Sony Pictures continues to drop existing widescreen transfers (1 Viewer)

[Ryan Peddle]

The way I look at it, there are two markets out there.

1) The ht/dvd enthusiast who has and 16:9 set and enjoys prefers everything in anamorphic widescreen. Us HTFers are these people. We have owned a dvdplayer for many years and have large collection of dvds.

The other group

2) The common J6P. They have a 4:3 set and have only gotten into dvd recently cause you can buy a crappy "NOVA" player for 4 bucks at Walmart. These are the people that buy a movie simply for the title not the aspect ratio or the quality.

So if Sony is downgrading many of there catalog titles with the anticipation of HDdvd/BluRay, it a smart move on their part. All the J6Pers that will support SD dvd for the next 5 years will get everything in foolscreen. But for us people that want widescreen dvds, we will be forced to upgrade.

Look at the two catagories of people above, who will it be easier to convince to buy HDdvd??? US!

 

[Jon Martin]

I'm just wondering why there isn't more outrage about this practice.

You see threads here and on other forums, of people upset that a certain title isn't being released in either widescreen or not anamorphic. People, totally outraged, talking about starting petitions, creating letter writing campaigns, boycotts, making hourly phone calls to the studio, contacting the media, etc.

But here, where you have a studio that actually does have the widescreen, anamorphic transfers and inexplicably abandoing them for full frame transfers, while some people are obviously upset, it doesn't raise to the level of, oh, I don't know, JUST ONE OF THE GUYS being released full frame only.

I mean, this is a very scary trend here. I can't believe more people aren't upset.

 

[Aaron Silverman]

Don't confuse the couple hundred people who post on internet forums with the millions who make up the DVD market. There are plenty of folks who are upset but not on the net, and plenty more who aren't upset at all.

 

[AndrewWickliffe]

I agree. Where's the guy who got "Castle Keep" a second release?

 

[RobertSiegel]

Makes you wonder (or worry), are they going to release pan and scan blu-ray discs? :frowning:

 

[Jon Martin]

Actually, I would guess that the people who don't post on forums like this are among those who really wouldn't care about widescreen / fullscreen.

But among those who ARE on the net, I'm surprised it isn't a bigger issue.

 

[AndrewWickliffe]

Only if Wal-Mart sells them.

 

[WillG]

Like I said earlier, the rumor is that Steven Speilberg, Martin Scorcese, and George Lucas intervened by writing a letter to Sony and apparently that is what convinced them to release the OAR version. That's why I think we need to figure out how to contact the directors of these films and maybe then things might change. I think it's obvious that Sony will not listen to customer feedback and/or internet petitions.

The funny thing is that some guy got MGM named in a class action lawsuit about their insert graphics misrepresting the actual way their widescreen tranfers were derived. There must be some kind of way to get this practice exposed to larger eyes.

 

[DaViD Boulet]

Jon,

I get what you're saying. I know for one that I'm upset and outraged...but also a little "beaten down" by the whole Columbia thing...basically I've just given up and what they do doesn't affect me anymore. After the R1 P/S Annie SE with DTS 5.1 (the out-of-print WS 16x9 version only had a bad-sounding 2.0 DD track), I was forced to "let go" with Columbia because it was just getting me so furious to think about it.

Of course,

now that I've ordered my 16x9 OAR DTS version from Japan, maybe I'll regain a bit of inner strength and march on!



p.s. Even Brian Henson calling Disney personally and asking them to release Muppet Treasure Island in 16x9 OAR didn't convince their marketing team to change their mind.

 

[Dick]

I agree. Every time Columbia/Sony has just started to look as though they are mending their ways (by producing special editions like TWO BROTHERS which actually include a trailer), they turn around and pull something like this.

I give up, too.

Really, who the f*&k cares about a pan-and-scan edition of BITE THE BULLET and BODY DOUBLE? These are films that aficionados will pick up, and WE WANT WIDESCREEN!!

