Fed up with Wal-Mart's shift towards Fullscreen (1 Viewer)

[ChrisBEA]

Whoops, I type fast and tend to skip over spellcheck....
I do buy online, but usually only for titles that I can't find anywhere else....

 

[Chris Lockwood]

> I only say that because I find the gray bars about 50,000 times more disturbing than any black ones on the top & bottom.

Plus the manufacturer probably recommends not watching very long in that mode. At least mine does.

 

[WillG]

"Here's an interesting article dated August 28, 2003:"

Yeah, GREAT article! Looks like a lot of research went into it as well. How bout calling it "Viewers Perfer full-screen Format for Home Video..........at Wal-Mart." Yeah we know all about Wal-Mart, so astound me more, why don't you? Okay, I know this article was not written just for us to read, but this makes it much more frustrating because it is simply misleading to any J6P who reads. "Well if Widescreen is so great, why is Full Screen more popluar? This article says Full Screen is more popular" Couldn't this guy have checked Video Business and checked the charts for the last few weeks and saw that in overall sales, WS was more often the winner. This applies even to J6P appealing movies such as "Bringing Down the House" and "Head of State" Although I don't know how airtight the info at Video Business, I would assume they report with some degree of authority. The article does briefly mention Blockbuster's recent commitment to WS on DVD, but it doesn't mention that this is a pretty major coup for OAR enthusiasts. For the biggest Rental company to come out and say that WS is becoming the format of choice Based on Customer Feedback, well, that must speak in volumes pretty much as loud as Wal-Mart and K-Mart in Ohio.

I guess it does not matter much anyway as there really isn't anything I can say that couldn't draw some kind of rebuttal. I guess in the whole WS vs P&S debate, statistics can pretty much be used to prove anything. But WS is selling stong enough for now to ensure that studios should still be putting out WS versions of films (with a few noticeable exceptions from some certian studios I don't think I have to spell out here)

On a side note, what do people think this means? I was at Costco today, which I have oft praised for the support of WS. I mentioned earlier in this thread, the big front end display of "The Two Towers" and mentioned a much heavier stock of WS over P&S. Now a week has gone by and the front end display is gone and those DVDs are back where they usually would go. But one thing struck me. There seemed to be mostly P&S sitting there with the WS version not seeming as abundant. I hope it is like that because most P&S remained unsold. I hope it is not the other way around fewer WS on the shelf because of customer complaints. Any insights?

 

[Jenna]

It seems to me that most J6Ps when they do have 16:9 TVs will have them set to FULL mode which will just stretch the image to fit their screen. Since they never cared that up to 40% of the movie was missing I doubt they care that everyone is a little 'heavier'.

Ugh!!! My new husband is using MY glorious Sony Widescreen in this manner! He watches fullscreen television in a stretched "fat" mode, DESPITE MY TEACHING OTHERWISE!!!

Ugh!!! I married a J6P!!! :frowning:
Is this grounds for divorce in the United States???
Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhh

 

[Jenna]

Oh, and by the way...
I HATE WALMART! If they have a better price, I use it to pricematch at BestBuy. I refuse to buy DVDs there!

...Of course, my J6P hubby would!

 

[MarkHastings]

Ugh!!! I married a J6P!!!
Is this grounds for divorce in the United States???

Watch who you call a J6P. That comment was a bit over the line and you may be offending more people in this forum than you realize.

 

[John_Berger]

Watch who you call a J6P. That comment was a bit over the line and you may be offending more people in this forum than you realize.

Oh, for crying out loud. Here we go again. "Set emotional and sensitivity modes to 'hyper'!" "Aye, aye, captain! We'll be offended if someone so much as looks at us the wrong way in 5 ... 4 ... 3 ... 2 ... 1 ... "

* sigh *

Anyway, it seems that Wal-Mart's attitude is localized to specific areas. A few months ago I noticed that the second Harry Potter movie was available primarily in widescreen at a Scranton Wal-Mart. That wasn't the only widescreen-dominant movie either. When I mentioned my surprise at this the girl at the counter said, "Most people prefer widescreen."

Hell, even the local grocery store chain is starting to sell widescreen after selling nothing but pan-and-scan for years. I even found a widescreen VHS version of "A Bug's Life" on sale. I almost bought it just to give them an additional number in the "widescreen movies sold" category.

 

[MarkHastings]

Thanks a lot for the childish remarks John. :rolleyes

 

[John_Berger]

I'm not the one who went ballistic over three letters whose context was clearly as a harmless, comedic jab that all of us who are married throw at our spouses once in a while. To quote George Carlin, "They're just words. We can't be afraid of words." Fortunately, the topic of the term J6P has been discussed ad nauseum here, so I'm not going to facilitate that particular discussion any longer.

