sorry caiman, but your thread doesn't make any sense, because producing DVD's is cheap and - mainly: the success of a seller resides in the ignorance of the buyer.

My Collection

I don't think the studios have anything to gain with education. I think costs would pretty much be the same.

Ifthey ship 2 millions DVDs, it doesn't matter if 1/2 are full and /2 are wide, it's still 2 million keepcases, 2 million discs to press, 2 million covers and 2 million inserts to print.

And, as far as reformatting/reframing costs, that's unavoidable as the process will be done anyway for TV broascasts, in-flight movies, and other distribution.

Not only that, fullscreen is much more expensive to produce than widescreen.

It all comes down to cold hard cash. People will buy either version. When widescreen HDTVs becomes the norm those who purchased fullscreen will have to buy widescreen to get rid of those gray bars on the side. So therefore there will be new SE's w/ new features and better sound and breathtaking transfers for all those that already bought the widescreen DVDs. Everyone spends money to upgrade. Movie studios keep making money. And they start plotting the next big thing.

I think education would be good, and studios should put a WS tutorial whenever they can on a DVD.

However, the problem with the two comparison pics shown here is that P&S only applies to films shot in anamorphic 2.35:1. It's an oversimplification, which is similar to lying. There a thousands of films shot in 1.85:1 or 1.66:1 format that can be open-matted for 4:3 presentation. Even films shot in 2.35:1 are increasingly being shot on Super35, which allows for some recomposition that isn't a straight P&S. You can't even say that the F/X will always be cropped, since some newer films have the F/X rerendered for the 4:3 image.

Saying WS is better because it shows you more gives the impression to the newbie that seeing more of the image is what's important. Then, when they find out that some 4:3 images actually do show more than their WS counterparts, these people get pissed. It happened to MGM, which erroneously showed on the back of their DVDs of certain films the 4:3 image of a film as being cropped in comparison to the WS image. when someone found out that the 4:3 image was open-matte and actually showed more, he got pissed and sued them.

This oversimplification (WS shows more), is ultimately harmful, even though it's very effective with people in the short run. It creates the kind of people who will want a TV show like Buffy to be shown in WS on DVD because the WS image shows more, never mind the fact that the show was composed and intended for viewing in 4:3. It also creates people who become bitter when they learn "the truth," and become much harder to convince of the real reason to prefer WS: that it's about composition and seeing what the director intended you to see, not just "the most image" period.

The best site for explaining WS may be this one:
http://home1.gte.net/res0mrb7/widescreen/

They have had some short comperisons on a few DVD's. Die Hard 5* and Pearl Harbor come to mind. In both cases I remember the feature as being almost hidden in the menu. If they're going to force trailers, why not force a 10 second comparison showing why the film was released WS only?

Studios aren't "educating" people about the benefits of widescreen because their not naive enough to believe that everyone could AFFORD one even if they were educated; or better yet would WANT to invest in one for the sole purpose of watching DVDs.

eh? We're talking the widescreen format not widescreen televisions. Plus last time I checked widescreen tvs could be used for watching television as well as dvds...

As long as people are buying a movie, whether it be widescreen or fullscreen, no education is needed.

Likewise as long as lots of people buy Hondas, Honda doesn't need to educate people on what VTEC actually does.

Actually, cross, Honda *does* educate the consumer about the features of their vehicles. Walk into any Honda dealership and ask someone there.

Then try walking into Best Buy and asking someone about a particular DVD. I think you'll find a world of difference.

And at the Honda dealership you can walk away with literature about the car you're interested in.

There is a difference between "does" and "needs" jough.

Does the studio educate the average consumer about widescreen? No. Would it increase their DVD sales of a movie. Probably not. Thus, does the studio need to educate the average consumer about widescreen? No.

Should the studio's educate the average consumer about widescreen? In my opinion, no.

Is widescreen better than fullscreen? Definitely.

Do I think that there is a big consipiracy going on where studios convince Best Buy to hire incompetent employees? From my experience in public schools, probably not.

I changed the subject a bit but I'll respond anyways. Do a lot of people buy Hondas not really knowing what VTEC does? Yes.
But wait, if a company actually "does" something, doesn't that imply that they determined from research that they "need" to do that? Yes, if sales are dependent on customers knowing their best features on the car.

