salamander2

I assume this is sarcasm?

Comfort Eagle

I bought one just to spite you...

Ok, honestly I have no idea why anyone would buy fullscreen.

salamander2

why we buy fullscreen all the time, if thats the OAR.

awmurray

That's more like it...

Egon's Ghost

Blockbuster exclusively has widescreen in all of their stores, right?

emhello

These are the same people who eat at Denny's all the time I bet.

DeanoBKN

Most of them do. They make it so hard for us to hate them!

darkside

Funny.

Yeah, its not about widescreen or fullscreen its about OAR. Lions Gate is screwing us just as much by cropping films for 1.78:1 as other studios are for cropping films to 1.33:1. Taking a film like Ninja Scroll that is 1.33:1 and chopping the top and bottom off to make it widescreen is also no better.

Studios don't get it and probably never will. They are run by many of the same idiots that whine about the black bars during their movies.

alfredog1976

I have always bought widescreen dvds...until I got a Video iPod. I actually had my brother buy me the Fullscreen version of the original Star Wars Trilogy for Christmas. I just found the "look" to be better and, as someone previously posted, video ipod screen real estate is a premium. Just too small for a widescreen movie. This doesnt mean I'm going to re-buy all my dvds in Fullscreen, doesn't make much sense.

Eric D.

At least they included the original OAR version of Ninja Scroll on the edition that also had the fake widescreen version IIRC.

darkside

I get this on a portable device. I have watched a couple of UMDs on the PSP that were cropped for 1.78:1 and while I would have prefered 2.35:1 (Hero looks great at the proper OAR on the PSP by the way) the small screen does make the cropping practice make a bit more sense. On a widescreen TV though this is not true. Most people with widescreen sets are going to be at 45" or more in screen size and this is plenty of screen to not be bothered by black bars.

CertifiedTHX

With all this talk of minor adjustments to aspect ratios, I'm reminded of something I find interesting to ponder: Could 4:3 TV shows be reformatted to 16:9 with only the slightest compromise of the original composition?

Overscan is taken into consideration when composing for TV, so extra picture information exists on the original negative beyond what you actually see on the screen. And I have observed that in 4:3 compositions, there tends to be an overabundance of picture information on the vertical. Ignoring for the sake of this discussion the artistry that has gone into 4:3, here is my question:

Is it possible to use that extra picture information on the negative to expand the sides, and then crop from the top and/or bottom enough to recompose a shot? Not that I'm advocating this; the idea just intrigues me.

--THX

Super Leviathan

It appears though the Wide-Screen/Fullscreen debacle will continue until someone invents 2.35:1 TVs, which i hope is soon (but they probably won't be the norm).

Ps. My Brother (who was reading over my shuolder as i wrote this) wanted me to tell you guys here that he buys fullscreen DVD's intentionally simply becuase "it pisses the hell" out of everyone here. He also said if anyone wanted to talk to him about it, he has his cell phone ready.

darkside

Why would anyone on this forum give two shits about the kind of DVDs your brother buys? Anyone that prefers their movies cut to fullscreen is welcome to buy all of them they can afford. While there have been a couple of bad DVD releases 99.9% of DVDs are released in the proper aspect ratio so the consumers that buy cropped movies have really done little to hurt the rest of us. Hopefully those same fullscreen addicts will pick up widescreen HDTVs soon so they can watch their garbage pan and scan movies stretched on the 16X9 screen.

f5seth

I was a bit freaked out when I picked up Kubrick's Shinning and noticed it was 4:3. It wasn't until I started watching it that I realized how critical the 4:3 frame was to Kubrick's vision. The movie looks beautiful when I zoom in and have it fully fill my 16:9 TV, but when I revert back to the OAR of 4:3 the movie looks increadibly claustraphobic as it is surely intended to be.

Has anyone experimented much with watching open matte movies? I have the orginal double-sided Get Shorty with the 16:9 and open matte 4:3 on the flip side. I love that movie but I never watch the whole thing in 4:3. I'm just curious if anyone has watched Get Shorty or any other film in open matte and can report if it is a better experience (showing "more movie") or inferior experice due to exposed mike booms or other flaws.

darkside

Open matte can be a bad experience. I think Pee Wee's Big Adventure is one of the big examples of this, but there were a couple of films were more nudity was shown in the open matter versions. Can't remember the movies in question now, but I'm sure someone will.

awmurray

Isn't it kind of stupid to buy something just to piss someone else off? Damn that's lame. I buy stuff because I want it not because of popular opinion.

