Inexcusable Circuit City circular ad in Sunday paper (1 Viewer)

[Nick Pudar]

We get our Sunday paper inserts delivered on Saturday. The Circuit City circular has photographs of lots of TVs, both standard (4:3) and widescreen. Each TV screen has the same image from Pearl Harbor. Here's the inexcusable: For the widescreen TVs, they took the same image from the standard TV - and chopped off some of the image from the top and bottom so that the picture has the widescreen aspect ratio.
This will confuse the hell out of people who are trying to learn about OAR -- it looks like widescreen TVs have to not show you the complete image. Unbelievable!!!
You'd think CC would want their customers to WANT to buy the more expensive widescreen TVs by really contrasting what is presented on the screen!

 

[AndyDL]

I've seen this not only in Circuit City ads, but Best Buy ads also. And numerous other electronic store ads. (Ultimate Electronics)
I agree that it's destroying our OAR education plan. Why don't we start writing these electronic stores about the problem with their ads?
Andy

 

[PhilS]

I bet if you worked in the marketing departments of Circuit City or Best Buy and had to put out adds for 500 stores in various markets across the country, and deal with all the prices and advertising issues that had to be dealt with on all of the various consumer electronic products these companies sell, making sure the 16 x 9 TV shows a widescreen picture versus the 4 x3 set would be pretty low on the list. I can think of about 47,372 things on this planet that need to be addressed before this. (And no, I don't work for Circuit City or Best Buy.)

 

[Jeff]

I think Joe Six-Packs are too busy counting their VHS tapes then to worry about this.

 

[Ben Motley]

Wow... they can count?

 

[Ernest]

The reality of it is BestBuy and Circuit City and all the other electronic stores are trying to sell TV's and they don't care if they sell 4x3's or 16x9's. They are out to make money and will never play one set against the other. They are not going to loose the sale. If the consumer wants to buy a 4x3 they are not going to try and talk them into buying a 16x9. The sale is the only thing that counts.

 

[SteveA]

Ads like this are the reason why I've had several conversions lately that went like this (no joke):

ME: Hey - I'm thinking about getting one of those 16:9 HDTV sets.

J6P friend or relative: Ew! You mean one of those shorter TV screens that cut of the top and bottom of the picture?

 

[Ryan Peter]

My local Circuit City has a little flyer in DVD section that says "Why Widescreen is Better", and it shows a cropped image from a film then the widescreen version. It's very nice and I've never seen that anywhere else.

 

[Frank_W]

You know - I finally got around to my Sunday Chicago paper
and quickly noticed that the pictures used for the W/S
vs the P&S set were ALMOST identical. There was a small
difference to the shots, but I am not sure what the
reason for that is.
However, it was the first thing that came to mind. I guess
it will take a bit longer for the W/S sets to come down
in price if people think that picture is still the same
as the 4:3 sets shown in the flyers. :frowning:

 

[Peter Loan]

Was Pearl Harbor filmed in Super 35 or true anamorphic? I know some of Bay's previous films such as Armageddon were in Super 35, so the cutoff picture for the widescreen version would be accurate.

 

[Barry S]

I know some of Bay's previous films were in Super 35 such as Armageddon were filmed in Super 35 so the cutoff picture for the widescreen version would be accurate.

Not really. Because the simulated TV screen shows no black bars.

The movie was filmed mostly in Panavision, but there are 8mm segments filmed on Super 8, and also the effects shots were in VistaVision (according to IMDB).

 

[Tom Brennan]

All HiFi retailers do that in their circulars as far as I can tell. I can see where it would confuse the average consumer, but I don't see it as a big concern.6

 

[Mark Zimmer]

Best Buy and Circus Shitty may be trying to sell TVs of all kinds, but given the enormous price differential, I'm surprised that they're not pushing the 16:9s much harder than they are. Those have the potential of being significant profit centers, if sold correctly. This, however, is definitely not the way to do that.

 

[DarrenA]

Not to get off topic of the CC ad, but I notice this in some of the more prominent A/V magazines as well. For instance, I love the magazine Audio Video Interiors, but they consistently paste in screenshots in the wrong aspect ratio. I have seen so many 2.35:1 ratio movies shown in their magazine filling the entire image area of 16:9 screens. It's wrong and confusing as well.:frowning:

 

[Jerry Gracia]

Was Pearl Harbor filmed in Super 35 or true anamorphic? I know some of Bay's previous films such as Armageddon were in Super 35, so the cutoff picture for the widescreen version would be accurate.

Both ARMAGEDDON and PEARL HARBOR were shot in anamorphic format. The 4:3 versions of these films are indeed in PAN AND SCAN. EDIT: I've heard that the PEARL HARBOR VHS is letterboxed to a certain extent so a 4:3 version apparently doens't exist. (?)

The only film directed by Michael Bay that was shot in Super 35 was THE ROCK.