Unfortunately, as an earlier poster already mentioned, whether you buy a widescreen version or a fullscreen version of a DVD probably doesn't matter to the studio.

You're getting closer caiman. But keep in mind that converting to a fullscreen shot is not randomly chopping off the left or right 1/3 of the picture. They try to keep as many of the main elements within the shot that they can. In this case, the full screen shot would include both Ford and Connery, like so:

Also note that you had to reduce your widescreen image to about 40% of its original size to get it to fit into your 4:3 frame. Though maintaining the original compostion of the shot, the size is significantly reduced and that factor bothers some people. Skimming through most of the widescreen advocacy sites, I notice that many of them make the same mistake. Their pan-and-scan and widescreen examples are shown with both pictures measuring the same height, not demonstrating the significant reduction of the widescreen picture so that it would fit into the same 4:3 frame and therefore not giving a totally accurate representation of their differences.

Given a more accurately scaled comparison:
This or this , the choice becomes less obvious than having a shot of Ford having a conversion with himself. Not saying that the widescreen version isn't still preferable to all of us DVDTalkers, but we might have a little more insight that some people prefer fullscreen. Sure, they lose significant content at times, like a fourth Ghostbuster, and get unnatural camera movements due to panning and scanning, but it also isn't fair to make inaccurate, skewed representations and think that fullscreen buyers are totally "idiotic".

Am I advocating fullscreen versions? In a manner of speaking, yes. Though not due to their content. Personally, if I were going to buy a DVD and I accidently picked the fullscreen version off the shelf, I would put it back with such a reaction, you'd think the box was diseased. But I'm advocating it for that percentage of the DVD market that fullscreen represents. The popularity of DVD, fullscreen buyers included, has resulted in more catalog titles and more television series being on DVD than if the market didn't include fullscreen buyers.

Consider news that a widescreen version of a movie outsells the fullscreen version 4 to 1. There'd be posts on DVDTalk and other forums titled "Hooray, we're winning! WS outsells FS!" A sizable difference, right? But what if we were to hear news that the studios were making moves that reduce the home video sales by 20%? We would think they were out of their minds. That would be the percentage loss if fullscreen buyers weren't given that choice and didn't buy at all or bought VHS instead, given my example.

We don't have to worry about widescreen being fazed out. Sales trends of home video software and hardware make widescreen quite secure. Education towards widescreen is coming through, though not as fast as we would like. But it's not worth it to work yourself up and feel disdain towards fullscreen buyers and want to exclude them from your hobby. So, the next time you see someone wanting to buy a fullscreen version, think to yourself, "Thanks for helping the market" and pick up your own widescreen version.

This has been mentioned before in other threads, but I'll bring it up again here.

I don't see why studios wouldn't prefer to deal with one version over two. It is hard enough already to try to figure out product demand for a single item, but when you have two items, that are "substitutes" for each other no less, in gets much more difficult. The problem comes here . . . if you estimate that there will be 2 million DVDs purchased overall, it is easy enough to make 2 million DVDs of one kind. It is expected that the estimate will not be "dead on" (+/- 10,000, let's say . . . a 1/2% discrepancy). Therefore, you might have a 10,000 unit shortage or a 10,000 unit surplus.

If you have to then additionally estimate how many of the WS and the FF DVD's will make up that 2 million, it makes the production much more risky. If you assume that the sales will be split 50/50, there is some innaccuracy that will result there as well. If the 1/2% discrepenacy happens here too, you could end up with, for example, a 5,000 DVD shortage in WS and a 5,000 surplus in FF. That makes the possibility for a 15,000 surplus in FF and 5,000 shortage in WS (or, God forbid, vice versa ).

It seems like an additional level of risk that I would think that the studios would want to avoid.

As another thread points out the top selling DVDs are all WS. So hopefully this discussion will be moot in the near future.

I would agree with you more if the studios actually followed the practice that you described above, but, unfortunately, on those widescreen advocacy sites, that are not using hypotheticals . . . they are using actual WS to FF comparisons. That studios don't always use what we consider to be the optimal selection of the available screen. For example (from this thread):



I mean, c'mon . . . it's The mask Of Zorro . . . wouldn't you think you'd keep Zorro in the picture?

Why?

Simple. The studios would rather satisfy the simple minded by making the FS, versus pissing them off and not have any sales at all. The only thing the studios can do is educate the kids w/ WS, while stuffing the adults w/ FS.