To get back to the thread and continue on my previous note...

Now that I think about that grocery chain, I remember sending a letter to them explaining that widescreen still outsells pan-and-scan. Their reply was the generic "we sell what we think the majority of our customers want." My only thought to that was, "Oh yeah. The majority of your customers really want the six different varieties of anchovy paste and pickled octopus in isle nine."

Actually, I find it kind of ironic that Wal-Mart seems to be pushing pan-and-scan while companies like Blockbuster have made good on their promise to go widescreen. I went into BB the other day just to look around and every new DVD that they had for rental was OAR - every one. I can't imagine that BB (who also tried to use the "majority of customers" argument a year ago) would have such an epiphany yet Wal-Mart won't.

Personally, I just wish that the movie studios would get the spine to demonstrate the difference between widescreen and pan-and-scan on their DVDs. MGM used to do that with their DVD inserts. Even Leonard Nimoey discusses widescreen on the Star Trek IV DVD and director's edition VHS.

 

[MarkHastings]

John, sorry for the outrage, but there is another "Fullscreen" thread going on where there is a heated discussion and animosity toward people like me who stretch 4x3 material on a WS tv. I won't get into the details of why I do it...

Again, sorry, but I'm at the point where I'm furious when people feel the need to make sneers at me for doing something that protects my WS investment.

Again, I won't hijack the thread so you can read my reasons here:
http://www.hometheaterforum.com/htfo...74#post1742774

 

[John_Berger]

John, sorry for the outrage, but there is another "Fullscreen" thread going on where there is a heated discussion and animosity toward people like me who stretch 4x3 material on a WS tv. I won't get into the details of why I do it...

For what it's worth, my friend, so do I. I consider it to be a protection of my investment. And quite frankly, stretching it so that only the sides are stretched but the center is intact is only marginally distracting (if there is any distraction at all) since the vast majority of the action takes place in the center of the screen anyway! I'll have to hop over to that thread and back you up.

 

[Bryan X]

I'm with you Mark. I always stretch my 4:3 material to to protect the screen. We watch too much 4:3 cable TV to have the sides of the screen blank for such long periods. Applying a little stretch does not make me a J6P.... now back to topic.

 

[MarkHastings]

Thanks for the support Bryan and John. Sorry for the flipping out but when someone refers to this stretching as a J6P, it makes me angry, and you don't want to make me angry :Hulk Smiley:

 

[WillG]

Even Leonard Nimoey discusses widescreen on the Star Trek IV DVD and director's edition VHS.

You know I think that Directors should get more personally involved in the way their films are presented on DVD. Some director quotes get mentioned here from time to time. Interesting though, Martin Scorcese has publicly stated that ideally films should be watched in WS. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think an MAR version of any of his films even exist on DVD. John Carpenter has publically annouced his disdain for P&S and even refered to P&S supporters as Idiots. He then said if they must have P&S, just throw an extra disc into the package. And I don't think any one of his films has a separate P&S release. I don't know if this is merely coincidence or these directors had some pull (my facts may not even be right, but I'm going off memory) We know for a fact that Kubrick has requested his films to be formatted certain ways on DVD, and recently Roger Donaldson got personally involved in how he wanted "The Recruit" to be presented and there is only a single version of that film to show for it (whether it be right or wrong). But it is a shame that more directors are not coming out about this, even many of those with the most clout. Spielberg doesn't seem to mind P&S versions of his films coming out. Hell, his OWN STUDIO is putting out his recent films. I was somewhat dissapointed that the "Indiana Jones" films are getting a P&S release. I don't think Paramount could have made Spielberg and Lucas agree to this involutarily. I don't think the studios are going to be much help, because if Wal-Mart wants P&S, Wal-Mart is going to get P&S. MGM did used to show examples, but many of those were GROSSLY incorrect (I remember the booklet for "DR NO" that "Showed" that the film was anamorpic scope) Even if a director does not have the necessary clout, at least maybe somehow get something on the DVD or just some word out that expresses the customer should really go for the WS.

Now that I am done with that, a side note. Anybody know yet how The Two Towers dual versions are comparatively selling. I was at Wal-Mart today and saw many P&S and not a single W/S. Costco had a big WS display, but has really seemed to scale back the number of WS on the shelves (I had to lift up one of the cardboard racks just to find a WS copy underneath. I don't know enought about retail stores to determine if this means that a lot of WS sold or it is just really being scaled back because more P&S are selling