THE PAIN!!!!

[tgpo]

TBS is showing Ghostbusters right now. It's of course Pan and scan. It's almost impossible to watch. It's moving left and right, back and forth, constantly making you move your eyes to follow the action.

Does anyone out there actually prefer FF to WS?

[jeex]

What's the difference between pan & scan, full-frame, widescreen and letterbox movies?

All of these terms refer to the aspect ratio of a movie, which is defined as its width-to-height relationship. Your television has an aspect ratio of 1.33:1 (4:3), but many movies are 1.85:1 and even 2.35:1. If you're watching these "wider" movies in their original aspect ratio, which doesn't match that of the TV you're watching it on, you'll see black bars at the top and bottom of the picture. How tall the bars are depends on how wide the movie is: a 1.85:1 movie will have much shorter black bars than a 2.35:1. This format is referred to as "letterbox." Some people call 2.35:1 or wider movies "widescreen," then call the narrower movies "letterbox." Unfortunately, there's no standard for how these two terms are used. But when you see them on DVD packaging, know that you'll see the black bars at the top and bottom of the picture.

Both "pan & scan" and "full-frame" refer to movies that fill up your TV's 4:3 screen, but there's a very distinct difference between the two kinds of pictures. Pan & scan movies are wide movies that have been modified to fit into the 4:3 aspect ratio. This is achieved by sometimes cutting off the edges of a certain scene or panning across a scene to include actors that wouldn't fit into the narrower frame. If you have a choice between a pan & scan movie and its widescreen counterpart, buy the widescreen version because you'll experience the movie as it was intended to be seen. On the other hand, full-frame movies were originally shot 4:3 then "matted", meaning the extra material at the top and bottom of the frame was masked off in theaters. When these movies hit home video, you're actually seeing more of the frame than was meant to be seen. However (like widescreen and letterbox) pan & scan and full-frame are often used interchangeably, so pay close attention to the box to make sure you're getting the picture you think you're buying.

[fmctm1sw]

This is something I need to study some more. So this pan & scan will actually move the picture around? That would make me sick I think...

[Rookie64]

Oh, you guys should've been around in the good ol days of watching movies on TV


There was the sqeeze the picture to fit into the TV screen format - eveyone looked a bit deformed.

The crop & chop format - where most of the frame was, you guessed it...chopped out of the screen (you got to see half a face if you were lucky)


and you gotta love those far out TV screens from the '60s/early '70s that were oval shaped - was like waching a movie in fish bowl


I prefer Full Frame when it comes to gratuitous nudity - go rent Two Moon Junction (which is a double sided disc giving you the option of FF or WS) and you'll see extactly what I mean
You see far less skin in the WS format.

Other WS movies to avoid are
Carrie
Map Of The World
Ghost Story
Pretty Baby

among others

[energy80s]

I perfer 4:3 to 16:9 and recently bought a new 4:3 telly. Widescreen is OK for landscapes and vistas, but useless for "people shots" and buildings / cityscapes. It's not until you go back to 4:3 from 16:9 that you realise just how much picture you miss in the widescreen format.

Remember that the only reason 16:9 (and similar ratios) were inverted was to be different to domestic 4:3 telly. It had nothing to do with actually needing a 16:9 frame to convey the relevant imagery.

[Faustus]

I perfer 4:3 to 16:9 and recently bought a new 4:3 telly. Widescreen is OK for landscapes and vistas, but useless for "people shots" and buildings / cityscapes. It's not until you go back to 4:3 from 16:9 that you realise just how much picture you miss in the widescreen format.

Remember that the only reason 16:9 (and similar ratios) were inverted was to be different to domestic 4:3 telly. It had nothing to do with actually needing a 16:9 frame to convey the relevant imagery.

You do realize of course that most film makers MAKE the movies with 16x9 in mind right? So if its a movie then chances are your missing more with 4:3.

[g_shocker182]

I feel for you, tgpo. I remember watching A Few Good Men on TBS and its practically unbearable when they do that.

[tgpo]

Why don't they just show it as it was, in widescreen format, unless it was shot in 4:3 format. Why waste the time and money to convert it?

[g_shocker182]

People with small TVs would complain.

Try watching something with bars on a 2.5" TV.

[adam]

energy80s with the exception of made for tv movies, movies are shot for theatrical viewing in mind. Everything from the director's framing of the shots down to the storyboards are created in a widescreen aspect ratio. When you watch FS conversions of most movies you are not seeing anything close to what the director shot. It is the best compromise that some editor in a booth could achieve when trying to squeeze a rectangular image into a square box. With a 2.35:1 picture you literally lose about half of the horizontal picture. HALF of the movie is just shaved off the sides! That is just ridiculous. In regards to fullscreen being better for "people shots," well it is very common in FS conversions for one of the persons engaging in the conversation to not even be on the screen while they deliver their lines. Its the unfortuante result of the director choosing to place the actor on either of the 1/3 outside edges of the picture.

I agree that a 16:9 aspect ratio itself probably doesn't have much advantage over a 4:3 one. But the fact that almost everything is shot in widescreen means that you have to use widescreen presentation if you want to see what the director saw, which is the whole point of watching a movie.

Its not quite as bad as FS conversions, but how about the horrible editing of language? Obviously they have to do it but they use the most ridiculous replacement words. It may sound a little corny but damn or even darn is a perfectly fine replacement for shit. But they use something like, "Oh my shoe!" instead. In A Few Good Men when Tom Cruise got really mad he called the other guy a lousy baseball player, and in Do the Right Thing everyone is a "micky ficky." Its seriously hard to take even really good movies seriously with this kind of editing.

[g_shocker182]

All TVs will be 16:9
HDTV; the norm
free speech on TV
no dvdrhelp downtime





Give it ten years

[jeex]

no dvdrhelp downtime





Give it ten years

dvdrhelp wont matter in 10 years, people will be making 1:1 copies and the software/media/burners should be perfected by then..

bluerayhelp.com & brhelp.com are available for registration though (hint hint baldrick)

[energy80s]

I perfer 4:3 to 16:9 and recently bought a new 4:3 telly. Widescreen is OK for landscapes and vistas, but useless for "people shots" and buildings / cityscapes. It's not until you go back to 4:3 from 16:9 that you realise just how much picture you miss in the widescreen format.

Remember that the only reason 16:9 (and similar ratios) were inverted was to be different to domestic 4:3 telly. It had nothing to do with actually needing a 16:9 frame to convey the relevant imagery.

You do realize of course that most film makers MAKE the movies with 16x9 in mind right? So if its a movie then chances are your missing more with 4:3.

Depends on whether you are a film buff or not. I am not.

16:9 I can tolerate, but 21:9 looks dreadful on any small screen.

[RabidDog]

aDAM I think "micky ficky" etc are done so they fit in with the lip movements of the actors M and F being the stressed syllables, as in "S"hoe or even C unt, which you still dont hear much

but 21:9 (2.35:1) looks dreadful on any small screen

This looks bad on even a 26" screen (4:3)

[adam]

Yes I understand that, I'm saying its silly. If you want to mouth MF then the actors should just say an M and an F. Its ok that there will be a pause in between and their lips will be doing other stuff in between. At least it still makes sense. Its going to be obvious its a dub either way so you might as well keep the intent of the original script. Micky Ficky is not such a good example, it was just one that came off funny to me. The ones where they substitute a ridiculous phrase in there that no one would ever use, that's stupid.