God, I'd love to be a fly on the wall during the corporate meetings when assholes decide to drop widescreen versions. I want to know who they are and WHY they are!! I want to put a face to these moronic decisions, so that I can direct my reactions to them personally.

But Sony's Home Entertainment division is nothing more than a part of a corporation which, like Enron, is run by the clueless.

 

[Brandon Conway]

You forgot about a large part of the DVD market: me, and the consumers like me.

I have 400 DVDs. I am absolutely an OAR advocate. I have no money to spend on nice WS TV. It simply isn't a priority. I very much doubt that I'll be getting one in the next 4-5 years. I have a 27" 4x3 TV and a $300 Sony surround system. This is essentially the extent of my purchasing ability without neglecting the rent for my apartment or going into consumer debt, which I refuse to do. I love films; I love DVDs. I will not be buying the next format for quite some time because I can't afford it.

If studios stop issuing OAR DVDs, I get screwed.

 

[GlennH]

No doubt about it. Several of the HD networks (HBO-HD, INHD) crop most 2.35:1 movies to 1.78:1 so that the image fills the 16:9 screen. I'd be surprised if we don't see this same abuse on optical discs when they become a reality. Maybe not at first, but eventually. Sony is probably a prime candidate for it.

 

[Mike.B]

*weeps for the future* :frowning:

 

[pitchman]

Since Sony has done such a bang-up job in the marketing of proprietary technology in the past (Beta anyone? Or, more recently, SACD), you just have to wonder what runs through the heads of the Sony brain-trust sometimes... How incredibly stupid, and short-sighted!

There are currently nearly 90 million DVD players and close to 50,000 different titles available in the U.S. alone. To effectively forsake this marketplace for a new, untested hi-rez market is simply idiotic... and BAD BUSINESS! Period.

Personally, I am not so sure that the masses are going to leap on the HD-DVD bandwagon (whatever it may be.) For close to a decade, one hi-rez audio format after another has been rolled out in an effort to get a foothold and replace the traditional CD, and one by one, each has failed.

Joe six-pack has now been successfully programmed to pick up $5-$15 traditional DVD's and is more than satisfied with their quality. I think it is going be a tough sell for Sony to get that same person to invest in new hardware and then shell out $25-$30 each for an HD-DVD disc. Just like with the failed hi-rez audio formats, when all is said and done, the average consumer will either not recognize the difference, or it will not be significant enough for then to invest in a new format.

 

[Robert Crawford]

There are some assumptions being made in this thread that I don't necessarily think are correct. We need to hold off about assuming that what was posted here about Sony abandoning the dvd market is really what they're doing.





Crawdaddy

 

[AndrewWickliffe]

All right, I agree with that, guardedly, because we haven't seen the HD-DVD output yet.

But I do think it's fair (and balanced) to say that Sony is forsaking the film buff with these moves. Especially by snarkily releasing these transfers under the original UPC--which ought to be against some law

 

[RobertSiegel]

Glenn, I've noticed that as well, the cable channels cropping HD already. The King and I ran on INHD, and the overture was 2:35:1 (so close) and the rest of the film went into 1:85:1. I have also seen pan and scan HD movies on there, and many of the so-called HD movies simply are not HD. This is scary, the idea of HDTV is the wider image, and they're already cropping.

 

[Aaron Silverman]

This is something that seems to escape all sorts of people. Notice how popular MP3 music (which is inferior to CD audio) is -- people are buying convenience over sound quality. The average person is not going to care much about A/V quality improvements over DVD. They're not going to pay for that anytime soon.

 

[pitchman]

I don't disagree, Robert, and did not mean to suggest that I think that is what Sony is doing. I was trying to say that deliberately marketing away from the mass-market (if indeed, that is their intent) does not make much business sense to me.

 

[pitchman]

Aaron, that is exactly the point I was trying to make. Thanks!