Why is it so important to release old movies in widescreen? It seems like the only thing that matters is that the picture is as wide as possible. But what is seen above and below is unimportant, and if the top of heads are chopped off, or if in a beautiful panorama view the top spires of a castle are gone, nobody cares.

Is this really what the customers want? Is there no organized movement against this new trend?

I have bought too many DVD movies that have been vandalized in this way.
I think the worst example may be the film Zorba, in a scene where Zorba says, "Man was given hands to grab!", and he grabs with his hands. As seen in theaters. But in this widescreen DVD, his hands have been matted away at the bottom of the picture, so left is only his face, and the sound of his words. So the scene lost most of its expressive force.

And widescreen TVs don't have those extreme proportions anyway. I have never seen a TV that is 2.35:1. So even on a widescreen TV these movies would show black bars at top and bottom.

i don't think people really care whether or not a release is widescreen or fullscreen just as long as it's OAR.

Find me a post on any website that has people clamoring for a picture "as wide as possible."

Let me be the second of a hundred people to tell you that film enthusiasts want the display to be the Original Aspect Ratio - no matter how "wide" or "narrow" it is.

pjflyer wrote: "film enthusiasts want the display to be the Original Aspect Ratio - no matter how "wide" or "narrow" it is."

It often says on the back of DVD boxes: "Shown in its original theater aspect ratio. Enhanced for widescreen TVs."

How can it be original and enhanced at the same time? I wonder if this "enhancement" is not a little extra added matting sometimes, at the arbitrary taste of the DVD producers.

DITTO.

Could the "enhancement" be the adding of the anamorphic feature?

I have The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad on DVD, in matted widescreen.
And I refuse to believe that it was originally shown that way in theaters, with the cyclops running around on the beach with the top of his head gone. Ray Harryhausen would never had accepted that. He was very concerned that stop motion models be visible in the whole.

What exactly is the anamorphic feature??

Basically it means it makes full use of your widescreen TV instead of cutting down to 4:3 first then using bars.

yes, "enhanced for widescreen tvs" simply means it has an anamorphic transfer - basically, it takes advantage of the added horizontal resolution provided by a widescreen tv. it has no bearing on the aspect ratio of the film framing.

newbs

My leg is stretching!

Anyhow my DVD doc says read this: http://www.thedigitalbits.com/articl...reenorama.html.

Well the OP does make a point (abeit a minor one). There are a few folks out there who prefer widescreen exclusively just like much of the foolish masses prefer fullscreen exclusively. It's a much smaller group, of course, but I've come across them. Usually it's someone who just got his first HDTV and thinks the 4:3 OAR films/shows are "better" when cropped for widescreen because it eliminates the vertical black bars. (I kid you not.)

Original Aspect Ratio, that’s all I care about.

Goldblum, I’ve had the same experience myself with a friend who bought a WS HDTV and crops the picture to eliminate the “Black Bars” on the top & bottom, because he thinks that’s “better”. Of course, this is the same guy, who before having an HDTV, thought Full Screen was better than Widescreen & refuses to buy a movie in WS.

Some people really need a kick in the a** on this whole Full Screen vs Widescreen, what’s better?

There is at least one movie that i can think of that will never be released at OAR and its the Wizard of Oz, I don't know what the OAR is but I read somewhere that its like three or four times as wide as it is tall if that makes any sense.

No sir. Wizard of Oz is 4:3. It might seem like one of those movies that must have had a grand widescreen presentation, but it did not.

Ooh! To quote the wiki:
"The original theatrical release was 1.37:1 aspect ratio, which is projected in 1.33:1, with the additional width accommodating the soundtrack. All of the film's VHS and DVD releases have been in the original format."

OAR and nothing else, period. That's all I care about.

And a 2.35:1 widescreen TV is a great idea... until you want to watch anything that ISN'T 2.35:1. No one would make one because they'd be completely useless.

While Terri obviously has some ramping up to do on the terminology, he/she makes a valid point about The 7th Voyage Of Sinbad DVD. It is very poorly framed, for whatever reason.

That being said, the vast majority of widescreen DVDs properly display the image as it was originally shown in theaters, and most of us wouldn't have it any other way.

anamorphic/enhanced fro widescreen TVs basically means you dont lost lines of resolution. when a DVD is non anamorphic, the black dead space counts as resolution.

what the OP is talking about is a wrong theory. enhanced doesnt mean they take a movie and make it widescreen to fit your tv even if it is not.

They're cute when they're this age, aren't they folks?

Hi Terri... Welcome to DVDTalk.

And yes, it's all about OAR... Enhanced just means anamorphic.

They are not that rare. Walk into any supermarket, hotel, bar, etc., that has a widescreen TV, and what you invariably see?

Roger Ebert: It’s NOT because it’s on TV, dummy

WHAAAT?!? This is one of my favorite movies ever. Was it's AOR 1.33:1 or 1.85:1 or what? What has been altered on it's DVD release? I gotsta know!

From DVDReview.com:
"Columbia TriStar Home Video is presenting "The 7th Voyage Of Sinbad" in a widescreen aspect ratio on this disc that is slightly matted to create roughly a 1.66:1 aspect ratio. The transfer is enhanced for 16x9 TV sets with a great level of detail. It seems a little surprising that the film is matted however, considering that it was originally shot in a fullframe format."

From Mondo Digital:
"Columbia's DVD of Sinbad is generally satisfying but displays a few oddities in the presentation of the film itself. The anamorphic video looks excellent for a film of this vintage, with especially strong and stable colors (after the noisy opening credits), but the image has been severely matted at 1.85:1. Previous video incarnations were completely unmatted at 1.33:1 and allowed plenty of breathing room, but this edition looks very tight. No crucial information appears to be missing, but the creatures and actors often scrape perilously close to the upper matte, making the film more claustrophobic than it was probably intended."