Full Screen, Widescreen or Widescreen?

[Craig Th]

At AVS, there is a debate over the different OAR (orignal aspect ratio) on movies. So this got me thinking here at TSM, what AR do you perfer?

 

Basically, do you like the little black bars or not on an Standard Definition TV. (No HDTV stuff because not everyone has one. So don't start talking about how you can't vote or something because you have an HDTV MARV.

 

1:33:1 has no black bars.

1:78:1 has black bars, but small ones.

2:35:1 has black bars, but are bigger ones.

 

I'm not going to talk about Open Matte because that is something else. Just these three.

[Craig Th]

You know, I should have just done full and widescreen, but whatever.

[World's Worst Man]

I like watching movies that fill my screen without having to distort the picture, so I went with 16:9. And for a standard TV, the black bars don't take up a ridiculous amount of the screen like they do in 2.35:1.

[2GOLD]

I need either a really big or a moderate sized TV to enjoy 2:35:1.

I love the 1:78:1.

 

Full screen, that's my fiancee's and parents love. I can tolerate it and I won't take a movie back if it's full screen. Doesn't exactly ruin my life.

[Yuna_Firerose]

I don't even notice the black bars anymore, so any version of widescreen is fine with me. I went with 2:35:1.

[starvenger]

I wish more networks would follow NBC's lead and air their shows in widescreen. For the most part, the first time I get to see shows in widescreen is when I review the DVD sets.

[Ravenbomb]

whatever the OAR is

[CanadianGuitarist]

I don't mind 1.78, and I can get used to 2.35, but I prefer 1.33.

 

Of every ten DVD's I sell at work, 8 to 9 are 1.33 where applicable. Customers seem to HAAAAAAAATE widescreen.

[cabbageboy]

Widescreen does suck on a standard TV, it can take up half your screen. I much prefer the 1:78:1 on a standard TV since you see the whole movie without a huge amount of the screen being cut off.

 

On an HDTV it's really the same thing. On that seeing a movie shot in 1:33:1 tends to suck since the screen has the black bars on the sides going vertical. The 1:78:1 seem to be "enhanced for 16:9" and fill the entire screen, so it's certainly the best. The 2:35:1 fill up quite a bit more of the screen, but there are still the black bars.

[World's Worst Man]

1.78:1 is 16:9.

[KingPK]

Of every ten DVD's I sell at work, 8 to 9 are 1.33 where applicable. Customers seem to HAAAAAAAATE widescreen.

 

I'm the opposite. If there's a choice between wide and full screen DVDs, I'll grab the widescreen one every time.

 

I go for 1:78:1 because, as cabbageboy said, the black bars don't take up too much of the screen.

Edited December 5, 2006 by KingPK

[Hawk 34]

They all look the same to me. It doesn't remotely change the quality of the move/show itself.

[Craig Th]

Who voted for Full Screen???

[MarvinisaLunatic]

Personally Im an OAR person, but it doesn't really bother me either way.

I wont stretch SD programming at 4:3 to fit a widescreen just like I wouldn't want a widescreen movie cut down to fullscreen.

 

And just try and watch Ben Hur (2.76:1) in OAR on a regular tv..lol..its not that much better on a widescreen though.

 

FYI..most commercials now are shot in 1.56:1 (14:9) so they can be aired for both widescreen tvs and regular tvs without much noticable letterboxing.

[cd213]

I wish more networks would follow NBC's lead and air their shows in widescreen. For the most part, the first time I get to see shows in widescreen is when I review the DVD sets.

 

If I remember correctly, they do that so it fits perfectly in HDTVs.

 

I myself voted for 1:78:1. I was brought up to wacth widescreen. I can't stand full screen. It makes me sick when I see pan and scan. I get dizzy from it. Anamorphic widescreen is good for epics like Lord of the Rings, or Lawrence of Arabia.

