*** FOX goes PAN&SCAN? 10 Fox discs re-released in MARCH (1 Viewer)

[Tim Hoover]

I don't see what all the fuss is about. Fox isn't removing the OAR titles, they're just supplementing them for the people who prefer fullscreen. In fact, as was stated earlier, Fox seems to be encouraging people to purchase the OAR version. "You like widescreen? Great, then watch this one with commentaries, documentaries, and deleted scenes! Wait, you DON'T like widescreen? Well then, just watch the movie."

As I've said before, as long as Fox provides an OAR version that is readily available and identifiable, we have absolutely nothing to complain about.

 

[HenrikTull]

I'm dissapointed to say the least... :frowning:
What's even more dissapointing as that people are defending Fox's decision in this thread, while we've had thread after thread about removing MAR from the market and instead educating J6P about the benefits of OAR.
Still, I'll give Fox credit for releasing some of the best DVD products that are currently availeable.

 

[Ronald Epstein]

First of all, let me clarify a few things....

My not reviewing Fox DVD product anymore is

a personal decision and NOTHING against what the

studio has done.

Peter Staddon is a purist when it comes to

movies. He always supported widescreen and

fought against putting out pan and scan versions

of his studio's product.

As I have warned countless times in my reports,

the studios are under immense pressure by retailers

who do not want to carry widescreen product.

Despite the fact that Fox will be continuing to

release widescreen DVDs, I am not very happy Fox

is lowering themselves to separate PAN & SCAN product.

The studios have made little effort to combat

the ignorance of the public. I continue to stand

on the issue that the studios should have made their

own 1-2 minute promos on the benefits of widescreen

and placed them at the beginning of all their titles.

The problem now is, the studios are catering to an

ignorant public rather than even attempting to educate

them.

Putting out product to satisfy these ignorant

consumers has got to be costing the studio money they

could be spending better elsewhere. How long will

a studio like Fox continue spending money like this

until they possibly throw in the towel and say no

more widescreen?

Though at this time, I hardly think that the good

people at Fox would ever give up widescreen releases,

it bothers me greatly that they gave in to these

retailers. I would think that if certain retailers

stop selling widescreen product, their customers will

look elsewhere to find it.

I can't put myself in the studio's shoes. I don't

have sales stats in front of me, and I have no idea

what the circumstances were that forced Fox to make

this decision. While on the one hand I understand

members saying there is no harm releasing 2 versions,

I have to disagree. We are giving in to these bully

retailers and a public that has never been educated.

As a result, the studios are spending money they

shouldn't be. Finally, giving in like this takes us

one step closer in the direction of studios favoring

pan & scan over widescreen.

I'm sorry. This just doesn't sit too easy with me,

especially coming from a studio that I really love.

 

[Lars Vermundsberget]

There is one thing about this whole OAR/P&S issue that makes me wonder:

Aren't big companies within reasonable limitations basically able to make people buy whatever the companies want them to buy? I find it hard to believe that the studios could not quite successfully promote OAR if they really wanted to.

Could it be that the companies really don't want a majority of DVD buyers to have "the whole picture" in their possession?

 

[Robert Crawford]

I can't put myself in the studio's shoes. I don't
have sales stats in front of me, and I have no idea
what the circumstances were that forced Fox to make
this decision.

One of those circumstances is a company called "Wal Mart" which Fortune magazine says is the world's biggest corporation with 4,150 stores worldwide and on pace for a record $220 billion in revenue for the 2001 fiscal year. We know that Wal Mart and other major retailers have been squeezing the studios about selling only widescreen product which means the studios who are in business to make money eventually have to listen to these retailers, who are the major distributors of their video product to the general public.
Now if some of you want to call that defending Fox's decision then so be it but please be more pragmatic about the business relationship the studios have with their major retailers. If you want to be pissed off at anybody then stop shopping at Wal Mart and write a letter to tell them why. Unfortunately, based on the figures I've already quoted earlier in my post, the effects of boycotting Wal Mart is not going to have them shaking in their boots about lost revenue from some HT enthusiasts. Furthermore, those calling the general public a bunch of names is not only childish but offers little for a solution, however I guess it's at least good for venting your frustration.
Crawdaddy

 

[Carl Johnson]

I can't bring myself to get mad over this because I can't imagine p&s eliminating oar DVDs any time ever. While there will always be people who want to fill their screen I'd be willing to bet that those people do more renting than buying. There are plenty of people who own 100+ DVDs on this forum but where can one go to find consumers interested in collecting hundreds of p&s discs? Would it be profitable to ignore the hard core collectors market instead catering to pan n scanners? If that were the case then the format would have been launched as p&s.

