ChristianB

The local Future Shop here in town did a great job of merchandising ROTK. They played the film on an LCD screen and had lots of copies around it for sale, including the gift sets, extended editions and even the video games.

However, I gasp in horror when I gazed upon the screen and noticed that they are playing ROTK with the ZOOM on. I almost dropped dead. It's obvious this is done intentionally to hide those dreaded black bars. A real shame and a real turn off to me.

I wonder if they get complaints from people saying "Frodo and Sam are all stretched. It looks weird" as opposed to "look at those ugly black bars"...

Christian

Lev-S

Just like mine!

BTW, our FS ROTK display was fully set up and calibrated by your truly so everything was tip-top: correct AR, surround sound, and TV ISF calibrated (well, maybe not that far).

My DVDs

Homer: So, Mr. Malloy, it seems that the cat has been caught by the very person who was trying to catch him.
Skinner: How ironic.

Ron_L

It's idiotic reasons like this that why HD-DVD ( oh you know it's gonna be the next format ) should be exclusive to 16x9 sets only. Component and DVI outputs only. Forget the Composite and S-Video. Anything less isn't Hi Def.

This way, this format will be tailored to movie fans and HT purists only and Joe Six-Pack will be out of the race with their constant Full Screen bitchings.

Let's hope the studios don't take a dump on HD-DVD as they already have with the current DVD standard.

Yousaf

I worked at Circuit City in the Music/Movies/Video Game Systems/All-the-other-things-people-in-other-departments-got-paid-to-much-to-care-for Department, and whenever anyone asked me where they could find a movie or if we carried it, and I knew it came in WS and FS, I would always ask them which one they wanted. This usually a prompted a "What's the difference?" quesion, and so I'd go on, day after day, educating the poor, missled masses I guess it's the most satisfaction I could possibly derive from the job so I took what I could get. Sure, many people still wanted FS anyway but that's their choice and at least now they know the difference.

ZacharyTait

Actually, the Independent Film Channel and the Sundance Channel broadcast movies in their OAR. Although Glengarry Glen Ross was in fullscreen on IFC the other night.....

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WillG

I think IFC may be going bad. I recently saw an edited, MAR version of "A Nightmare on Elm Street" on that channel. Someone in another thread mentioned that IFC is owned by the same company as AMC so it would be hardly surprising if IFC ended up with the same fate.

Lew Crippen

I recorded that very same telecast. It only took about 30 seconds to hit the delete button on my remote.

¡Time is not my master!

Joe_Pinney

In addition to TCM and IFC (who broadcast films in OAR more often than not), mention should also be made of Fox Movie Channel, which broadcasts SOME of their widescreen films in OAR at least part of the time (they say they're giving viewers a choice between P&S and WS, but...well, yeah, it's sort of a silly argument, but at least they do show films in widescreen where appropriate).

Malcolm R

Well, if that's the criteria, we need to include SciFi Channel and TNT/TBS as well. I've seen WS presentations on both.

CraigF

I don't have any interesting stories like you guys. I live in WS territory I guess, because even the local Wal-Mart gets cleaned out of the WS copies of a major release, and after a few days there's a huge quantity of FS copies left. I expect Wal-Mart above anybody to figure out what people at a particular store are buying, but I suspect they must automatically (??) get sent a large quantity of FS even if they don't want them.

I find it very hard to fathom that people who actually BUY a DVD would choose FS, though I can see it for somebody renting since there's no investment.

I also find it hard to fathom that all these electronics stores that sell mainly (and perhaps exclusively) WS TV's would intentionally promote FS DVD's. Seems dumb and counter-productive to their big-ticket sales.

The by-far-most-knowledgable retail video "clerk" I've ever encountered works at the local Best Buy, he is a true fan of film, a closet Tarantino.

I have tried to convince a few people to pick up the WS disc over the FS in their hand, but have had no success so far. I mean, to some, it's like a stranger saying blue is better than red, strictly an opinion of a trivial matter of taste rather than a fact with substance, so why should they change their mind? You gotta admit though, black bars are *not* attractive, people just have to learn why they're there, and for that they need to know that all movies don't have the same "shape" (hope that's a simple enough term for them).

It would be so simple to play the WS and FS discs of the same movie on screens beside each other, but nobody (I've seen at least) does it. I guess it's a sales philosophy, better to make ANY sale than none (obviously), and then you can maybe one day make another sale of the WS disc when the customer gets a WS TV (I sure as hell hope nobody with a WS TV buys non-OAR FS discs).

Joshua Clinard

Wow - I was just looking at my site stats, and I noticed that the number of flyer downloads has increased dramatically over the last 4 days, I believe because of this thread. You guys have downloaded almost 100 copies of my flyer in the last 4 days alone. Usually I don't get more than 50 flyer downloads in a month! By the way, this is good news, and I've plenty of bandwidth to spare, so keep downloading. Thanks guys (and girls)!

Also, feel free to link me if you find the site useful. Let me know, so I can add your name/site to the supporters section.

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