FS is more expensive to produce than WS because you have to put more picture in the FS version, which takes more time. j/k

Your Mask of Zorro is an excellent, accurate presentation, but it is an exception to the comparative presentations made on widescreen advocacy sites such as:

http://home1.gte.net/res0mrb7/widescreen/
http://www.widescreen.org/examples.shtml
http://www.geocities.com/obsessivetougafan/grease.html
http://www.thedigitalbits.com/articl...eenorama2.html
http://www1.tripnet.se/~adler/widescreen/ws2.html

While these sites want to emphasize the content of the frames more than the actual size of them, they're not actual WS to FS comparisons in that the scale of the frames are wrong. Again, the WS and FS pictures are the same height and that's not how they would both appear on the same 4:3 screen.
Nor was I trying to say that the studios can always frame the main content of the screen in FS. There are plenty of examples of whole characters being edited out of shots. Again, your example shows that a bigger picture does not equal more content.
Actually, it matters very much to the studios. I'm sure they gauge production of WS and FS ratios based on buying trends. But their primary concern is that people do buy copies and at this point, eliminating that choice would cut back a lot of sales. Lack of sales means lack of development.

As many people here have said, it is about money, sales and business. Sure it's got artistic vision, but it is the film industry. And if you want to have cinematic vision without regard to business, you might end up with a Michael Cimino of Heaven's Gate.

I guess I got confused. I thought, because of what you said in the beginning and the shot that you included:

. . . that you were saying that P&S pictures were always centered on the action.

If that is not what you meant, then nevermind, but I am still confused by you wording.

Because it takes a lot more studio time to plan the transfer, recompose all the shots, and add artificial camera movement.

nonetheless, as stated before, the pan and scan version is going to get made, for television, airlines, etc. So I suppose it's a moot point at this time.

Why was W/S screen even invented? To compete with the sagging sales due to the growing popularity of televison.

If the above is true why would studios want to make the movie watching experience any more "Theater Esqe" at home.

We'll now that we have a home video market that, with dvd, is bringing in returns comprable to box office and is a making for a true Home Theater Experience. So after a history of Studios trying to compete with TV they are just now getting excited about bringing the movies home.

That being said I agree totally that they would want to promote DVD's for the Wide Screen Feature: 1. It will inspire people to replace thier VHS copies. 2. It will inspire people to upgrade there fs dvd copies. 3. It gives people a reason to actually buy the movie instead of just watching it on pay tv or ppv (Letter Boxing if very limited for now in this area).

I created that Mask of Zorro example for a summerlong newspaper series I wrote called Widescreen 101. Just to reiterate--to be sure folks have this right (and I think most do)--those screen captures are from the actual widescreen and full-screen presentations on the DVD. I found the exact same moment in the film on each disc of the two-disc special edition, which has both presentations, and captured it. The captures were not altered or doctored in any way other than a boost in contrast and brightness for newspaper reproduction because the scene was so dark.

For what it's worth, that was just one of dozens of scenes I could have used in the movie. I went through the widescreen version and noted every instance in which the on-screen action posed a challenge for the pan-and-scan version. Then I went through the latter, and in nearly every case, the framing was done so poorly that it omitted major things--unlike the neat Indy P&S example. Zorro is a case where the action is so fast and side-to-side that a P&S transfer simply can't keep up.

Director John Carpenter calls P&S fans "idiots" in my introductory WS101 article. I got many emails from readers complaining about that--including one who started with the salutation "you stupid arrogant little man"--but I was just the messenger. It was Carpenter's opinion.

Because DVD buyers go to movies more often. What you posit is the same error in thinking that has the RIAA up in arms about the supposed evils of MP3s, when in fact MP3 pirates buy more, not fewer, CDs than the average consumer.

Plus, this will only get more complicated for how they handle a 2.35:1 film where there's a possibility that three different versions will be created: one in OAR with letterboxing, one reformatted to fill widescreen TV's, and one reformatted to fill 4:3 sets.

RKillgore, you make some good points, but I don't think that saying that the studios would give up 20% of sales if they didn't produce a fullscreen version is correct. Although most of us widescreen fans will refuse to purchase a DVD that is fullscreen only, I don't think most fullscreen fans feel the same way about widescreen. Sure, they would prefer a fullscreen version, but they wouldn't refuse to buy something on principle like we do.