What we are up against... (1 Viewer)

[Adam Barratt]

Jim, you simply reinforce my point. Please don't turn this into a political discussion.

Adam

 

[Jim A. Banville]

While I have the upmost respect for my fellow consumers, I don't think the "you're missing parts of the picture" and MUCH less the "you're watching an artist's work butchered" arguments are going to have great success in persuading the greater number of people to accept OAR (which is usually widescreen). I've made those points to people before and it ALWAYS comes down to "I see the IMPORTANT parts of the picture [with fullscreen]" followed by "I'm throwing away screen space on those black bars". The people I speaking of aren't the one's who "respect" film but don't understand what P&S does to WS (those arguments may very well work on them), they are the people who simply enjoy being entertained by a movie on occasion, but don't really "care" about them, whom I think outnumber the former by a wide margin. You're going to have very little succes with them until widescreen TV's become the norm.

 

[Jim A. Banville]

Adam Barratt.... Jim, you simply reinforce my point.

If your point is that I do not "champion diverse opinions and beliefs" from those people or entities that are diametrically opposed to the principles on which these great United States were founded, then I completely agree God Bless America

 

[Robert Crawford]

Jim,

Lay off the politics and since this forum has an international membership, let's cease with how the United States was founded.

Crawdaddy

 

[Bill Catherall]

I've made those points to people before and it ALWAYS comes down to "I see the IMPORTANT parts of the picture [with fullscreen]" followed by "I'm throwing away screen space on those black bars.

Yeah, I've had similar reactions from some people (my wife, for one). I don't argue about it with them. Again, it's my goal to teach in hopes of enlightening. If, once they fully understand, but still reject, then that's their prerogative. But I've also had more people actually react the opposite way. It is my hope and belief that there are more people who simply don't know better and can benefit from being informed. Perhaps the reason you always get that reaction is regional, peer related...I don't know. But I only get that about 10% of the time.

 

[Mike Knapp]

Wanting your film presented in its proper aspect ratio is one of, if not "the" key ingredient in what makes a Home theater enthusiast. What you are saying in essence is that you can make a meatloaf without meat. Im saying it may look like a meatloaf, and perhaps taste like a meatloaf, but without meat, it is NOT a meatloaf.

If you dont want a proper presentation, you are decidedly not an enthusiast. Lets not confuse someone that likes Home Theater, or is maybe even enthusiastic about Home Theater for an enthusiast.

 

[Chris Maynard]

Mike Knapp -

Well said...

That being said...did we not put the Mission Statement together to prevent such discussions since we have been down this road 1000 times?

 

[Sean Conklin]

Well now that we've settled down, I have something to add about "what we're up against".
My Walmart has all the Jurassic Parks and Mummy's in WS looks to be about 80/20 OAR, P&S respectively, thats the good news.
The bad news is that they have a new rack (Warner Bros. I might add) full of good movies, but every single DVD on the display is MARred(P&S), all selling for $5.94, how can we beat that.
Average consumer will see this and BAM this display will be sold out fast! And the stupid studio will think the average Consumer prefers P&S!
I just reinforced my RABIDLY OAR attitude tonight, because now I found about 20 new titles that look like their only available in P&S!! And they're good movies too, what a tragedy!!
**Sigh**, just another bad sign!!

 

[Mike Voigt]

I used to be a P&S enthusiast... back when I had a 20" Sears Special TV.
Once I bought a DVD player, back in 1997, I bought only OAR movies.
I decided to go more towards widescreen - despite the smaller characters - because I preferred seeing the whole picture, and because I was totally fed up with the weird angles, half cut off people, and other travesties the P&S system imposes on decent movies.
Some folks here question why directors allow for this to happen. Well, in most every instance directors do not have any say-so over this process; it is only those who specify it contractually or who have enough clout that can avoid that kind of mess made of their works.
I prefer to watch movies widescreen. Even on my current 32" TV, that is still not a huge display, and, yes, because of widescreen the top and bottom parts of the TV do not display a picture.
You know what? I do not care. I have the theatrical presentation there - the way the director intended it to be seen. THAT is what I care about.
Quite a few of my friends have changed their viewing habits also. I see a lot of hope in popular TV shows going over to the "new" format; though I am sure it is due to HDTV's 16:9 format, it is still a good thing, because it will help move folks towards understanding that when something is P&S'ed, it is literally cut to pieces and rearranged from what the artist originally conceived.
To me, that process is the same as taking a symphony by Mozart and rearranging it to where the strings play after the brass just because "it fits my speakers better". As much as that rearrangement would destroy the Mozartian image, so does P&S. So, on that.
It really is a sad state of affairs when people want to botch a piece of art just so it fits their furniture... next time let's take the Mona Lisa and make it into a 3"x5" photograph! Even better, a 1.5" x 2" - that way, everyone can carry her in their wallet!
Have some respect for the artists involved, folks.
Mike

 

[Clint B]

Very well said, Mike! I was also a P&S enthusiast until some friends educated me on the benefits of OAR. Since I was educated on this before I bought a DVD player, I only have DVD's in their OAR (yes, some of them are 1.37:1, but that's the way they should be!). Even though I have a 27", 4X3 TV set, I still won't get anything besides OAR. I want to watch the movie as close to how I remember it in the theater as possible.

