For those who think widescreen is so damn great

[Viper187]

I'm getting rather tired of these hardcore movie fanatics preaching about widescreen being so damn great and fullscreen being so bad. They all scream about the sides being cut off. Oh dear! We really miss so damn much. I've looked at both and it doesn't bother me. The difference can be seen here. Scroll down to the frame from Terminator 2. The blue line indicates what you see in the pan & scan version, and the red line indicates the widescreen frame. Notice anything interesting? Sure, the sides are chopped a little on the pan & scan frame, but look at the widescreen one. I always thought the actors heads looked chopped off on the widescreen movies I've watched. Now I know why... THEY ARE! They chop off the top and bottom. WTF? I'd rather lose the sides, thank you.

[shelbyGT]

True "widescreen" incorprates the same image you see in the theatre: thus nothing is "chopped" off.

And pan&scan gets annoying especially in action intense movies and things of that nature where it is just completely obvious what they did (jerky camera movements, people being cut in two on the sides of the screen, etc).

It's a matter of opinion.

edit -

and you picked a very specific format and a very specific movie. You are dealing in generalities, and the page you linked to does not. namely:

Many movies made in Super35 are transferred to video with the top and bottom of the frame restored, so that you actually see more of the picture on video than you did in the theater. However, scenes which include special effects in them are almost always filmed hard-matted in the appropriate widescreen ratio and therefore must be subjected to the pan-and-scan process.

The image above is from James Cameron's Terminator 2. The red area represents what you see in the theatrical version. The blue represents the "pan-and-scan" version, although as you can see there is no panning or scanning.

[nic2k4]

What's going on here? ...

http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/01/28/0235245&tid=97&tid=123&tid=1

If you hurry up you might be able to get in the class action settlement.

[steve2713]

Fullscreen sucks *#%@. Your example is worthless. Rarely does a WS transfer have cropping such as your example shows. Most widescreen transfers show essentially the ENTIRE FRAME as it was filmed and meant to be shown. Widescreen transfers often have some cropping, but only to the equivalent of a few pixels, nothing like the example you're speaking about shows.

Fullscreen blows and shouldn't even exist, if you care about seeing the film as it was meant to be presented.

[presto]

Fullscreen blows and shouldn't even exist, if you care about seeing the film as it was meant to be presented.

If you don't have a theatre screen in your living room you're not seeing it as it was "meant" to be seen either.

[steve2713]

Fullscreen blows and shouldn't even exist, if you care about seeing the film as it was meant to be presented.

If you don't have a theatre screen in your living room you're not seeing it as it was "meant" to be seen either.

Meant to be presented, as in ACTUALLY SEEING the full recorded image, and not cropping off as much as half of the original film.

[FulciLives]

Those who do not appreciate WIDESCREEN movies on home video simply do not have a proper understanding of the process and how it relates back to the original film.

A website exists that does a pretty good job of explaining the concept and all the various forms of film formats and aspect ratios etc.

That website ---> http://www.widescreen.org/

For those that do NOT like WIDESCREEN movies on home video I urge you to please visit this website and do some reading on the topic.

BTW here is a direct link to within the WIDESCREEN.ORG website that explains the "special case" of a movie such as TERMINATOR 2 ---> CLICK HERE FOR THAT LINK

In short those that do NOT like WIDESCREEN movies on home video simply are not educated on the purposes of the process.

Please do some reading before jumping to remarks that make you sound stupid, dumb, uneducated, ignorant, etc.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[Noahtuck]

For those who think widescreen is so damn great

Because it is

http://www.widescreen.org/examples/lord_rings_towers/index.shtml

Some more examples from the site you posted,

http://www.widescreen.org/examples/last_crusade/index.shtml

http://www.widescreen.org/examples/starwars/index.shtml

Full screen BLOWS!!!!!!!!!

Fullscreen sucks *#%@. Your example is worthless. Rarely does a WS transfer have cropping such as your example shows. Most widescreen transfers show essentially the ENTIRE FRAME as it was filmed and meant to be shown. Widescreen transfers often have some cropping, but only to the equivalent of a few pixels, nothing like the example you're speaking about shows.

Fullscreen blows and shouldn't even exist, if you care about seeing the film as it was meant to be presented.

[monzie]

I'm getting rather tired of these hardcore movie fanatics preaching about widescreen being so damn great and fullscreen being so bad. They all scream about the sides being cut off. Oh dear! We really miss so damn much. I've looked at both and it doesn't bother me. The difference can be seen here. Scroll down to the frame from Terminator 2. The blue line indicates what you see in the pan & scan version, and the red line indicates the widescreen frame. Notice anything interesting? Sure, the sides are chopped a little on the pan & scan frame, but look at the widescreen one. I always thought the actors heads looked chopped off on the widescreen movies I've watched. Now I know why... THEY ARE! They chop off the top and bottom. WTF? I'd rather lose the sides, thank you.

Hardcore movie fanatics? No, your wrong BIG TIME........believe it or not movies are ART.....would you LISTEN to the radio (music) if they only played the middle bit of each song? Would you (or could you) read a book if you could only read 2/3rds of any line on a page? Would you EVER go the movies/cinema if they only showed 4:3 pictures? What does BEN HUR (Charlton Heston) look like (for example) cropped to 4:3? Shall I tell you ...shite...and thats a 45+ year old film.

What YOU need to do is get over the 'I have a TV and want a FULL SCREEN picture (becuase I have RECTANGLE that doesnt fit other sized rectangles) and EVERYTHING should BY LAW be made to fit my TV....aaarrrh diddums do you want a dummy?

[johns0]

I'm getting rather tired of these softcore movie fanatics preaching about fullscreen being so damn great and widescreen being so bad.

