It's funny hearing people rant and rave about widescreen. (1 Viewer)

[Richard Kim]

What they should have done is use an animated menu to put the lineup scene in those rectangles so you can clearly see that Kevin Pollak and Kevin Spacey are practically missing from this shot in "standard" mode.

Then you'd know what you're missing.

Considering that the Usual Suspects was shot with Super35, I'm not sure that's a good example.

 

[Malcolm R]

wanted to scan a legal document to print on a letter sized piece of paper.

Hey, that's actually a pretty good example. I'll have to find a legal size photo, shrink it to letter size, and show the comparison. Anyone who resizes photos or copies should be able to grasp that concept.

 

[Douglas R]

My SO told me once that she had never noticed that the theater screen was a different shape than her TV. Anyway, it had never occurred to me before that people simply wouldn't notice the difference.

This is something that's always puzzled me. You would think that people who go regularly to theaters would notice the obvious difference in shape compared to a 4 x 3 TV. Why don't they see the difference? Alternatively are most TV viewers who complain about widescreen, the sort of people who don't visit theaters?

 

[Mike_G]

I started getting interested in widescreen in 1980/1981 when Flash Gordon was first shown on HBO. At the end, the busts of Ming had "Ming is dead" spray painted on them, and when I saw it on HBO, I noticed they were missing. I guess J6P isn't as aware of things as the rest of us.
Remember, to most people, movies are mindless entertainment. They don't give a rat's ass about OAR. It's the ones that don't know they care that we have to work on .
Mike

 

[Jason Seaver]

You would think that people who go regularly to theaters would notice the obvious difference in shape compared to a 4 x 3 TV. Why don't they see the difference? Alternatively are most TV viewers who complain about widescreen, the sort of people who don't visit theaters?

Well, I've long accepted that I'm in the lunatic fringe regarding seeing movies in the theater - I like to go several times a week; many of my family members and friends will only go a couple times a year, if that. They usually don't see the difference because there's not that much to call attention to it - no obvious unused space(*).

And while a 2.35 movie is clearly different from a 1.33 TV, the 1.85 ones are closer than you might think. We've trained ourselves to notice the difference, but unless you've got a side-by-side comparison, 1.33 and 1.85 can look pretty close.

(*) Also, I'd like to propose the use of "unused space" rather than "black bars". To "bar" is to create an impediment, a "bar" in this context is an impediment. Just using the term makes it seem like widescreen is preventing you from seeing the movie properly, when the opposite is really the case.

 

[Mark Hobbs]

I'm guessing that most people think that "widescreen" DVDs are made for "widescreen" TVs, which they don't have.

 

[StephenA]

I definately notice the difference. I always use the theater screen as an example when talking about widescreen. I say that you can't get a rectangle on a square unless you cut the sides off or shrink it down. Fullscreen has the sides cut off, widescreen has the picture shrunk down. I'm always telling my 11 year old sister about the benefits of widescreen. She gets it, but since she's still into VHS, she doesn't really get into widescreen, except when watching movies with me. My friend understands widescreen too, but he doesn't get widescreen movies because he has a 19 inch TV and can't really see the movies when they're presented in widescreen.

 

[Brad Eisenhauer]

My friend understands widescreen too, but he doesn't get widescreen movies because he has a 19 inch TV and can't really see the movies when they're presented in widescreen.

Bah! That's no excuse! I have a 23" TV and I sit about 10' away. Widescreen all the way, baby! Yeah!
But then again, I'm insane.

 

[Matt Stone]

My mom comes over to my apartment every now and again to catch a DVD. She used to be anti-widescreen, so I explained it to her, and now she doesn't even notice. In fact...last summer I was helping out at my Grandparents's garage sale and I overheard my Mom explaining to them, the benefits of widescreen. I even think she said "Original Aspect Ratio..."

 

[Brian-W]

-->edited by author

 

[Marshall Alsup]

Man those little business cards are the shit. I'm printing out a page of them (theres 10 on a page) to keep in my wallet so the next time I'm in Wal-Mart I can whip it out and show J6P why he should abandon P&S. I'll just give him/her one of the little cards and tell them to think about it.

Also I dont get why the studios dont have little mini-movies or pictoral examples on thier movies that explain this. I have to assume that the studios understand and care about WS. I assume they just do P&S because they make money with it, not because the studios prefer it. They should create a little mini-movie and put it on every DVD they publish, both P&S and WS. The fact that they haven't already done this confuses me. You'd think they would want to educate the end user just so they could save the money of creating a P&S cut of every movie, but hey.... maybe I'll never understand whats in the studios heads.