Also, Mike, I like your analogy about the Mona Lisa. Similarly, I read something on another site that talked about Da Vinci's "The Last Supper" painting, which is in an approximate 2:1 "aspect ratio." The point that was made with this was that if this painting were "formatted to fit your TV," then the number of Jesus' disciples would suddenly go from 12 to 9! Pretty interesting stuff!

While I'd love it if all DVD's were available in OAR only, I can accept the compromise of both formats on a single release. As long as OAR is available, I won't complain.

 

[Erwin]

I was in SEARS the other day, and there people who were talking about how they were content with using the "Zoom" feature on the DVD player when watching WS.

I never have understood why so many P&S lovers got into DVD in the first place when they knew most DVDs were in P&S only, but Warner/Columbia had to get their hopes up with those simultaneous WS/P&S DVDs.

 

[MTrotter]

My WORD, what have I done? I only wanted to pass on some of what I observed people saying as they got a look at ws TV sets. Didn't intend to start WWIII! LOL.

 

[Sean Conklin]

Just a little friendly (although important) chit chat while you were away!

 

[TheoGB]

Even though I have a 27", 4X3 TV set, I still won't get anything besides OAR.

Sorry but that's frankly hilarious in Britain. You make it sound like 27" is a small TV. When we got our 25" we couldn't believe how large it was. It still dominates our living room.
My widescreen TV is a 24" model which means it is the 16x9 area of (roughly) a 26" 4x3 tube. If you have a 16X9 mode on your 4:3, Clint, then you have a bigger W/S viewing area than I do at the same res! (well okay, I have more lines on my PAL screen but it's the same when I watch R1! )
You guys have all been spoiled by the size of your TVs, methinks. Maybe that's why it's been easier to give us widescreen. 32" widescreen TVs are just huge in Britain. You could basically buy a 28" 4:3 tube (for real amounts of money) up until they arrived so they sound bigger to most people anyway.

 

[TheoGB]

I doubt it crossed the consumers mind that DVDs would be mostly Widescreen only. I certainly never expected it. I just assumed I'd still have to hunt in a small shelf for the same movie, costing 1/3 again but in widescreen. Thankfully...

 

[Jack Briggs]

As Ron has pointed out, the studios are under pressure to replace widescreen transfers with pan-and-scan. If the marketplace were demoncratic, and willing to bow to all preferences, then there would be no problem. But now that DVD has become mainstream, the non-enthusiast segment of the marketplace threatens to rain on our OAR/film-integrity parade. We may be in trouble, so to speak.

That's why this thread was started in the first place.

I foresee a time when a so-called "Special Edition" is nothing more than a DVD with a widescreen transfer--in a marketplace dominated by P&S versions. Scary.

 

[Clint B]

Jack, I sure hope you're wrong about that when you say that "special edition" DVD's may just be widescreen. Hopefully this will all blow over when 16:9 sets become standard in the USA. If only people knew (or cared about!) what they're missing.

 

[TheoGB]

One of the concerns I have after reading Ron's statement is what will happen to the European market? Are we going to lose widescreen? I find that unlikely, so that would suggest the studios are going to make a widescreen print anyway, so I would think that widescreen will never become just a SE, if that makes sense.

 

[Ted Todorov]

One of the concerns I have after reading Ron's statement is what will happen to the European market? Are we going to lose widescreen? I find that unlikely, so that would suggest the studios are going to make a widescreen print anyway, so I would think that widescreen will never become just a SE, if that makes sense.

I don't know about the UK, but when I was in France, 2 YEARS AGO!! there were essentially only widescreen TVs available for sale at major department stores. Anything bigger than a "for the kitchen" 13" job was widescreen. (And of course they are all multi-standard as well).

There lies our salvation. There is no way that the studios can start releasing pan & scan jobs in France, which is the biggest DVD market outside the US and Japan. No one would buy them -- they'd be machine gunning themselves in both feet. So long is they are available there, OAR fans will have a ready source for good DVDs. (With the Euro in the toilet, pretty cheap as well). Region free players will proliferate. Widescreen TVs are much cheaper over there due to the economics of scale -- much more of them are made, so we could start importing them for their multi-standard (PAL/NTSC) capabilities, without paying more than we would for a NTSC only widescreen TV in the US.

Bottom line: we control our own destiny. If the studios stick to OAR -- GREAT. If not, they will live to regret it, because they will lose a large chunk of their most avid DVD buyers to the European market. Then they may realize that the J6Ps screaming for Pan & Scan don't buy all that many DVDs compared to OAR fans.

Chin up guys -- we have the winning hand!

Ted

 

[DaViD Boulet]

Solution,

Why don't we, as a HT community, publish a pamphlet that explains, with easy-to-see pictures, exactly what P/S is and what widescreen is all about. We could get companies like Best Buy to let us place them in baskets at the end of their DVD racks.

We could even pool our resources together and master a great demo DVD...showing off the differences of P/S and widescreen (maybe even 16x9 vs 4x3 WS encoding too). We could mass produce these DVDs and hand them out with each DVD-player purchase at our local shops.

A relative of mine just got a DVD player for Christmas. The first thing I did was print out the pages from thedigitalbits website regarding widescreen vs 4x3 and included them in the package with a DVD gift.

I didn't understand a thing about widescreen until I saw an MGM demo that used Ben Hur as an illustration for WS vs P/S. Then I understood. Why don't we try and organize something to help educate others? Each of us could take to task our local DVD software/hardware retailers to allow us to place the printed material in the store to be picked up by curious customers.

-dave