Why are previews STILL non-anamorphic?
 

It's 2007. Anamorphic enhancement has been the norm for DVD's for many years. Yet every movie I see that has previews before the feature are in 4x3 letterbox format. Meaning they occupy a tiny little box in the center of my screen & are immediately skipped.

Why is this? Do studios not realize that audio/video are a HUGE selling point for DVD's? I'd probably sit through these things if they were presented in the same quality as the main feature. Is it just to annoy me?

i just spent some time calling around to studio heads and they said, "yes, it is to annoy Eddie W from DVDTalk"...

I've wondered about this for a while now too. They do sometimes come in anamorphic.

I was wondering the same thing last night when I put in The Departed. Only one preview was anamorphic: the one for 300. All the others were 4x3 LBX.

I'm just guessing, but it's probably that they make one preview for both versions of the DVD and 4x3 LBX is they way they have done it in the past, so that's how they keep doing it.

How is this even an issue? I wish there were NO previews at all, they take up valuable space and bitrate on the DVD, leaving less quality for the main feature (the reason we bought the DVD in the first place!).

4x3 letterbox is fine by me, they take up less space & are immediately skipped anyway!

Please don't give the $$ hungry studio exec any ideas. Before you know it the DVD we buy will have 20 HD previews and no main feature at all!

I always skip those things anyway and get annoyed they are even on my DVD in the first place.

On a completely unrleated note, how do you guys quote a previous post? THe quote checkbox is always grayed out for me. Is it a browser issue (i use firefox on the pc) or am I not worth enough to quote?

It's for the video editors. Video editing is still pretty much only done on 4x3 monitors with 4x3 video. It's up to studios to supply anamorphic video for editing and the DVD makers to flag them correctly.

If I am misinformed, enlighten me.