is widescreen here to stay. (1 Viewer)

[Lee_eel]

After all the seperate full screen releases lately does anyone feel widescreen is at risk of being phased out?

 

[Rob Lutter]

No.
(At least I hope not. But with most [if not all] of the dual releases, widescreen has always sold better)

 

[LukeB]

If an extremely high-profile title like Lord of the Rings has widescreen outsell Fullscreen, I think the answer is rather obviously a resounding NO, widescreen is not going to be phased out anytime soon. In fact, widescreen's acceptance rate is almost definitely as high now as it's ever been since the dawn of home video. Not as high as it should be, but it's only up from here.

 

[Kyle McKnight]

There are many, many threads on this subject...Mr. SEARCH will help you find them.

 

[jacob w k]

Considering there were limited amounts of movies released in widescreen on vhs and now almost every dvd is available in widescreen I would say not a chance.

 

[Lew Crippen]

[rant]no[/rant]

 

[Jenna]

It boggles the mind that the television manufacturing industry (Sony, Hitachi, Mitsubishi, Panasonic, etc.) would FINALLY make available Widescreen television sets for our home viewing pleasure, and then the Studios would neglect the widescreen aspect in favor of "chop & scan" (fullscreen) releases.

One would assume that all of the major Studio honchos would certainly be able to afford the "best that money could buy" for their homes - so surely that would mean WIDESCREEN TV'S or projection theaters. Wouldn't they be sacrificing their own enjoyment to "phase out widescreen" releases to appease J6P and his standard 4:3 set???

HOPE NOT!!!

- a proud widescreen owner

 

[Leon Liew]

I just noticed in one of our retail shop selling LOTR DVDs
of both Fullscreen & Widescreen versions. I was surprised
that the Widescreen version was S$11.00 cheaper than the
Fullscreen version.
I was thinking to myself what a nice way to promote Widescreen using the cost factor. Perhaps the owner is a
an OAR lover like us.

 

[Joseph Bolus]

It's actually possible, IMO, that basic DVD could become a dominant P&S format at some point.

However, it probably wouldn't happen until we're 2-3 years into a backward-compatible HD-DVD format.

In other words, I don't think we'll ever have to worry again in our lifetimes about being deprived of readily available widescreen transfers in a high quality format.

It has now been incontestably demonstrated to the studios that a large segment of the population prefers movies in their OAR; and they know that this segment will continue to grow over the next five years as Widescreen sets and Widescreen cable programming becomes more and more prevalent.

 

[Patrick McCart]

As long as people are buying widescreen (and OAR) DVD, the studios will sell it.

That doesn't mean that Columbia and Disney won't stop making TV transfer DVD's with little effort put into them. But it does mean that WB, Universal, Fox, and MGM to cater to what consumers want.

I know most OAR-supporters feel like those who buy P&S DVD have no right to buy non-OAR stuff...but as long as titles are released in dual-format, dual-release, or OAR only...there is no problem.

After all, the only DVD that had widescreen topped by fullscreen was The Grinch. The WB dual-release titles are usually getting a LBX lead (I don't keep track) and the same thing with Universal. Fox is just now doing bare-bones P&S discs, but I expect them to be kind of ho-hum since the 2-disc editions had a head start.

 

[Augustin Rodriguez]

Personally, I think the failed and disgusting MAR will always be with us. I cannot see studios issuing titles in their OAR for high definition viewing. What I mean is that it seems likely that a studio would take a film, like The Matrix shot at 2:35:1, and crop it to 1:78:1 or 16 X 9 for high definition viewing.

I truly do not want this to happen, but I have never seen a movie in high definition in it's OAR if it was shot wider than 1:78:1. Even movies that are 1:85:1 are still technically letterboxed on a widescreen TV, you just can't see the bars because they are too small to notice.

How can we be sure that the movies or TV that is broadcasted in high definition will be from it's OAR and not an MAR rehash.

If I am wrong, and I hope I am, please feel free to provide additional information on this subject. I look forward to your responses fellow members.