[The Metal Maniac]

I'm nowhere near picky enough to know the difference between widescreen formats. All I know is, I want to see the movie as it was originally made. I *hate* seeing something in fullscreen and knowing that there's supposed to be more stuff for me to see, but I can't see it. Ever tried watching Star Wars in full screen? You can't even read the opening crawl, fer fucks sake.

[cabbageboy]

It's not that hard to tell various widescreens from another. The 1:78 deal is something that doesn't take up a huge amount of your TV on a regular TV, and will likely fill the entire screen on HD. This is mostly for comedies like Click, You Me, and Dupree, and so on. Movies that aren't massive productions.

 

2:35 is the sort of thing used on major productions. Stuff like LOTR, Star Wars, etc. It cuts off half your TV for black bars on a standard set. On HD it still cuts off a bit at the top and bottom but it's actually not that bad.

 

What confuses the hell out of me is when I see a 2:35 movie shown on HBO HD and it takes up the entire screen....when my DVD of the same movie has bars.

[Guest Starks]

This is something that has always baffled me about the US. In Australia DVD began as a import format for cinema buffs who demanded the extra quality, so import stores only ever obtained the wide screen releases as anyone purchasing a DVD was smart enough to know about OARs and such. As DVD became more and more entrenched movies in their OAR was the defacto standard. So manufacturers of DVD players did the smart thing and built in the ability for players to crop the picture at the press of a button. If your parents have an older TV and don't like the black bars the can remove them with a press of the remote button - much simpler than releasing movie with different aspect ratios.

[Anakin Flair]

I always get Widescreen, and have been getting it for years. I don't like watching movie I've seen before wide in full screen, because I can alwasy see when things have been cut. and I LOATHE pan-and-scan-- just way to unnatural for my tastes.

[Masked Man of Mystery]

I always prefer OAR, even on the most garbagey movies, if I can, it seems there's always something cut off by pan and scan

[NoCalMike]

This thread reminds me of when I was watching True Romance on Showtime and when James Gandolfini is beating the shit out of Patricia Arquette, she flips him off in defiance, and on my TV you couldn't even see her hand/middle finger, so she is just there all bloodied and beaten chuckling for no reason.....I got freaked out and put in the Widescreen DVD to make sure it was Showtime's broadcast and not my TV/DVD and sure enough on the DVD the hand/middle finger was in plain view, right where it should be.

 

Oh, yeah....when I have a choice, I go with the truest Widescreen Format available.

[Kahran Ramsus]

Pan & Scan makes every film look like it was directed by Paul Greengrass.

[cabbageboy]

I don't think pan and scan hurts modern movies as much as it does stuff from the 1950s and 60s. Movies filmed in the ultra wide Cinemascope or Cinerama. Watch those in pan and scan and it's like everyone is 8 feet tall and sometimes one person is flat out not on the screen.

 

That said, of the movies I have seen both ways the one that improved the most in widescreen is Mad Max. That movie sucks in a pan and scan, then I watched it on a widescreen DVD and the compositions came across for the first time and it was excellent.

[Craig Th]

This website show some great comparisons. Here are a few examples:

 

 

[Jericholic82]

I never understodd the letterbox thing as a kid, I was so used to movies being full screen on tv I didnt know. I dont mind the "smaller " bars ws much, but I defin hate the bigger bars one

 

I have noticed at work that we get more ws dvd copie sthan fs and alot of movies dont even come in fs anymore at least not here.

 

too bad customers dont know what widescreen vs fullscreen means though the names pretty much describe the situation. lol

[Craig Th]

A lot of people perfer the full screen because they don't like the bars. I have tried to explain to them, but they don't listen.

[2GOLD]

Some people know and just don't really care. Sometimes I don't blame them. Watching movies on my rents tv that are in widescreen just sucks. I guess when you cannot afford a new television to make widescreen look tolerable, you go with what you can watch and enjoy.

[SuperJerk]

Who voted for Full Screen???

Someone who deserves to die.