Attention Walmart! (1 Viewer)

[Frank]

Say goodbye to all you problems with widescreen DVDs.
Get someone to manufacture a DVD player for you that will automatically detect black bars and zoom the image until they are gone.
Get rid of most of the menu options since your customers probably find them confusing.
Sell this player for $99.99 or perhaps you could give them away with the purchase of 10 DVDs.
Put a sign on it that says 'We guarantee no black bars!
I guarantee they will sell like hotcakes and your widescreen DVD sales will skyrocket.
What are you waiting for?

 

[Steve Tannehill]

You think the people at Walmart know how to use a computer and read a forum like this for suggestions?

- Steve
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Got Remo?

 

[Keith_R]

Very good point Steve especially at the Wal-Marts here in Florida. Lots of J6Ps.
-Keith-

 

[Kenny Goldin]

That is actually a good idea. Even if someone like ValueVision or QVC would make or sell one, and sell it exclusively to Wal-mart and on their TV station. I know ValueVision makes computers with their logo on it, so why not a DVD player???
This Wal-Mart /J6P is a sickening event, but oh well...
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[Chauncey2]

I thought that they could program DVDs to already do this Pan & Scan on the fly. I know the first run of the Criterion 's Last Temptation of Christ had this. In my DVD player's (Pioneer DVL-909) menus you can select letterbox, 4:3, or widescreen. If you select 4:3 it will zoom in on the picture to get rid of the black bars on DVDs that have this feature encoded.
DVD manufacturer's should consider using this feature more often.
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Chauncey
Home Theater Equipment List

 

[Jeff Kleist]

Then can, but it won't eliminate the black bars on 2.35:1 movies, only reduce them. Frankly I've been enjoying the forced assimilation. It's about time that they get forced to assimilate instead of the other way round
Jeff Kleist

 

[Tom Ryan]

You know, there is such a thing as TOO much condescension....
-Tom

 

[Bill McCamy]

Where else can one get an oil change with Mobil One (about $4.30/qt.) and a Fram filter for about $28?
Really, you guys sell this chain short.

 

[Frank]

This player doesn't have to do anything as sophisticated as 'pan and scan on the fly'.
All it has to do is scale the image up until the black bars are gone. JSP will never notice a loss in resolution and panning is unnessessary since he dosn't care about proper framing.
You could include an optional remote with pan and scan joystick so Joe could do the pan and scanning himself.
This DVD player could be very cheap to manufacture.
Come on Walmart!
Frank
[Edited last by Frank on July 17, 2001 at 07:54 AM]

 

[Anders Englund]

You could include an optional remote with pan and scan joystick so Joe could do the pan and scanning himself.

Hmm, this opens possibilities if you use it with the new Basic Instinct DVD...
--Anders
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Ob me Deus cavet

 

[Frank]

Walmart should ask the studios to subsidize the player since they stand to save millions of dollars by not having to produce any more pan and scan DVDs!
Think about it!

 

[Frank]

Attentions studios!
If Walmart mass markets a player like this, just think of the copies of existing widescreen DVDs that didn't sell because of being widescreen. Now they will!

 

[Frank]

Come on folks, this is really a good idea.
It's a win win situation.
Walmart wins because they will sell many more DVDs then currently.
The studios win because they don't have to go to the expense of making a widescreen and pan and scan version.
The studios win again by increased sales of standard (widescreen) DVDs.
If you think the image quality would suffer too much by zooming up a 2.35:1 movie to fill the screen you might be surprised. I have tried it numerous times with software DVD players and the resulting image is quite acceptable.
It just needs a decent scaler which could be very cheap if mass produced.
You could call it the JSP1000.

 

[Brian O]

I just tell my friends who are new to widescreen to get a Toshiba DVD player because of the great, clean zoom modes. Their zoom works like training wheels for newbies.
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[Jesse Skeen]

Why not just take an existing VCR and print the word "DIGITAL" on the front? Everyone knows "DIGITAL" means "BETTER"!

 

[Scott Strang]

KeithR's oral emitter uttered these very words....

Very good point Steve especially at the Wal-Marts here in Florida. Lots of J6Ps

I don't know about that. I've seen a lot of companies, products and services that are obviously directed toward J6P that have websites.
Surely these companies would do marketing research prior to bothering with a website that allows commerce.
There are non-j6p's that shop at Wal-Mart simply because it's easy to see what they have while already there buying other stuff.
And contrary to apparently popular belief, there are J6P's that shop at Suncoast. They also never had many LD's. Any store that makes such an attempt to convey the magic of Hollywood in the minds of people that probably don't think that way is prime J6P material. Suncoast is that through and through.
True film and home theater buffs can buy their DVD's from a faceless website or at their local K-mart and still have the same effect. That's thinking of all of the elements, people, man power, technology, etc. that went into the creation of the illusion of reality that some movies can provide.
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Recently, we sneaked into the Klingon's engine and replaced dilithium crystals with new Folger's Crystals.

 

[DaViD Boulet]

I thought that they could program DVDs to already do this Pan & Scan on the fly. I know the first run of the Criterion 's Last Temptation of Christ had this. In my DVD player's (Pioneer DVL-909) menus you can select letterbox, 4:3, or widescreen. If you select 4:3 it will zoom in on the picture to get rid of the black bars on DVDs that have this feature encoded.
DVD manufacturer's should consider using this feature more often.

Disadvantage #1.
This only works well with anamoorphic titles that are @ 1.78:1. If you used this feature with 2.35:1 16x9 titles you'd end up with the same amount of letterboxing on a 4x3 TV watching the P/S derivative that you have on a 16x9 TV watching the 16x9 widescreen image (so since you still end up with black-bars...doesn't really accomplish the goal with 2.35:1 titles).
Disadvantage #2.
You loose resolution. In this case, horizontal resolution as you're taking those 720 horiztonal pixels of info but using only about 540 of them on the screen. This would yeild a subjectively softer picture than a boni-fide P/S version that uses the full 480x720 array for the 4x3 image.
(of course, it's for J6P, who doesn't care...so why should we?)
-dave

 

[Frank]

(of course, it's for J6P, who doesn't care...so why should we?)

I care about Joe and I want to educate him while encouraging him to buy some of the widescreen anamorphic DVDs he has refused to buy.
Let him have the option too zoom and pan to his hearts content. He can always unzoom and watch the entire image when he's ready.
Let's face it; Pan and scan is not an art form.
I am currently watching 'Lawrence of Arabia' zoomed up to fill my 4/3 monitor just to see what it's like.
The image is not bad at all, decidedly better then any VHS I have seen.
Frank

 

[Frank]

Where is this player? We need it badly!
Frank

 

[JonZ]

Whats J6P gonna do when everyone has a 1:78 TV and he watched stuff filmed in 4:3 and has black bars on the sides of his TV-J6P will bitch about that too,theres just no making these people happy,so why not stop catering to them-they just better get used to it.
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