He prolly just wanted some of our opinions as he sees us prolly as being very knowledgeful about all of this. I see no harm in asking. Just as long as the guy aint asking where seinfeld dvd's are....

NEVER buy FS if WS is available. If you are a starving student you shouldn't be wasting your money buying DVDs -- that is what DISPOSABLE income is for. For now, just rent FS at Blockbuster. Don't buy until you're ready to commit.

I have a portable DVD with a 7" screen that I plug into 19" hotel TV's all the time, just sit closer

Dad? Is that you?!?!! I couldn't disagree with you more.... DVDS are more important than food...and owning more DVDs makes up for being starving and poor in all other situations... certainly wouldn't call it WASTING money...

MATT
(a film student's perspective)

Not only do I have a 20" in the bedroom that I watch DVDs on, but until recently my main viewing TV was a 25" 4x3. I bought and watched widescreen DVDs from day 1, and I've never missed fullscreen. I've since graduated to a 30" widescreen set, and I would be pissed as hell if I had to rebuy all my fullscreen titles in widescreen now.

You don't have to buy a dvd player with a zoom feature. You can go into just about any dvd players options and change the display to 16x9. On a 4:3 set doing this will stretch the picture vertically. A 1:85 movie will fill the screen and a 2:35 movie will have black bars about as big as 1:85 normally does. It doesn't look as bad as you might think. When I was a kid I used to see movies at drive ins that weren't setup right, stretching things vertically. It basically looks just like that. When I was a kid I thought that was intentional.

I wouldn't do it personally but I don't need to (widescreen baby!). When you're on a budget you have to make compromises. I'd rather have my movies stretched a little bit in the short term and have a nice collection of outstanding looking dvd's when I can afford to upgrade then have a stack of fullscreen dvd's that will look like crap when you upgrade.

By the way, netflix carries mostly widescreen. If you go the rental route you'd be better off with blockbuster if you want fullscreen.

My main TV is a 27" and I also watch on a 20" (next to the computer) and sometimes even a 13" (not too often anymore, but that used to be the second TV and the 20" was the main one) but still have always preferred OAR (usually widescreen) since I learned what it is, back in VHS days, because I want to see the whole movie. So I don't really understand why the size of your TV leads you to prefer fullscreen, but you can watch what you want how you want.

Yes it is and don't let anyone tell you different. We have people that drive cars and others who prefer trucks. We also can live together with full and widescreen as choices for eachs preferences. I will always choose fullscreen over 2.35:1 or wider but I can handle 1.85:1 on my 32" HDTV.

DON'T BUY FULLSCREEN.

It's not about how you watch it. I don't care. Watch it zoomed in, zoomed out, stretched, distorted, upside down, whatever.

But don't buy fullscreen.
You will be encouraging more fullscreen production.

Lots of people get confused when there are 2 versions to buy. This doesn't happen in the UK as there are hardly ever 2 versions of films.

If there is only one version of the film there will not be constant arguments here about open matte vs p&S.

If P&S is stopped altogether, then the P&S process will not add a premium onto the film. So prices should get lower.

Your right, opinions are opinions. My opinion at the moment seeing that you have a 32" HDTV and still buying fullscreen for any ratio widescreen at all is, damn boy, how far back you sitting from that tv

But seriously. Read whatever you see in this thread man and just make your own educated decision. We've told you pretty much everything there is to know between widescreen and full screen and you've gotten a whole slew of arguments and opinions to support each side. So an educated decision no matter what you go with is what your decision will be, as you know all there is to know. Too bad we can't help any further than this, but discussions about fullscreen and widescreen is like trying to discuss religion. There will be arguments forever about this So just do what suits you best!

Trust me you'll be better off buying widescreen.

DVDs are pretty cheap, buy full screen if you prefer it, and if you need widescreen later just buy it again.

Theres only 1 thing you need to think about. Are you going to kick your own ass in 5 years when you have a whole bunch of full screen movies when all the tvs are Widescreen?

"...I will always choose fullscreen over 2.35:1 or wider..."

...and proud of it, too, I see!

...sigh...

. . . . . .

OAR rules no matter the screen size

Just last night I watched 2 Fast 2 Furiou at a friends house on his 20 inch tv in his room. I had no problems with it at all. Besides sitting a couple feet near it helps as well. Heck my friend sat even farther back,at least 5 feet & had on problems with the 2:35 image. We enjoyed the film as well.

I think that you basically have two questions that you need to ask . . .

1) If you had the money to own a bigger TV, would you want to own widescreen or full frame versions of your movies?

If your answer is full frame, then happy hunting . . . I can't say that I would make the same call, but it is your preference. I your answer is widescreen, then you get to question two . . .

2) Are you willing to go through the process of rebuying all of your favorite DVD's (or all of you DVD's, period) in widescreen? Chances are high that you will lose money in the process (you will not likely get as much for a full frame DVD on the resale) and may have trouble tracking them all down (or end up paying out the nose for them on eBay) if they go OOP.

I think that it is also important to remember what people have been saying about viewing WS movie in FF. You can always set up your DVD player to show your WS movies in FF, but you can never set it up to show your FF movies in WS.

Now for some follow-up comments to other posts:

A) I travel a lot and often bring along DVD's to watch on my laptop in my hotel room. If you put a WS DVD on a 14" laptop screen and lay on the bed with the laptop on your chest, it's almost like watching it on a big screen.

B)
The WS shots from The Two Towers on this site almost made me cry, they were so beautiful . . .

. . . and . . .

C) Ryo . . . don't be fooled . . fullscreen DOES have nuclear weapons pointed at the US!!!!!

Sure but why not watch wide screen on your computer, I have a wide screen 16 X 10 configured L.C.D. Screen. My inside the screen measurements are 13 inches wide and 8 inches in height minus the black bars if it's not anamorphic disc seen from 21 inches away. If not I think of the sexiest blonde but in you case that would be a man like 'I' am. Dell I-8500 15.4 " laptop you have built in speakers or you can use PQ headphones to listen what no one else will hear, at what ever time in the AM. Your roomate won't hear a thing unless you break some windage.

Buy a bigger TV, every movie fanatic these days should own at least a 27". So sayeth I.

One thing that I haven't seen mentioned is to limit your DVD purchases to titles that were originally in full-screen (old films made before widescreen was popular, TV content, etc.) As others have mentioned, you can also get films that have both versions in the same package.

Personally, I would reccomend "sucking it up" and watching the widescreen films on your TV, although you might want to sit closer to the TV.

FYI, my TV is a 27 inch, and my viewing area is about 10 feet away (or more.)

You know what I really Love to do...makes me feel warm inside..... I like to go to an art exhibit and purchase various works of art that I later will hack the sides off to fit in the frames that I bought a while back...that way I save money and my frames are completely filled.

My TV is a 20-inch.

No pan & scan in my collection, just OAR. Listen to the lads, Highlinder - one day you'll have a big TV, and you'll be sad that you wasted cash on fullscreen.

You're in college though - I'd just rent for the time being. You need the money for ramen noodles and mountain dew! I am also in college, and if it wasn't for a job that lets me see free films, and a columbia house account, I'd be broke twice over thanks to movies.
Where is your evidence, Mr. Rumsfeld? We need more proo... ah, to hell with it, let's bomb Iraq if it means I get my widescreen Snow Dogs.