POLL: DVD format ... widescreen or fullscreen?

[Miss Jasmine]

Pan-and-scan is often how they make widescreen movies fullscreen. There is so much jumping around in pan-and-scan. For example in a widescreen version two people are having a conversation and are both in the same frame. In pan-and-scan the shot will often jump between the two people having the conversation (one on screen at at time). It gives me a headache.

 

[SunFloridaDisney]

Widescreen!!

 

[Miss Jasmine]

Here are some great examples of what you are missing by watching fullscreen.
http://www.widescreen.org/examples/lord_rings_rotk/index.shtml
http://www.widescreen.org/examples/grail/index.shtml
http://www.widescreen.org/examples/last_crusade/index.shtml
http://www.geocities.com/obsessivetougafan/grease.html


JUST SAY NO TO FULLSCREEN!!!!! Really, this is one of my goals in life, to convert people to widescreen. I feel this cause is just as important as converting women to non-mom jeans!

 

[ashjohnson80]

i like widescreen because i don't want to feel like i'm missing anything.

 

[azgal81]

Widescreen for me. I don't even notice the black boxes anymore.

 

[Charade]

This is funny. Today when I bought my copy of (W I D E S C R E E N) Chronicles of Narnia, there was another man buying it too but he picked up the fullscreen version. I asked if he knew he was buying the FS version and he said yes. He liked it better.

Unless you get a headache or have a really teeny TV, I just don't understand why anyone would want to miss out on what the movie was supposed to look like in the theater.

It's like buying a nice delicious chocolate cake but having 30-40 discarded before you get to eat it. AND you paid the same price!!!

You can see just how much is missing from WS movies in FS and P&S(Yuck!) in the samples Miss Jasmine and Cardaway posted.

 

[Charade]

Another thing too is that we see the world in a widescreen format so to me, widescreen movies are more natural looking.

 

[Papa Deuce]

Pan-and-scan is often how they make widescreen movies fullscreen. There is so much jumping around in pan-and-scan. For example in a widescreen version two people are having a conversation and are both in the same frame. In pan-and-scan the shot will often jump between the two people having the conversation (one on screen at at time). It gives me a headache.

Nope.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&...and+Scan&sa=X&oi=glossary_definition&ct=title


Well, to be fair, that "can" happen, but usually doesn't. Usually parts of the film are cut from BOTH sides of the film's "width".

 

[Papa Deuce]

pan and scan????

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&...and+Scan&sa=X&oi=glossary_definition&ct=title

 

[Dakota_Lynn]

I have a slight preference to widescreen, but overall, it doesn't matter too much to me.

 

[GoofyDad869]

Widescreen for me. I prefer to watch movies with subtitles on (I'm a little hard of hearing). The black bars top & bottom give a perfect place for the subtitles.

Every now and then I screw up and buy a fullscreen version. I did that just last week with "King Kong" (Target had a few FS mixed in with WS, all under the WS format sign). I usually don't return them for WS format unless I really, really like the flick. With "King Kong" I'll probably sell my FS to a used DVD store and buy the 2-disc in WS format. Ever notice how most of the $5 DVDs are the FS format?

 

[dizneenut]

Widescreen only in our house.

 

[Magickndm]

Widescreen only, especially now that we have a widescreen tv.

 

[disneysteve]

Definitely widescreen, and we only have a 27" plain old tv. Even on my basement TV by my treadmill, which I think is a 19", I prefer widescreen. So I don't think screen size has anything to do with the preference.

 

[DVC Sadie]

Widescreen for us.

 

[Miss Jasmine]

Nope.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&...and+Scan&sa=X&oi=glossary_definition&ct=title


Well, to be fair, that "can" happen, but usually doesn't. Usually parts of the film are cut from BOTH sides of the film's "width".

It happens more than people realize, it just doesn't bother them...

In some cases, the results can also be a bit jarring, especially in shots with significant detail on both sides of the frame: the operator must either go to a two-shot format (alternating between closeups in what was previously a single image), lose some of the image, or make several abrupt pans.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan_and_scan

It's the several abrupt pans I am talking about.

Pan & Scan
The method that has mostly replaced cropping and squeezing is panning and scanning. In this process, a video technician views the movie with its original aspect ratio and decides which television-sized chunk of the movie to show at any one time. Usually, this means focusing on the elements of the picture that are most important to the plot, which is obviously a subjective decision. If you have two characters at either end of a widescreen shot, for example, the pan-and-scan operator must decide which one to show. The operator will probably show the one that is talking, or performing the more conspicuous action. A careful pan-and-scan operator will try to represent the different important aspects of a shot by "cutting" between the two halves of the screen, so that what was originally one shot becomes multiple shots. The operator can also create a pan from one side of the picture to another (hence the name of the process).

http://entertainment.howstuffworks.com/video-format7.htm

Using a quote from your own link:

a technician must "pan" back and forth in the frame to follow the action

 

[mickeyfan2]

Widescreen all the way. But our TV is a 16:9 aspect so they look good on it.

 

[T1130]

Fullscreen here!

 

[toto2]

Definitely fullscreen! Why would I want to watch half of a movie and half black bars?! I get annoyed sometimes when all they have is widescreen at the stores. I would much rather watch anything fullscreen.

You are in fact watching 1/3 of a movie when you watch it fullscreen. Watching in full screen can change the pace of a movie and the mood because so much is missing from what the director originaly put on the screen. A scene that was film in one shot ( lets say a conversation betwwen two caracteres) turns into a scene with many cuts to go from one caractere to the other during the conversation.

So you guessed it , it is widescreen for me !

 

[liamsaunt]

Always widescreen for us! We have a large widescreen hdtv though. If the tv was smaller and not widescreeen I can see how the bars would be annoying. With our tv, there are no bars on the widescreen movies. The only tv shows we watch, with the exception of certain sporting events, are broadcast on the hd channels also, so they are formatted to fit our tv properly. I actually really hate the vertical bars we get if we try to watch non-hd tv in the non-stretch format!