 

[PhilipG]

Oh look, here's a coverscan of the new edition of ID4:

Link Removed

 

[Gordon Wakim]

Stop trying to educate the masses, you are trying to teach something they don't want to learn. When will somebody (movie studios) start pressuring the hardware manufacturers to start selling more widescreen TV sets. DVD has been on the market for approximately 5 years and still there are only a small handful of widescreen TV Sets on the market. Wall-Mart doesn’t sell any, and 90 percent of what Best Buy and Circuit City has is 4:3 TV sets. If there were more "affordable" 16:9 TV's on the market there would be no need for Pan & Scan.

 

[george kaplan]

Let me clarify a bit what I was saying about the inadequacy of the market research.
Yes, those who don't care about OAR outnumber those of us who do tremendously.
Yes, if you release a p&s only Willy Wonka, and then many weeks later release an OAR Willy Wonka, the p&s will outsell the OAR.
Yes, if you release two versions (p&s and OAR) at the same time, and certain retailers only carry the p&s then the p&s will outsell the OAR.
BUT, trying to conclude from that that p&s releases are the more profitable is poor market research.
It is also true that:
Those of us who prefer OAR buy a hell of a lot more dvds per capita.
We also buy a much wider variety of dvds, including a lot more catalog product, not just the latest blockbuster.
The percentage of OAR enthusiasts who absolutely refuse to buy p&s is very high (near 100%). The percentage of the rest of the dvd market who hate black bars enough to refuse to buy widescreen only releases of movies like the Phantom Menace is much, much smaller. Many of them might 'prefer' p&s, but they don't really care, and even those who bitch about it, still buy the product.
If you put that all together, I think you'd find that Fox would have made a lot less money on a p&s only Phantom Menace than they did on the widescreen only Phantom Menace. What if they had had both? Would the additional revenue have made up for the additional costs? I don't know. That's what 'good' market research would find out. But 'good' market research would include broad enough sampling of the population (asking the 'right' questions), that certainly someone here at HTF would have been sampled. I know I haven't been. Anyone here? More than likely, their 'market research' is the same as at my company (a completely different product). Very little collection of meaningful data. Lots of opinions by the big guys about what they 'think' the market wants from talking to parents of their children's friends, etc. :frowning:

 

[Jason Hughes]

Why can't Joe Six-Pack just go and buy a DVD player with the Zoom function. Then they get rid of those nasty black-bars. Sure it really degrades the quality, but if JSP is only interested in P&S, then he does not really care about quality anyway.

 

[David Lambert]

PhillipG: Nice work! It demonstrates to Fox what the direction is that they are heading.
Crawdaddy: Acknowledged. Sucks, though. Y'know, if Fox decided not to sell their product at Wal-Mart, though...it would be Wal-Mart coming to Fox to beg to buy stuff. After all, Wal-Mart doesn't want to miss out on the sweet sweet profit of Star Wars movies, blockbusters like ID4 and yes even Moulin Rouge, and TV shows like X-Files, Simpsons, M*A*S*H, etc. It's called LEVERAGE. Fox should use it. All the big studios should, but Fox has more than anyone else except perhaps WB and Paramount, with MGM coming into the ballpark of that list.
Ron: A sigh of relief here. First, I apologize for any insult perceived from speculating on a connection between this and your lack of Fox reviews. We are all burning with curiousity as to the reasons behind that "personal decision", since it might pertain to knowledge which might affect whether or not we feel good to buy Fox titles. "If Ron doesn't want to review them, maybe we shouldn't buy them" is the line of thinking (anyone out there agree/disagree?).
Second, it's good that you have - once again! - put my exact thoughts and fears into words. Yes, they are still offerring OAR releases alongside the new MAR releases. Yes the OAR releases have better supplements. But we are back to the "slippery slope" that's been discussed many times before here at HTF. Fox's new decision might just be the tip of the iceberg. A couple of years from now all DVD's might be pan-and-scan-city, sweetheart...even Star Wars films.
Third, while I understand that Peter Staddon might *personally* feel as obsessive about OAR as most of us at HTF do, that is of *ZERO* consequence to me if, as an exec at the studio, he is unable to (or perhaps even unwilling to) prevent Fox from moving away from OAR releases, in part or in whole. ESPECIALLY when we haven't seen other efforts first, like the education effort, in any form or manner (not even a blurb at their website, like MGM has, much less a 2-minute spot on the DVD's themselves (Die Hard being the exception, of course)).
Frankly, I'm frightened. If we lose Fox (and Peter Staddon), then I almost feel like the war is over, and we've lost. We're already fighting WB and MGM (both of whom have done better lately, but what will their reaction to THIS be?). And Paramount can't carry the fight alone. Will all due respect to Martin Blythe (Paramount exec who visits HTF and might chance upon this thread), I don't see Paramount as making the business decision to support OAR no matter what if no other major studio does. We'll be left with Anchor Bay and Criterion soon after, and we all know that their stuff is excellent, but the depth of catalog just isn't at those places at all.

