Widescreen or Pan & Scan (Full-Screen)

Tools    


Widescreen or Pan & Scan (Full-Screen)
100.00%
12 votes
Widescreen
0%
0 votes
Pan & Scan (Full-Screen)
12 votes. You may not vote on this poll




I'd like to know what you Guys & Gals like more Widescreen or Pan & Scan (Full-Screen) which do you prefer more and why you like that one more than the other.



Also, which would you rather have: a dollar or sixty cents? It's essentially the same question. The cropping of a true widescreen movie for standard TV loses over 40% of the image. To me that is criminal and totally unacceptable.

In a recent thread I gave these same links, but here they are again: for a clear and concise presentation of what letterboxing (or widescreen) is, click HERE. For some examples of how much you're missing watching great movies visually butchered for TV, look at these -> The Empire Strikes Back, Indiana Jones & the Last Crusade, History of the World Part I, Amadeus, and Monty Python & the Holy Grail.

Anyone who votes for panning & scanning is either a) uneducated, or b) a total moron.



BTW, I hate the term "full screen". It's a bullsh!t, purposefully deceptive term. Some movies presented at the 1.33:1 aspect ratio for television aren't in fact pan-and-scan transfers. What they are is correctly called either open matte or soft matte. This is done only for movies projected in aspect ratios of 1.85:1 on down to 1.66:1, not the true full widescreen processes. It's still incorrect and contrary to the filmmaker's original vision, but very little visual information is usually lost on the sides this way, and some information is actually gained on the top and bottom. This is not how it is meant to be framed, and will even cause the ocassional boom mic to be seen on some sloppy TV transfers, but it isn't panning-and-scanning either.
__________________
"Film is a disease. When it infects your bloodstream it takes over as the number one hormone. It bosses the enzymes, directs the pineal gland, plays Iago to your psyche. As with heroin, the antidote to Film is more Film." - Frank Capra



I ain't gettin' in no fryer!
WIDESCREEN!!!!!

When I first got my DVD player I wasn't a big fan of the black bars, but warmed up to them gradually. I don't know what I would do without them anymore.

People complain when they are under-educated about Widescreen and buy a DVD player. They then gripe at the fact that they're "losing" screen. You're not losing anything, your gaining more than your losing. If it's entirely important to the scene, you'll see it, if it's not..don't worry about it.

Anyone that prefers P&S over Widescreen is definitley losing the theater feel to the movie.
__________________
"I was walking down the street with my friend and he said, "I hear music", as if there is any other way you can take it in. You're not special, that's how I receive it too. I tried to taste it but it did not work." - Mitch Hedberg



Now With Moveable Parts
I agree with Spud..it got some getting used to, but I prefer Widescreen.



I prefer watching movies in their intended aspect ratio whatever that aspect ratio may be. The widescreen looks more "right" to me now, though. It took some getting used to, but now it just seems wrong to watch a modern movie in 1.33



Should this even be a poll?! Widescreen!!!

It's like a dairy fan comparing cheese and chalk.
__________________
www.esotericrabbit.com



I ain't gettin' in no fryer!
Yeah, but any person not up on DVDs and some usually hard to come by Widescreen movies on VHS doesn't really like those beautiful bars. Why, who knows?

Still, some companies release their movies in P&S, take Willy Wonka for example. The bastards had the nerve to stretch it out and make it unenjoyable to watch on DVD.



The reason I asked this question is for the fact that some people actually think pan & scan is better. They think there losing more picture due to the fact that it doesn't take up the whole of there TV.

So if someone reads this thread and listen to Holden a guy who defiantly know what he's talking about. Then we might get some people to realize the differance between the two. That all I was trying to accompolish thanks.



I prefer widescreen, but I do have to say that it "feels" weird to me at first. It really does. After a few minutes I tend to forget about it, though, and don't remember again until the end of the movie.



I ain't gettin' in no fryer!
Yeah, it gives you that theater feel without the the theater.

I understand your reasoning L.B., just putting in my two cents on the subject. Working at a video store I got to listen to people moan and complain about the bars. I got irritated nonetheless, kept trying to explain to them the reason behind it though. No good.



almost as competitive as terminator vs Robocop
__________________
"Who comes at 12:00 on a Sunday night to rent Butch Cassady and the Sundance Kid?"
-Hollywood Video rental guy to me



Originally posted by spudracer
I understand your reasoning L.B., just putting in my two cents on the subject. Working at a video store I got to listen to people moan and complain about the bars. I got irritated nonetheless, kept trying to explain to them the reason behind it though. No good.
Just wait until they buy a widescreen TV and are perplexed by the black bars on the sides of the screens on all their Pan-and-Scan stuff.



I ain't gettin' in no fryer!
Originally posted by ryanpaige
Just wait until they buy a widescreen TV and are perplexed by the black bars on the sides of the screens on all their Pan-and-Scan stuff.
Well, these are the people that would rather spend money on a six pack, than a tv.



I have been a widescreen fanatic for as long as I can remember. I carry around a comparison between pan and scan vs. widescreen in my wallet to educate those that can't stand those "black bars"

Some intelligent responses I have heard:

"But I don't have a widescreen tv!"
"I can't stand those black bars"
"But I'm not seeing the whole picture" <----


It's too bad that the general movie renting population are too stupid to understand what they are missing.

THANK GOD FOR DVD'S!

Peace,
Steve



I don't know about thanking God for those DVDs. As they become more and more mainstream, and as Blockbuster is on the verge of getting rental-pricing pushed through, it will become less and less a format targeted at film fans who actually give a ***** about movies and things like original aspect ratios.

If you haven't noticed at your local Blockbuster or Hollywood Video lately (if you still bother to venture inside), even when they do have a big title on DVD, if it has been released in two versions, pan-and-scan and widescreen, they will invariably stock more of the pan-and-scan, sometimes with NO widescreen copies available for rental. This was true with recent titles such as The Mummy Returns and The Princess Diaries. Retail chains like Wal-Mart will be much more likely to stock pan-and-scan copies only or predominately.

The Blockbusters and Wal-Marts are using their corperate muscle to dictate what happens in the DVD market. Unfortunately this will mean fewer special editons, fewer catalogue titles, rental pricing, and less and less widescreening. It's great that DVD has made converts of so many, including some on this board. It's a shame that means very very little to the people controlling the money. This is the price of success, begining to cater toward the happily uneducated lowest common denomenator and brushing aside the enthusiastic film fanatics who popularized the format in the first place.

You say "thank God", I say "G*ddamn".


* E N D R A N T N O W *



I ain't gettin' in no fryer!
Yeah, when I went to get Silence of the Lambs when it was released in the latter months of last year, they released two versions of it. I had to really search for the Widescreen version of it. They had it hidden behind P&S copies.