Widescreen or Fullscreen?

I am very much a widescreen watcher, but you don't really get the full effect of WHY widescreen is so much better until you watch the same movie again in full. An example is Fellowship of the Ring. I, of course, bought the widescreen DVD the day it came out. My friend, a moron, bought full. He said to come over and watch it, and I assumed he'd have bought the widescreen. Let me tell you, that movie is terrible in fullscreen. You miss SO much and it gets dwonright confusing in battles.

What is my biggest pet peave is how crappy MY DVD player is. It cannot read widescreen movies with a OAR of 1:85:1... and for some reason crops it INTO full. This is so bad because then it isnt formatted, just outright butchered.

 

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[b]I can tell you right now that department manager doesn't choose how much fullscreen and widescreen he is sent for new release displays and shelf modulars etc...

Whats carried in the store on the shelf and on the priced displays is sent down by Home Office and he can't alter those at all unless he needs to cut some display movies in to get rid of them.

An outside company sends the new release displays and the movies he carries in the store in and a outside vendor comes in and stocks those movies (associates stock those sometimes during the week if a shipment comes in)

But he cannot order any movies or control the amount of WS & FS at all. He may not agree with your views but he can't really do anything about it anyways.[/b][hr][/blockquote]Not with Wal-Mart, since the departmental managers possess *extensive* discretionary powers over what gets ordered in what quantities, shelved, and when. Over at Widescreen.org, there was an article that goes into this situation, and it comes down to the customer informing said manager as to their proclivities, and wielding the "power of the purse."

When I spoke with this gentleman, he informed me that he sends back the order tally-sheets to the DC, and they ship him whatever amounts he asks for. Which is almost overwhelmingly "Pan-and-Scam." Even went so far as to print off a few broadsides from the Widescreen Advocacy site to leave with him (he indulged me), but I ain't seen much of a change in his policies since then.

I simply go Best Buy and this one campus "indie-specialty" store near where I live.

 

What is my biggest pet peave is how crappy MY DVD player is. It cannot read widescreen movies with a OAR of 1:85:1... and for some reason crops it INTO full. This is so bad because then it isnt formatted, just outright butchered.

Are you sure your DVD player is set up properly? There are settings for that kind of thing.

 

Fullscreen robs it of true vision. I didn't know this until I watched Widescreen TPM on VHS. Anytime a movie is shown on TV, it should be WS.

It makes me mad when I see "This film has been modified to fit your television. [If you want the widescreen format, go to your local media store, not some grocery store or drug store or super-chain monopoly and pay 19.99.] This film has been edited due to content and extensive running time in a short time frame. Hope you enjoy watching the show."

WS is better than FS in all aspects. Simple as that.

 

Are you sure your DVD player is set up properly? There are settings for that kind of thing.

Very sure. I've tried countless times to fix it, but even when I have setting correct it will not play the right OAR.

 

I have only knowingly bought one fullscreen DVD. back when Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory was released on DVD, they didn't make a widescreen. So, in order to own it, I sacrificed. The moment I heard they had a widescreen version available, I sold that sucker and bought the WS version.

WS over fullscreen any day.

 

Very sure. I've tried countless times to fix it, but even when I have setting correct it will not play the right OAR.

Hmm. Weird.

 

Anyone feel gutted when they bought the first Harry Potter film and discovered it was Pan and Scan? I believe even small children knew that wasn't right.

 

I think Pan & Scan should be outlawed!!!!!!
this is just like cutting a film down - destroying the art!!!! SHAME ON YOU!!!

-Mel

 

widescreen

 

Being a Department Manager myself we have control over what we order ourselves and from vendors but we have no control over what coporate and other buyers send us, we don't have nearly as much control as you think.

As for the tally sheets, I've never heard of them being used before for anything... In my time the impression I have gotten is that we just take what they send us as I have been told before in ages past that we couldn't control that end of it. But I'll talk to the Electronics Dep. Manager at my current store and an old one and see if they know anything about them. And if they do exist they would only be able to be used for the NR displays.

But in my personal expierence at least with Wal-Marts in my area I haven't had problems getting any movies I wanted in Widescreen and as for the new releases and I do look at them every week we have a pretty even selection of wide and full but it didn't start to be that way until about 1.5 years ago... Before that it would be as others described it where it would be 90% FS and I would have to get my copy of WS screen right away to be sure I got one.

 

For some films, I've decided, I like full screen. Simply because there's no art or any need to keep the visuals in play.

