hows does 4:3 Pan Scan work ?

[hugh53]

How does 4:3 Pan Scan work on a shinco dvd-860 and how does it differ form the 4:3 Letterbox?

[RandyC]

Hi. I find the wording of the question a little confusing. Is this regarding only how it works on your player? Or are you wondering about the different settings on DVD players? Or are you wondering what pan/scan is?

Regards,

Randyc

[Blade]

It's for DVDs that support automatic pan and scanning. 4:3 letterbox causes the player to down convert an anamorphic DVD so that it will display properly on a standard (4:3) TV.

I posted this explanation of auto pan and scanning originally in this thread:
http://www.dvdtalk.com/forum/showthr...3&pagenumber=2

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http://www.thedigitalbits.com/officialfaq.html#3.5

For automatic pan & scan mode, the anamorphic video is unsqueezed to 16:9 and the sides are cropped off so that a portion of the image is shown at full height on a 4:3 screen by following a center of interest offset that's encoded in the video stream according to the preferences of the people who transferred the film to video. The pan & scan "window" is 75% of the full width, which reduces the horizontal pixels from 720 to 540. The pan & scan window can only travel laterally. This does not duplicate a true pan & scan process in which the window can also travel up and down and zoom in and out. Auto pan & scan has three strikes against it: 1) it doesn't provide the same artistic control as studio pan & scan, 2) there is a loss of detail when the picture is scaled up, and 3) equipment for recording picture shift information is not widely available. Therefore, no anamorphic movies have been released with auto pan & scan enabled, although a few discs use the pan & scan feature in menus so that the same menu video can be used in both widescreen and 4:3 mode.

[Edited by Blade on 06-12-01 at 05:02 PM]

[DigIt]

That being said, I don't think it matters much which 4:3 setting you choose, since I don't know of any discs that are "4:3 Pan & Scan" -- it's just important that you choose 4:3 for a 4:3 TV and 16:9 for a 16:9 TV.
Just select "4:3 Letterbox" and forget about it.

[metrician]

Related question:

When studios produce 4:3 pan&scan version DVDs or VHS, do they cut out the same portion on both sides of the original picture? Or do they move around so that the more "important" part is preserved?

[stevevt]

Originally posted by metrician
Related question:

When studios produce 4:3 pan&scan version DVDs or VHS, do they cut out the same portion on both sides of the original picture? Or do they move around so that the more "important" part is preserved?

Answer 1: They move around so the more important part is preserved.

Answer 2: They don't do either, since there aren't any* dvds that take "advantage" of this "feature."

*If there are any, I've never heard of or seen one.

[Brandon_6]

Originally posted by stevevt

Answer 1: They move around so the more important part is preserved.

Answer 2: They don't do either, since there aren't any* dvds that take "advantage" of this "feature."

*If there are any, I've never heard of or seen one.

Well maybe you don't know everything there is no to know about DVD's. Your certainl;y not jesus, because jesus wouldn't squeal on other members to the moderators.

[Edited by Brandon_6 on 06-13-01 at 04:32 PM]

[stevevt]

Originally posted by Brandon_6

(Charlie Brown Adult Voice) Wah wah wa wa whop waa waaa. Whaa waa whaa wha.(/Charlie Brown Adult Voice)

OK....

[Blade]

Originally posted by Brandon_6
Well maybe you don't know everything there is no to know about DVD's. Your certainl;y not jesus, because jesus wouldn't squeal on other members to the moderators.

[Edited by Brandon_6 on 06-13-01 at 04:32 PM]

First of all, it's a bad idea to make personal attacks on other members in a thread a moderator has already posted to. They are likely to come back to see if anyone had further questions or responses to their post.

Secondly, this isn't grade school. This is a moderated forum for the benefit of all the members. If the members don't inform us when they see a forum rule being broken, then you've significantly reduced the value of participating in a moderated forum.

Thirdly, if you read what I posted, you will see that he is quite correct. No DVDs have been released with this information available.

Lastly, you are receiving a formal warning via email. We value the input and warnings of our members and your criticism of such actions, in addition to being unwarranted, is also unwelcome.

Hugh53,

If you have further questions, please feel free to start another thread to address them. I hope your initial question has been adequately addressed.

Closing thread.