I show them the explanations, if they're at my house, there is a great feature called 'Why Letterbox' on the Die Hard 5*, and then people ask why are they shown in widescreen anyway?
that I'm not sure how to answer.
is it because when it is shown in theaters it is more appealing?

-chile

I actually stated to the people there that IN THIS CASE the widescreen was the way to go, though I didn't really get into OAR much with them. Oh well.

OK, so where's the cool page illustrating widescreen with the 3rd Harry Potter movie? The P&S release was HORRID, because of the way the movie was framed with action on the sides, two people talking, etc.

EDIT: found it, it's a GOOD read and way to show your ignorant friends what OAR means: http://plum.cream.org/HP/poa.htm

Yeah, I've used that site to convert a couple of friends. It's only successful about 50% of the time. Ah well, they'll do as they please. I just won't go over to their place to watch a movie with them unless it's a film I'm bringing with me.

-JP

"WS is better than FS" is definitely an opinion. Saying that the FS version of RotS has more image is not an opinion, it is a mistake.

I am so over trying to convert others. As long as they keep making OAR versions available, I am happy. Of course if asked I will always explain the difference.

I can't watch movies on TV anymore because of their fullscreen broadcasts, and now I hate watching most of my favourite TV shows on TV as well. I have a standard def TV, so alot of the shows I watch are in fullscreen... Lost being a major example. I missed the season premiere so I downloaded the bittorrent, which was of the HD broadcast and in widescreen.

Now when I watch it on TV, it just looks horrible.

I couldn't care less that people think that fullscreen is better, and somehow don't undertstand the concept... what annoys me is when I bring a movie to a friend's house and they use the zoom function because they think that makes it fullscreen. I feel like throwing my shoe at their head, because no matter how hard I try to explain it they still say it's "better" that way.

Argggggg, people are stupid!!!

Trying to push widescreen to your average Wal-Mart shopper is an uphill battle. Not for the faint of heart.

I don't know why they just don't stop making them, and tell TV networks they can't air movies in full frame anymore. It's not like people are going to stop buying movies...

People aren't stupid, they are just accumstomed to P&S. If they want to buy P&S films when the WS/OAR equivalent is right there as well, then, good for them. As long as they release films in OAR on DVD/HD-DVD I really couldn't care less about someone elses' purchase.

I am definately a purist when it comes to watching MY films but sometimes, too much knowledge and too little experience is a dangerous thing.

Case & Point. When "Bambi" was released on DVD, I was in the store getting a copy and a young man came over, searched the rack in its entirety and called a clerk over to help him find the WS version of the film. I let him know that the film's OAR was not WS and he decided not to get it because no WS version had been released.

OAR, it's the only way to go.

When I was getting Star Wars Episode III at Target, there was a lady who already had a FS copy in hand. I'm in a wheelchair, and she offered to help, and asked which version I wanted, I said "definitely widescreen", and she said "is widescreen better?" I explained that on Star Wars, with FS you lose about 40% of the picture, while with WS you get the exact image you saw in the cinema.

She not only got a WS down for me, but put back that FS and got a WS for herself.

My theory is certain people still prefer fullscreen is because they are accustomed to viewing movies on the VHS format for many years.

I always get a kick out of these types of threads.

YEAH! The widescreen police!!! You guys are just too cool!!






Exactly.

Um, it becomes an issue when films are released ONLY in Full-screen, or at many rental places you can only get the full-screen version (bless Blockbuster for choosing widescreen only). I think it's a legitimate issue.

So WHY are films shot in such a wide aspect ratio? 20 years ago, films weren't shot with the home video market in mind. But today?

I think the theatres should show the differences, maybe a 2 minute clip before the movie. If I was a director or a movie maker, I wouldn't want my work cut to shit.

I used to fight that battle every time I was in a store, it seemed. Last year I just gave up. It's not that I don't want to stand up for WS....I'm just a little tired of holding hands. Hey, if people want to be foolish and continue to miss the boat of information....tough shit. Foolscreen is for fools....period.

Man, as soon as I hit over 2,000 titles I became a mean bastard.

But is that really anything to worry about?... how many titles are only available in the incorrect aspect ratio? .01%? And how many places refuse to stock widescreen films? I'm not aware of any (although I'm basically a Netflix guy).

I guess what I'm saying is that I was a lot more worked up about advocating widescreen during the days of laserdisc and the early days of DVD. But now, it seems like just about everything is in the proper aspect ratio. We've fought the battle... and we won. Unless I start seeing studios taking a different approach (something that is unlikely, given the increase in 16x9 sets), I find it hard to care what some random person prefers to buy in a Wal-Mart. If someone asks my opinion, I'll certainly give it -- but I'm not going to lecture some stranger who prefers pan & scan.

