Hi,
I am hoping to buy some DVD's (of a TV series) and have found that in their description, they all have "widescreen" listed under Format.
Have companys stopped making DVD's in fullscreen ?
And will these DVD's not have it and instead utilise those black lines ?
thanks for your help

Uh oh...

What show? Most tv shows are shot in full screen, however some newer programs are shot in widescreen (and in some instances older shows have been matted for widescreen).

Forgot to say Welcome to the foum.

If it says widescreen, they are widescreen. most likely you are talking about shows produced in HD or filmed in widescreen. That would mean they are in their OAR (Original Aspect Ratio).

Full Screen is horrible and no one around here is going to help you in your quest for full screen. If a show is originaly aired in full frame then that is different, but if it has been cropped most do not want it.

Oh, and if companies gave up making cropped full screen DVDs, most of this forum would be devoted to threads praising the studios for doing so as we for the most part, 99% hate them.

Just a note, if you buy full frame films, you will have black bars on the side when you get a widescreen TV, which will be a must pretty soon as standard tvs probably will stop production sometime this year or next.

Great stuff thx

The show is Angel.
I have the first series on DVD in fullscreen and watched the last 4 in full too

er no i wont be buying a widescreen tv anytime soon, happy with what i have
i can understand the support for the option of widescreen but to make dvd's widescreen only seems silly as i would guess that still the majority of ppl dont have one

Well, I had over 1000 DVDs before I bought a widescreen tv and all of them were widescreen except a few that did not have widescreen versions. I also had widescreen VHS back in the days when widescreen tvs did not exsist. Most people here are the same.

The type of tv has nothing to do with it. We prefer to see the entire image not one that has been cropped to fit our screen. A full screen movie (pan & Scan) is missing a substantial amount of the video as compared to the OAR or widescreen version.

Full Screen is more of an option as you put it as it crops the film for people that do not like letterboxing (black bars). I doubt you will ever see Angel (the seasons shot in widescreen) in anything but widescreen. As HDTVs become more prolific I look for full screen to become less and less prevelant till if we are lucky, they are gone completely.

Check this page out for some information:
http://www.widescreenadvocate.org/widescreenprimer.html
You might find it interesting.

Seasons 3-5 of Angel were composed for widescreen and really look quite awful cropped to fullscreen, with people's faces being chopped in half all over the place. Regardless of your TV shape, I can't imagine wanting Angel in fullscreen.

Some said the same thing about color TVs in the 1960s.

Some people spend too much time considering their answers...