 

[Kimmo Jaskari]

I for one think this is potentially a disaster. I'd much much rather see Fox or any other studio put out discs with dual versions (OAR and that other hack-job type stuff...) and get used to doing that. Perhaps then the temptation to stop catering to the movie lovers and start going p&s only on some titles wouldn't even be an issue.

I'd gladly lose tons of extras on movies if it meant that dual-format discs became the norm.

The best solution would of course be OAR only, but unfortunately there are lots of clueless people out there still.

This is scary in that it may turn out that the p&s versions will sell better than the OAR ones. That will no doubt lead to that some "genius" at any or all of the studios will push for releasing some movies as p&s only.

 

[MatthewA]

Well, you can always go here:
Link Removed
And have them petition the US Government to ban pan-and-scan.

 

[Mark Booth]

I've been waiting for the day when all the studios switch to pan & scan. When that glorious day finally comes, I can finally STOP this compulsive habit of BUYING DVDS. Imagine the thou$and$ I will save!

Then, my time will best be spent enjoying the titles I already own.

Mark

 

[Jason Smalley]

Back in 1997, I got into dvd for two reasons:

1. I wanted to be able to purchase movies on the day that they were released for a reasonable price ($30 vs. $95). Thank fully, rental pricing hasn't reared its ugly head yet. But if we lose this battle, what is next?

2. As a cinephile, I love the extras that allow me to appriciate the movie more. I for one could not support dual aspect ratio releases at the expense of the extras. If that is what I wanted, I would have kept with VHS.

 

[Jeff Whitford]

HenrikTull, Gordon is right people dont want to learn. That has been proven by the American publics throwing their arms up in the air and saying that they cant program their vcr. Funny how they can set their alarm clock but cant set their vcr when it is almost the same procedure. Again I wouldnt worry about widescreen going away because as I said ALL tvs in the future will be 16x9. Its part of the HD format and there are only a handful of HD sets still left in 4x3 (projection). Their will be less next year and so on.

 

[bill lopez]

And just who are these people?
I figure they are senior citizens who have a lot of time to watch movies,illegal imagrinants. Now right there is a large group who buy $85 dvd players. And I would see why it would be impossiable to educate them on this. And if you notice our country has given in to their needs. I wish Divix was still at Circuit City.So at least most of the great old movies are already released in widescreen dvd, the end is near for widescreen dvd sad to say.:frowning:

 

[Jeff Ulmer]

Back before DVD was ever released, one of the key selling features was the ability to have dual formats on the same disc. Much of the early product was like this, but space limitations and the unavailability of DVD18 made including dual formats unfeasable for many titles. P&S on the fly was also touted as being a feature, but as of yet there hasn't been any product to utilise it (1 or 2 titles maybe, but that's it). Both of these avenues would make releasing a single SKU possible.

I have less issue with a separate P&S release for its own sake than I do with what retail will do with it. I don't really feel like paying for a chopped image, so even if it came along I'd never use it and would prefer those bits went to a better image and more supplements. The problem will be that Walmart and others like them will ONLY stock the P&S version, skewing sales numbers which justify even more P&S only releases.

The other thing these numbers will allow is the rehashing of old transfers done for video tape, since an anamorphic version isn't required. The retransfering has been responsible for the considerable improvement in image quality we have been experiencing, and what has been selling DVD over VHS. With an abundance of 4:3 masters for broadcast or previous home video releases, production costs will plummet as they mine the archives and release old transfers to DVD, as we've seen even on the nonanamorphic letterbox releases from the likes of MGM. The outcome of all of this is a significant drop in image quality, and the eventual move to a more upscale product equal to what we have today, but priced more like laserdisc was.

The only way to combat this is by getting the talent involved, and force the studios to release DVDs of their films in their proper aspect ratio with attention to the quality - right now most don't even know their product is being released until it's too far along in the process. The consumer will have little say in any of this.

 

[soop.spoon]

Ecomonics trumps art once again. As sad as this is, it shouldn't surprise anyone.

 

[TerryW]

My simple solution:
Studios should provide only OAR version to retailers and thus consumers. If neither one of them had to choose and all they got was the OAR version (which shouldn't even be labeled Widescreen or Letterboxed or anything else that draws attention to the package) then the problem would eventually go away. The people who don't like OAR for whatever reason will either return product or stop buying all together for a while but they'll be back...eventually. The sales of DVD's might go down a bit at first but they'll come back up and as someone else here said, when Widescreen TV's become affordable or preferrably the only choice, then the sales will go back up and everything will be fine.
The questions I'd love to ask as part of this 'mass market poll of the dvd buying public' is: do they watch er on television? Do they like it? Do they notice it's presented in Widescreen? Does it bother them? I hope they watch and I'm glad they have no choice as to how they watch it. Thank you NBC for forcing the public to not be ignorant.