Greetings,

Can anyone help me figure out whether my copy of All the President's Men is one of those DVDs that contain both 4:3 and wide-screen aspect ratios as options? And if it is, how do I access the wide-screen version? When I put my DVD into my IBM ThinkPad's DVD drive, it reads in and starts as with a notice telling me that the movie has been sliced down to fit a TV screen. I don't see any way to alter this on the main menu.

However, the back of the box lists information about the Standard Version and the Widescreen Version, without telling me which one I've got, if there are two different versions. Normally, if there are two versions, publishers put that information on the front cover. There's nothing like that.

I'd appreciate any help on this.

Mike Gordon
Toronto

a) is there artwork on the other side of the disc? If not, it's probably there.

b) go to the menu. If there's a "set up" or "options" menu choice, it's probably there.

You're the best. Such a quick answer! If this is the way this discussion forum operates, I'm a big fan.

Then again, when I read your post, I had a big "d'oh" moment!

It was option a). As I mentioned there was nothing that would change the playback from the menu. All I had to do was flip it over.

Fabulous.

Mike Gordon
Toronto

many of the older discs were flippers like yours and "longer" movies were flippers as well where you had to flip the movie over to see part 2. (goodfellas, and the original version of Seven were flippers)

It's not just older DVDs. The new SE of "Fargo" has widescreen on one side and fullscreen on the other. Several studios are still doing this.

i thought it was the wide and full on one side and the special features on the other side?

Nope, it's widescreen and most of the extras on one side, fullscreen and a handful of extras on the other.

By watching the fullscreen, you only see some of the president's men.

The "Standard" version shows boom mikes at the bottom of the screen in a few places.

All The President's Men was shot as a "flat" film meaning the widescreen version mattes the picture to 1.78:1 from 1.37:1.


Warner Bros. might be re-issuing the DVD as a 2-disc SE with a new transfer refurbished by Lowry Digital Images.

Probably wouldn't upgrade unless there's a commentary track by Deep Throat....

id be glad, the picture was grainy as hell at the begining (I can understand that ) and tons of edge enhancement through out the movie. (and its a 140 min movie in one single layer.)