Dave Simpson
Second Unit
- Joined
- Sep 18, 1999
- Messages
- 445
Kindly note: I've enjoyed OAR presentations regularily in my home for better than five years. Those who do not enjoy same, under my roof, are made to understand in an unspoken fashion, that if they don't like it, they may be on their way...
...but it wasn't always so. I remember watching Siskel and Ebert many years ago extolling the virtues of wide-screen presentations, and their argument made perfect sense to me at the time. While my VHS purchases were few and far between, the titles that I did buy were always P&S, even if there was a choice between P&S and WS. Only when I boarded the laser-disc train for a very brief period in 1992 (not enough $$$ to buy LDs, clumsy form-factor; bailed after a year. Have no fear, 'tho. I got back into LDs a couple of years ago with a used 704 and AC-3 box
), did I succumb to the siren song of wide-screen. Because I knew it was the right thing to do, even though I was having great difficulty getting past the "black bars". My brain told me OAR was correct; my eyes told me different. In the end, getting a DVD player in 1999 put the issue to bed, and in no time flat. I suppose several discs a week, as opposed to an LD once or twice a month several years prior, did the trick.
My secret OAR shame is that I once purchased Star Trek: First Contact on VHS in WS. I recall watching it and thinking to myself, "I know that I ought to watch WS, but these black bars are just too damn thick..." (ST:FC is 2.35:1). I surreptiously swapped it the next day at the store for a P&S copy :b.
By the way, I never once purchased a P&S laser-disc, and that P&S tape is long gone. It was the last pan'n'scam I ever bought.
Anybody else care to confess? Cheers!
DS.
...but it wasn't always so. I remember watching Siskel and Ebert many years ago extolling the virtues of wide-screen presentations, and their argument made perfect sense to me at the time. While my VHS purchases were few and far between, the titles that I did buy were always P&S, even if there was a choice between P&S and WS. Only when I boarded the laser-disc train for a very brief period in 1992 (not enough $$$ to buy LDs, clumsy form-factor; bailed after a year. Have no fear, 'tho. I got back into LDs a couple of years ago with a used 704 and AC-3 box
), did I succumb to the siren song of wide-screen. Because I knew it was the right thing to do, even though I was having great difficulty getting past the "black bars". My brain told me OAR was correct; my eyes told me different. In the end, getting a DVD player in 1999 put the issue to bed, and in no time flat. I suppose several discs a week, as opposed to an LD once or twice a month several years prior, did the trick.My secret OAR shame is that I once purchased Star Trek: First Contact on VHS in WS. I recall watching it and thinking to myself, "I know that I ought to watch WS, but these black bars are just too damn thick..." (ST:FC is 2.35:1). I surreptiously swapped it the next day at the store for a P&S copy :b.
By the way, I never once purchased a P&S laser-disc, and that P&S tape is long gone. It was the last pan'n'scam I ever bought.
Anybody else care to confess? Cheers!
DS.
