Widescreen vs Fullscreen

I'm a DVD kind of guy (people that know me will recognize that as an understatement) and one of the biggest problems with DVDs are that some movies are issued as fullscreen editions, and sometimes are only available fullscreen when the original presentation in the theater was widescreen.

So, I figured I'd do a little evangelism for the cause and post this comparison between the fullscreen version and the widescreen version of the just released Indiana Jones trilogy DVD. I hope this illustration is enough to convince anyone, who didn't already know, that fullscreen is really foolscreen.

http://romshack.us/up/images/wideVSfull2.jpg

I have a 16X9 Plasma display and often HBO-HD is airing a movie which is filled to 16X9 no OAR (Original Aspect Ratio). OAR is the most preffered way of viewing as you see the movie the way it was shot by Director and was intended to be seen. Widescreen DVD sometimes made "enhanced for viewing on 16X9" not to see black empty lines on top or bottom. I prefer OAR like 2.35:1 with black bars top and bottom as I see it the way it was shot to be seen. Some people like to have full 16X9 display filled.

I'm one of the first to admit I disliked widescreen because I found the extra 'black' around the television/computer monitor annoying...

However, it seems I've gotten used to it... and if by accident I rent or buy a fullscreen formatted DVD -- I do a double take -- and really don't enjoy it much.

So can I hear an "Amen" -- Widescreen is the way to go.

16x9 enhanced does not mean that you are seeing something different than the original print. 1.85 to 1 aspect of the original makes it so that you have no black bars on the top or bottom. If you have a 2.35 to 1 and it is 16x9 enhanced, you will still have the bars on the top and bottom.

What 16x9 enhanced means is that you get more resolution onto your viewing device. Normally, if a movie has been shot at 1.85 to 1, the black bars at the top and bottom would take some of the lines of resolution. By making it 16x9 enhanced, there are no black lines taking up this valuable resolution.

To test this, set your DVD player to show the 16x9 format on a full-screen tv. You'll notice that the picture becomes stretched on your screen. Set it back to full-screen, and now you will see the picture with black bars at the top and bottom. But these black bars are not present in the original DVD stream.

16x9 enhanced (or anamorphic video) is the only way to watch widescreen movies on DVD. I have a 65" widescreen HDTV that I watch movies on and I enjoy the additional resolution.

Brent (Mr. Electronics)
www.xanderstudios.com

AMEN!!! I have a 61" Sony regular format paired with Sony's SAVA D900 5.1 digital with a 5 disc changer. I won't buy or rent anything that is not widescreen and finally got my wife on the same page. It took some getting used to but I won't have it any other way. We'll be upgrading to HD format because of the higher res when my bigg a$$ed Sony gives up the ghost but the big brute still has a picture just as good as it was when new..

On the other hand, for private viewing, I just upgraded my computer with an ATI Radeon All In Wonder 9800 Pro 128MB (No need for the XT 256MB as performance isn't that much better) coupled with a Sound Blaster Audigy2 ZS and Creative Inspire 7700T 7.1 surround with a Sony Trinitron 21" monitor.
Now if I can just get my head together enough to put it all together.

WIDESCREEN (letterbox) ....is there any other way????




.....sT

I love my 47" widescreen!

We don't need no stinking full screen!! ;)

Widescreen all the time......

6.5 inch widescreen in the vx need i say more

Ever read any non-fiction by Jerry Pournelle? The guy has written some top-notch science-fiction, but in real life he's the biggest tech-idiot to ever get published. That article was the first non-fiction (or at least not intentionally fiction) thing I've read from Bruce Sterling. His best science-fiction tops Pournelle's - but now I have to wonder about his understanding of real life technology.

DVD's have better error correction than CD's - neither are indestructible but in terms of the correctable errors, DVDs have somewhere around 9 times better error recovery than CDs for the same amount of data. So, if CDs are robust enough for you, DVDs will be too.

As for forced commercials, FBI notices and what-not. That option is part of the DVD spec and the occasional DVD does use it, Disney is infamous for forcing people to watch trailers for other films before letting you watch the real movie. But that kind of abuse is becoming rarer - the FBI warnings are usually put after the credits instead of before the movie. For every dvd that I've watched this year with the FBI warning before the film, not only could you fast-forward through it, you could chapter-skip and immediately jump past it. Also, if that kind of thing really bugs you, many DVD players have unofficial "back-doors" that let you disable the forced-to-watch mode, as well as all the other restrictive "features." Ironically, the cheaper the DVD player, the more likely it is to have such a backdoor.

You don't need an HDTV to appreciate the better picture quality - as long as you have reasonable eye-sight and at least a medicore quality regular television set, you will see an appreciable difference with any mainstream title (there are plenty of poorly mastered DVDs out there, but they are compartively rare with the occasional glaring exception like the Godfather series which got a crummy transfer two years ago and is due for a re-issue). FWIW, DVD is only equal to the lowest quality level of HDTV, a real HDTV signal can be more than 6x the resolution of DVD.

So, don't let a luddite science-fiction author keep you from the benefits of DVD, just make sure you shop on price - MSRP on a lot of discs is $25-$30 but if you shop smart, you can find them for $15 or less. I myself buy a ton of used discs during SALES at BlockBuster and Hollywood Video for $10 or less (moviegallery generally has a sale once per quarter where I average $5-$6 per dvd).

Congrats. Here's a couple of websites you may find useful:

http://www.dvdrhelp.com/dvdhacks.php - search for your player here to see if and how those "features" like macrovision, forced commercials and region-locking can be disabled.

http://www.dvdpricesearch.com/ - look up any DVDs you want to purchase here first to make sure you aren't overpaying.

http://www.dvdtalk.com/ - all kinds of information about DVDs, past, present and future, my favorite section is the 'DVD Bargains" forum which has helped me to find some incredible deals on DVDs (like an 8-disc collection of french movies with an MSRP of over $100 for about $15 at BestBuy)

http://www.avsforum.com/ - don't read this forum much, else you'll end up going broke as you upgrade your system.

Don't forget Sergio Leone's other masterpiece, Once Upon a Time in the Old West - sells for about $15 at Best Buy (or for that matter any other Sergio Leone film - most are better than "good").

-- John