I don't care what other people buy, but not at the expense of having movies available in their OAR.

I can't wait for these people to get widescreen sets so they can watch their FS DVDs pillarboxed.

mndtrp

I buy widescreen dvd's because of two reasons: I want to see all of what I was originally intended to see, and I'll eventually be getting a widescreen tv.

My father will buy widescreen dvd's for the tv reason above. My mother will buy fullscreen dvd's because she doesn't like having half of the tv rendered useless. She knows full well about losing part of the movie, but she doesn't care. I understand her point, and don't fault her any for it. It's rare that whatever is cut out of a fullscreen film is important to following the film. Most of the time, it will enhance what is already there, though.

Nicegreen

A friend at work and I sometimes loan each other DVDs. Unless the DVD offers both widescreen and fullscreen versions, I know I will get the fullscreen. It's irritating, because you do lose information when you can't see the entire image. But, for the forseeable future, I don't see the audience for fullscreen going away.

lizard

While there haven't been a lot of movies released only in non-OAR fullscreen versions, one of the ones that was, is a movie I have been waiting for for years. So I am displeased that the movie studios are kowtowing to the fullscreen crowd at the expense of those of us who want the OAR.

And the fullscreen problem won't be going away on the coming HD formats either. I will go out on a limb and predict that number of 2.39:1 movies and 1.33:1 movies and TV shows that are cut to the "new fullscreen" of 16:9 on the new HD formats, and not released in OAR, will be considerably greater than the 0.1% you estimate it is for DVD. I'll guess somewhere on the order of 20% of 2.39:1 movies will be released in non-OAR 16:9 only . And I will guess that essentially all 2.39:1 movies, and many 1.33:1 TV shows, will have a 16:9 fullscreen version released on HD.

darkside

There is no way this problem reaches 20% on the HD formats. The backlash from consumers will be too much for that. The people buying HD-DVD players and Blu-Ray players for at least the first couple of years are going to be videophiles and they will not put up with 20% of those movies being cut from 2.35:1 to 1.78:1.

Lion's Gate has already been flooded with complaints over just one DVD being cut that way so I think this problem will get dealt with before it becomes a major issue.

In the late 90's everyone was just as worried that DVD would switch to mostly fullscreen releases once the format caught on with mainstream consumers and that turned out to not be true.

GuessWho

The problem is in the word "full" in full screen -- it implies you're seeing the whole (full) thing

And also that most poepl don't read the box. It's an implulse buy and they just say "Oh! Zorro! Cool!" and grab the first one on the shelf.

Eric D.

The Shinning looks like crap in 4:3. I doubt Kubrick intended for the helicopter shadow to be seen throughout most of the opening. But that's just me.

MovieExchange

The dumbest thing I hear from the foolscreen crowd is when they bitch about "losing part of the picture to the black bars" (a belief they hold tighter than any security blanket) and then talk about "getting around widescreen" by using the "zoom" button.

Ummm, hey there slappy... "zoom" means you're getting a close-up of the picture. Now maybe I've just always had shitty DVD players, but when I use the "zoom" feature (which is different than the "stretch" feature), I end up cutting out part of the picture on all sides.

dvd_luver

This thread is quite entertaining. Let other people buy what they want, I understand what OAR means, and in most cases I will buy the film on DVD in Widescreen or it's intended OAR. If I buy a movie on DVD and it's Full Screen, and not in OAR, I just feel like I got cheated. So for me, I prefer Widescreen, and I like the black bars, because I understand what OAR means, and why they are there.

If a movie I want has only been made available in Full Screen, I will make an exception if I truly want to own the film with no other WS version on the horizon.

I think some FF buyers don't care about OAR, and/or fail to understand the benefit of OAR. To me, it's important to own the better, director intended OAR DVD.

If I want Fool Screen, I can put on the movie channels anytime as long as I have cable or DirectTV.