[sullen]

Well, this is an interesting topic. I prefer widescreen and the Star Wars example shown above justifies it's existance and importance. I know that there is another thread around here about one of the movie companies getting in deep shit for changing the aspect ratio on home releases that were cropped wrong from a pan and scan print down to widescreen. The problem always arises when the widescreen folks only get a pan & scan release of their favorite movie and vice versa. I personally think everything should be released in widescreen and the other folks should get DVD players with zoom or a reverse widescreen function on their TV. My tv is 4x3 format, but has an aspect ratio button on it. Why, I have no idea really because if your dvd player is set to 4x3 and the movie is already in widescreen, it shows the correct aspect ratio. I have never run into a time when I needed the aspect ratio changer button on the damn tv. But I digress.......use the force and come away from the pan & scan dark side.

[FulciLives]

My tv is 4x3 format, but has an aspect ratio button on it. Why, I have no idea really because if your dvd player is set to 4x3 and the movie is already in widescreen, it shows the correct aspect ratio. I have never run into a time when I needed the aspect ratio changer button on the damn tv.

Some 4:3 televisions have a 16x9 "compression" mode. If the DVD is 16x9 WS then you can get a slightly better image on your 4:3 TV.

Maybe your 4:3 TV has a 16x9 "compression" mode ... hence the aspect ratio button?

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[Xylob the Destroyer]

as Noahtuck pointed out, your example is crap
T2 is 1 example of a 'big' or 'popular' film shot in Super 35 -- name some more?

usually the folks who bitch about widescreen are the idiots who want to watch movies on a ******* PC monitor or a piece of shit 19" tv with only coax/VHF for input....

[lordsmurf]

Pointless rants go in off-topic.
And if it gets too vile, it gets locked and warnings issued.

[Noahtuck]

as Noahtuck pointed out, your example is crap
T2 is 1 example of a 'big' or 'popular' film shot in Super 35 -- name some more?

usually the folks who bitch about widescreen are the idiots who want to watch movies on a ******* PC monitor or a piece of shit 19" tv with only coax/VHF for input....

Give that man a cigar!!!!!!!!

I remember some guy saying that he was losing half his picture because of the black bars at the top and bottom and it was a rip off
& no matter how much everyone tried to tell him he was getting more picture for his money with widescreen, not to mention the WHOLE picture, he was just set on that it was a waste on his tv & if i remember correctly, some guy said something about he would use the zoom or squash it somehow to make widescreen movies take up the full screen

Yeah, that would look cool!!!!!




Look!!! chewie just went from 7' to 9'

[MackemX]

this contains relevant info

https://www.videohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=255273

it sometimes depends on the director doesn't it?

[makntraks]

Opinions.. everybody has one...

I vote for widescreen and will live with nothing less

makntraks

[Noahtuck]

Opinions.. everybody has one...

I vote for widescreen and will live with nothing less

makntraks

YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[FulciLives]

Opinions.. everybody has one...

I vote for widescreen and will live with nothing less

makntraks

Actually opinion here means very little.

The ONLY way to see a movie proper is in the original aspect ratio.

Thus NOT liking WIDESCREEN is something much less of an opinion

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[Noahtuck]

Opinions.. everybody has one...

I vote for widescreen and will live with nothing less

makntraks

Actually opinion here means very little.

The ONLY way to see a movie proper is in the original aspect ratio.

Thus NOT liking WIDESCREEN is something much less of an opinion

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[AlecWest]

Film to video transitions are not 100% foolproof. But widescreen is preferable to those who want the theater experience. My only gripe is not the format ... it's that the REALLY wide screen sets cost so darn much. On the verge of retirement, I don't have so much money to spend on home-entertainment systems and see most decent-sized displays on sale as just toys for the rich. Maybe this will change. Maybe not. Until then, I'll continue to rent or buy widescreen video in preference over pan/scan videos ... and just sit closer to my 27" Curtis-Mathes, making believe the letterboxes don't exist (grin).

[smearbrick1]

After the third or fourth movie with letterboxing, you really don't notice it anymore. Besides, it's small price to pay over seeing a conversation between three people in the front seat of a car and the only person you can see talking is the guy in the middle. Tell me that's not F'ed up? Or better yet... when the pan back and forth to each person talking and the movie gets that unnatural jerkiness to the picture while it moves. If I was a filmmaker and someone did that to my film, I'd be kicking someone's ass. You wouldn't whack the left and right side off the Mona Lisa just because you didn't have the right size frame would you?

[lordsmurf]

When you turn the lights out, and your tv black level doesn't suck, you cannot see the "black bars" anyway.

I don't watch movie with lights on, hate the glare on the tv set.

[robguy]

Looks like Viper187 laid a stink-bomb, then left the rest to smell it.

[zzyzzx]

I prefer full screen. But then again, I have a 20" TV. If I had a TV that was way too big for my own good like most people seem to then I'd probably prefer wide screen also.

[samijubal]

Widescreen sucks, but it's here to stay. May as well get used to it, it's not going anywhere.

[Grimey]

Widescreen sucks, but it's here to stay. May as well get used to it, it's not going anywhere.

Well, you're right about widescreen being here to stay

[tgpo]

Personally, If i see a movie in the theater, I want to see the same movie at home, and not have part of the viewing area cut off.

[Ironballs]

Viper187,

If you want full screen, simply remove the duct tape from the top & bottom of you TV screen

[Supreme2k]

My main gripe is that I have a few friends in "the biz" who have been cut out of movies on the full-frame transfers. One was a member of the gang in Tombstone, and no one ever sees him when they play it on broadcast TV.