Don't you just love it when you make a statement that you know to be irrefutable fact yet some lemming writes it off as opinion? These people are so used to being lied to that they can't help but have that kind of knee jerk reaction when truth (of any kind) is staring in their face.

Because of the fast rising popularity of television in the 1940s and 50s, the film industry felt it needed to give the audience something which couldn't be experienced at home. Why go to the cinema, if you can be entertained at home? There was some experimentation with 3-D, but it was largely unsuccessfull. "This Is Cinerama" came out in 1952 using a wraparound screening system originally developed for flight simulation training. The industry latched onto the idea of using a wide format and, gradually, a wider than TV format became the norm for theatrical projection.

A lot of people are stupid. See how the current pres. got re-elected.

thanks so much gfoots for the fast reply.

the only tv I watch is conan, and it's in widescreen

A person that prefers full screen to widescreen usually means that the person does not have an HDTV, such as this guy who says full screen shows more picture. And he is right, but his idea of "picture or image" has nothing to do with the movie itself getting cut apart and zoomed in. His idea of "picture or image" only has to do with what the eye sees. And from his tv perspective he is right. This is all just a misunderstanding and miscommunication with the arguing sides not understanding one's tv situation. When people argue and no one understands a point, it means that no one is listening to each other and no one understands their justifications. Everyone is just expressing their personal taste without able to explain why.

The Wally World anti-widescreen dude translation: A full screen DVD does show more image on a square tv. A widescreen DVD shows less image on a square tv. This is true. In the Joe Shmo anti-widescreen mind, his meaning of image does not have anything to do with the movie itself or that the movie is getting chopped up due to the pan and scan. He doesn't give a rat's ass or probably isn't even aware that the movie is chopped up and zoomed in...When he says "image", he means what the eye sees. The more the eye sees, the more the "image." Simple as that! There is more the eye can see when watching a full screen DVD on an old school square CRT tv than watching a widescreen dvd on an old school square CRT tv.

So it makes no sense to argue the widescreen versus fullscreen with a person that owns a normal square tv and is not fully aware of an HDTV and what it does. It is quite obvious that this dude and the lady have no understanding of what an HDTV is or does.

Now if this dumb ass guy knows what an HDTV is and, even worse, if he owns a widescreen HDTV and prefers to watch fullscreen DVDs on it, then we have a serious retard in our hands. I have a feeling he doesnt know what an HDTV is, so it's not his fault and according to his theory he is right, because he assumes that all tvs are like his own square tv - even the rectangle looking ones. He will be enlightened one of these days...same with the lady...

Also remember that a lot of people in the world are not aware of the different screen ratios. If one isn't aware that the movie screen ratios are different from an old school CRT square tv ratios, there is no way that they can understand the concept of watching widecreen DVDs on HDTVs, unless they are good listeners and are interested in learning, unlike this Wally World dude who probably likes to listen to himself talk and is set in his ways and will block out anything that seems different from his world...so it's not his fault that he's a dumb ass...

I've found more that many people just don't give a shit as much as you about movies, not that they are stupid.

What does HDTV have to do with widescreen? Nothing, as far as I know. There are standard widescreen TVs, right?

I have a traditional "square" TV. I only buy widescreen. Fullscreen DVDs don't show you more of anything. All it does is fill the standard TV screen, and in the process the original image is distorted. I'm sure everyone here knows that.

Just because I don't own a widescreen TV doesn't mean I don't want to watch my movies in widescreen. I just understand that in order to get a rectangular movie image to fully appear on my TV, it has to be shrunk down a bit. The "bars" only matter if you look at them. I'm not rich, so I guess if I owned a widescreen TV, the image I'd see probably wouldn't be much larger than what I'm seeing on my standard 32-inch TV.

When I watch a widescreen movie on my standard TV, I know I'm seeing everything, and everything appears the way it's supposed to.

But when it comes down to it, I do believe many people are stupid.

I work at a video store and the amount of people who rent fullscreen is actually rather large. I don't stop them from doing it, but if someone asks, I'll explain to them the difference. The typical response tends to be "Oh I hate those black bars. Lets get fullscreen." Even after I tell them you lose part of the image with fullscreen, they don't seem that concerned. It's seems to be the black bars that really turn people off of it. Which I understand, I guess. As someone else said, as long as the Widescreen/OAR is available, I'm happy.

Kind of to go along with this. Tonight at work a woman returned A Very Long Engagement. As she drops it in she says to me "You should have a sign saying what movies are in subtitles. If I wanted to read I'd get a book." She said it in a kidding way, not mean. But it just showed me how a lot of people still do not like reading subittles either.

She then got Crash...in fullscreen, I believe.