 

Widescreen is just another business pull over for customers. Talking from what I see on Aust TV, there is a staggering number of shows that have black borders top and bottom, a vicious waste of screen space. This would only be exacerbated on a widescreen so-called plasma TV.

I've found both my AOTC and LOTR 2 DVDs don't screen well on my comp monitor. They look flatter and slightly stretched on my flatscreen. The result is to play them on normal setting . . . and have those top and bottom empty bands again.

 

Interesting point. I know most of the Sci-Fi shows that I watch, (Taken, SG-1, Firefly a couple others...) are all widescreen formatted, but Dark Angel isn't.

 

i remember when the later episodes of Buffy and/or Angel started using the letterbox format. I thought it gave them a much slicker look...more professional and more like I was watching a movie.

God, I miss those shows.

 

I talked with both the Department Manager and the video rep over the store. As far as they were concerned the tally sheets didn't exist... They didn't have any idea what I was talking about at all and the rep said an outside company that Wal-Mart buys from determines how much and what each store gets based on sqaure footage and that we couldn't do anything about it store level...

She did say FS outsells WS 3 to 1 and that people get FS more but I did say maybe WS would sell more if more were availble to display for people to buy to which she had no real comment for lol

 

Widescreen is just another business pull over for customers. Talking from what I see on Aust TV, there is a staggering number of shows that have black borders top and bottom, a vicious waste of screen space.

Well I can't speak for Austrailian TV but as mentioned part of the reason you are seeing more letterboxed shows in the US is due to the HDTV swap. Part of it is just artistic. Some don't see it as much as a waste of screen space as they do giving the show a "more cinematic feel". I agree with KCWM that when Angel started going that route it just plain looked better, and when Farscape not only went to 16x9 but 35mm

This would only be exacerbated on a widescreen so-called plasma TV.

When its set up right you don't have those bars on a "widescreen so-called plasma TV" (plasma, widescreen, and HDTV aren't the same thing btw though there seems to be alot of confusion about that in the consumer market)

For example if I watch HDTV content it just stretches it out to 16x9. If I'm just watching a lbx show that isn't HDTV I can tell my tv to fill it so that the bars aren't there. My tv has this nice little "panorama" feature that only stretches out the very outside edges. Its really nice for 4x3 tv cause it fills the screen and I still find myself using it on lbx shows just 'cause it maintains that "cinematic feel" (looks like you were watching a 2.35 film).

I've found both my AOTC and LOTR 2 DVDs don't screen well on my comp monitor. They look flatter and slightly stretched on my flatscreen.

Odds are your player isn't set up right. It sounds like you've told the player that you have a widescreen display. Since most (if not all) DVDs these days are "anamorphic" (squished so they play at the right aspect ratio on a widescreen tv) if you try and watch it in that mode on a regular tv it will looked squished or stretched horizontialy.

Its still a common problem. All of these choices for the consumer in terms of widescreen vs fullscreen are nice but at the same time the guy that sells you your new widescreen DLP probably isn't going to go out to your house to set it up. When I worked electronics it was one of my personal pet peeves that we had all of this stuff playing on the widescreens in the wrong aspect ratio so I'd change them all. Its still pretty common to walk into a store and see everything on the tv wider then it should be. In the early days of dvd it was the other way around and every store had the player set on widescreen but were playing it on a standard screen.

 

widescreen of course but anyway fullscreen can't be found here in France

It really amazed me when i discovered there was fullscreen DVD in the US.

 

i dont get why people still try to hang on to 4:3.

its the past.

widescreen is the future.

 

People don't like change..

 

Widescreen all the way. Fullscreen misses part of the backdrops and scenery of movies.

 

For you Fullscreen buyers out there please check out THIS Flash video to see why Widescreen is better then FOOLscreen.

 

Gobi 1, that was the cheesiest way to show people the difference between Pan & Scan and widescreen. I love the endwhen the guy tells you the difference again, not once but twice.



BTW, Fullscreen is a butchered version of the original film. I don't care if I buy a fullscreen dvd, as long as it's a comedy. But if it's a drama, I have to have widescreen. Don't you guys hate it when you buy a movie and take it home only to realize that you bought the fullscreen version?

 

I do. I now hate myself for buying AOTC and FOTR panned-and-scanned(The REAL term for "fullscreen"), back when I was "uneducated" about DVDs

To show you how savvy I am, when I bought The Shawshank Redemption and Close Encounters of the Third Kind at Borders(Which thankfully prefers OAR where I live), I checked the back of their DVD cases about two-dozen times to make sure it was the original widescreen version.