-Marshall

 

[Bryan Tuck]

My mom comes over to my apartment every now and again to catch a DVD. She used to be anti-widescreen, so I explained it to her, and now she doesn't even notice. In fact...last summer I was helping out at my Grandparents's garage sale and I overheard my Mom explaining to them, the benefits of widescreen. I even think she said "Original Aspect Ratio..."

I've had a similar experience. My dad used to not like widescreen, but when I was younger, I used to buy widescreen VHS tapes when they were available, and he gradually got used to it. Now, he's been watching a lot of DVDs lately, and says now he can't even notice the black bars until the picture fades out. He also mentioned seeing part of a movie on TV once, and that it looked funny because there were two noses talking to each other
Then, one night we were going to watch The Mask of Zorro, and I asked if he wanted to watch it in WS or FS (as the SE DVD has both), and without missing a beat he said, "Oh, widescreen." So, I guess there's hope.
By the way, Zorro is a great disc(s) to explain widescreen with, because it looks so bad in P&S. I showed a friend of mine the sword fight between Zorro, Capt. Love, and Montero in both formats, and on the P&S, she said "You can't even see the other guy."

 

[John Kilduff]

The thing that kills me about all this is that my mom wants me to apply to Wal-Mart. From all I've read on various Home Entertainment and Theater websites, WalMart gives less than a damn about OAR, and on top of that, they don't stock explicit CDs. She wants me to work there anyway...Good God, I'm crying on the inside. I don't want to deal with J6Ps, and WalMart is full of them. This'll be worse than flipping burgers, and I never thought such a thing was possible.

Sincerely,

John "Edited versions and full-screen, Heaven help me...or at least get me to K-Mart, where they have widescreen DVDs and explicit CDs" Kilduff

 

[Malcolm R]

This'll be worse than flipping burgers, and I never thought such a thing was possible.

Just hope that if you do, they don't assign you to the Snack Bar. Then you'd have the worst of both worlds.
Does your Mom really care where you work, just as long as you work?

 

[John Kilduff]

No, she doesn't care where I work just as long as I work...she does have a point about my unemployment these past few months, but by the same token, I don't want to earn my dough explaining to a J6P the meaning of widescreen. Your average Wal-Mart consumer knows the meaning of Christmas, but when it comes to widescreen, they're about as sharp as a marble. I make sure to check to see if the DVD I'm getting from any store is full-screen only (after I got burned on "Moonstruck" and possibly "Misery"). If it is, I say "Forget it". Too bad I'll be dealing with people who don't see it that way...

Sincerely,

John "At least at K-Mart, you stand somewhat of a better chance of getting a wide-screen title" Kilduff

 

[Eric M Jones]

I have an iPaq. Someone should make a little .avi file for those of us that can carry it around with them.

This is a great idea. I don't have the software to do it. If someone could provide the time to put one together I could create the graphics.

-EJ

 

[Mike Broadman]

He even says that fullscreen you'll see a bird come into the screen, but in widescreen it suddenly appears.

The only explanation I could come up with for this: open matte.

An open matted presentation does show you "more," this bird he speaks of would be on the screen sooner than in the OAR version.

While the "how do you fit a rectangle into a square" concept is easy to explain, the open-matte thing is not, because that requires getting into matting the film vs matting the lense, and then the person you're talking to gets all annoyed and calls you a nerd. My girlfriends and non-tech friends aren't willing to check out the HTF and learn all about it. (If anyone here wants to totally humiliate, dig up one of the first threads I ever participated in, where I didn't know a matte from armchair :b )

 

[David Lambert]

Open Matte isn't THAT hard to explain. A picture is worth a thousand words:

 

[Brad Eisenhauer]

Which raises the question, if John Cleese is wearing boxers, why does he need to keep holding that portrait in front of him?

 

[Mike Broadman]

David, most people don't go around carrying pictures with them. But no, it's not particularly difficult to explain- as long as you have someone who is willing to listen and understand. A lot of the stories I read here about hardcore P&S tells me that some people just aren't willing to listen.

The simple explanation, "Widescreen gives you more pictures" is incorrect. If you just say that, they will think you were lying or misinformed when they find out about how open-matte gives you "more picture." I just meant that it adds a level of complication to the story, that's all. Personally, I'd rather tell someone the complete truth and have them disagree with me than lie or over-simplify to convert them to my side.