Well working at Walmart, in Electronics I hear this all the time. Im amazed at how many people think widescreen cuts off the top and bottom. And I could care less if you paid too much for a 52" 4:3, and you want to fill the screen. I got tired of explaining it, so I keep a piece of paper in my pocket, with picture examples of a wide screen, screen cap and a Pan & Scan. Pictures are worth a thousand words :)

I just bought a rear projection TV a few months ago, a 57" Hitachi HDTV for $1600. Unless they plan on chopping the prices on those 42" LCD sets sometime soon, RP isn't going to go away...at present its the most affordable way to have a big screen HDTV in your home, and taking them off the market isn't going to help the WS cause.

I never understand the wide screen evangelists. I've been accosted by them on at least two occasions. Once while buying a full-screen DVD as a present for my godson and once while just browsing movies. Neither time did I ask for the person's help. They just took it upon themselves to start preaching to me (even though I already understood) the benefits of widescreen. I don't understand why people need to interject themselves in the lives of others. If they ask you for help, sure, give them an earful, but let other people live their lives the way they want. Kinda reminds me of religious evangelists at times. Scary.

Full screen is just wrong. That's all there is to it.

A movie image does not fit on a standard TV. You can't make it fill a standard TV without distorting the image. What's so hard to understand about that?

The only time full screen is right is when the original presentation was in full screen, such as TV shows on DVD. If it was on the big screen, then widescreen is not just the right choice, it's the only choice.

But people can be, and frequently are, stupid.

Over the holidays I showed my in laws the advantages of widescreen. Most of them got it, except for one. Even though he could see the difference, he didn't like the black bars -ohbfrank- There is no way getting through to some people, even when you saw them all the facts

If the people who buy fullscreen DVD's don't know any better just why would they ever ask for help. MOST people would prefer WS if they were informed of the differences.

I prefer my world were people offer to help out others as opposed to your world were nobody offers to help out each other!

Yeah, most people don't care.

Here, in Europe, you'd barely ever find an alternate pan and scan version of any movie, on DVD (opposite for VHS). Widescreen only. Not that we know better or anything. People say to me all the time, "why is there black bars?", "you don't zoom in?" -- but we sort of take what we're given for the most part. 99% of people here would watch Ben-Hur in letterbox, then right after, The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly in 4:3 and wouldn't notice the difference, nor care less, if they did.

Not to mention that -

A) They can't yet make an LCD TV very large yet
B) They can't make an LCD (or DLP for that matter) in very high resolution. Right now they're doing 720P at best.

/r

Reading this, I imagined you wearing a brown suit, waistcoat, derby hat, and monacle until I got to...

...which I was unaware anyone still used except for Michelangelo, the Ninja Turtle.

I hear ya on the second point, but I think badger's point was at the end of the day, we're talking about shiny discs that play movies on the tv here, not world hunger. So no need to come down on anybody.

You gotta learn to separate the "stuff" from the stuff.

I prefer my world where you get help when you ask for it, and if you don't ask, people leave you the hell alone. I don't understand the people who try to "convert" people to WS, unless it's friends or family. But if you're just in a B&M and start talking to some stranger about the benefits of WS, I think about as highly of you as a religious fanatic, which is not very high.

Here's a point that nobody has seemed to mention here that I think would also go a long way in describing to people the difference...well, it couldn't hurt.

OK, is it not a given fact, that on all Fullscreen DVDs that the message, "This movie has been reformatted/altered to fit your screen." appears before the movie plays and on the case itself. While WS DVDs sometimes have the message "This movie is presented in widescreen/letterbox format to preserve the theatrical aspect ratio...the black bars are normal" or some such?

If these stupid sumbitches can't comprehend what "reformatted to fit your screen" means, then there's no cure. "Ignorance is temporary, stupidity is forever."

Here's the thing, guys. I don't like FS- or shall we say, the wrong OAR- anymore than anyone else....but the reason the casual watchers buy FS isn't advanced calculus. A guy owns a 19 inch TV set. He buys his favorite movie in WS... 235:1 OAR. Now, how much of his 19 inch screen is going to be utilized to watch the movie? Half or so? Yeah, he's seeing the movie as the director intended it to be shown, but should he be happy that he's watching a movie thats 9 or 10 inches wide on a 19 inch screen? He doesn't care about OAR, he cares about seeing the picture fill his already modest sized screen. I know, I know. He's going to be seeing the WHOLE movie....but is he going to feel like he's watching the whole movie when it only fills half the viewing area of his set?

Until you get the 4:3 sets off the market then WS is going to be a hard sell to many, many people. Once that happens FS will die of natural causes because people won't like 'bars' on the sides of their wide TV screens, and sadly, it will make more sense to them what all the fuss about WS being better than FS was about.

While that may be true for folks with 19" TVs, how many people these days only have a 19" TV? Hell, my computer monitor is 19" Flatscreen.

I think the actual norm these days is more like 27". When a 27" Flatscreen tends to be about the standard TV being sold in places like Wal Mart for less than $400. I have a 32" w/ 16:9 enhanced mode and the TV is about the right size for my room. I could use a 42" WS TV in the area where my current TV sits and that would be plenty of TV for my room. But a 50" plasma would be max. I say plasma because nothing bigger than a 42" would fit in the space I have. I'd have to wall in my TV hole and hang anything bigger than 42".

My current TV has to survive another 2-3 years until 42" plasmas are relatively cheap enough.

So using your analogy the poor victims of the Tsunami should suffer because they can not be heard asking for help outside of those in the immediate area? That is rediculous and lacks all compasion! Yes, DVD buying is a mere joke compared to the aweful tragedy around the Indian Ocean but it still is nice to be able to help out those who are less informed and are in the vast majority of cases happy you pointed out the differences between WS and FS.

god..... watching a FS DVD IS NOT THE END OF THE WORLD...

see my sig...

I was mainly speaking about pushy sales clerks asking if I need any help when I know exactly what I want before I even enter the store.