's in the old-fashioned 4:3 format.

    • Almost all UK-made dramas aired on UK TV are now widescreen - in fact, if a new UK drama airs that isn't widescreen, I find it quite shocking :-)

    • The majority of UK TV adverts are now widescreen.

    • More and more "cheap and cheerful" UK TV shows are being aired widescreen (home makeovers, quiz shows, gardening etc. etc.). BBC and Channel 4 have been the leaders in this, with ITV begin somewhat behind and the laggards at Sky One bringing up a distant last place.

    • Sky (the largest UK digital TV platform) has just made all its "Sky Box Office" pay-per-view movies widescreen (what about the normal movie channels too, Sky ?).

    I was amused that I had to beg the BBC a couple of years ago to air "Film [insert year here] with Jonathan Ross" in widescreen, because they amazingly shot Ross's studio reviews in 4:3 and then had letterboxed movie clips. The series that followed finally switched to widescreen - amazing that the most obvious BBC show to get widescreen (a movie review show) was one of the last to get it !

    One weak point in the UK widescreen TV market, though, is the virtual non-existence of widescreen TV's below the 24" mark. Now, I don't know about you, but I have a small bedroom with limited space to put my VCR, satellite decoder and TV (in fact, the three are stacked on top of each other).

    There's no way I can fit a 24" widescreen set in the space available, so how come it's impossible to buy a portable widescreen set in the UK now ? Luckily, I got myself a Sony 16" widescreen set before they got discontinued and I love it to death, but when that needs replacing, I'll have to knock the wall through to the next room to fit a widescreen set in :-)

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