Posted this up at bestbuy to help out J6P (spygame dvd) (1 Viewer)

[AlbertH]

HOPEFULLY it will make a small difference at the best buy i work at. I will track the sales of widescreen against fullscreen to see what impact it may have! I never watched the movie so this was a rush job and i just picked out a shot with "alot" going on and cropped it myself. I don't know how it is framed for 4x3 but it shouldn't be much different.

 

[Richard Waller]

You should do that with every major 2.35:1 release, especially for Fellowship of the Ring and Harry Potter.

 

[MichaelPe]

Excellent job! I'd love to know how it affects sales.
It's very interesting to compare sales of WS with P&S titles. Looking at Amazon's DVD top sellers chart, for example, I noticed that the Fullscreen version of "Ocean's Eleven" is selling more copies than the Widescreen version (ranked at #12 and #23 respectively). However, the Widescreen version of "Harry Potter" is ranked at #1 on their DVD sales chart (and the Fullscreen version is at #15). Seems a little counter-intuitive, don't you think?

 

[JJR512]

What are you going to do with movies where the wide screen version was matted from the full frame? I forget the technical terms...I think I mean "open matte" for the full-frame version. I think the movie I've seen mentioned regarding this before has been A Fish Called Wanda, where there's a scene with John Cleese who's supposed to be naked in the room when a little girl comes in. In the open matte, or full screen, version, you can tell he's wearing shorts. The shorts aren't visible in the wide screen version because they were matted. So in matted vs. open matte, there's actually less information, although of course, the information that's removed (the top and bottom of the frame) was not meant to be seen. But J6P might not get that it wasn't supposed to be seen. He might think it's something extra special.

 

[Jeff Kleist]

Great!
But it's more like 42% more Oh well, what they don't know can't hurt them

 

[AlbertH]

its 77% more compared to the 1.33:1 frame.

Its 42% less if you compare chopping from 2.35:1 to 1.33:1

1.33*.77=1.02+1.33=2.35

 

[Evan Case]

Albert, excellent, commendable work.

One comment though... I think an even better example would be to use a shot wherein the primary characters are on opposite sides of the frame.

A stubborn-enough J6P could "justify" losing a jeep and part of a plane. They'd be less inclined to lose more Redford or Pitt.

Just a thought. Keep up the good work regardless.

Evan

 

[Vickie_M]

One comment though... I think an even better example would be to use a shot wherein the primary characters are on opposite sides of the frame.

I have to agree with this. It makes much more of an impression if something or someone important is missing from the frame. The scene that changed my mind years ago was from Raiders Of The Lost Ark when Indy and Sallah are lifting the Ark out of its tomb (or whatever it was called). Indy and Sallah were completely cut off on the p&s version. I think this was on Siskel and Ebert's show. I was shocked, and it's one of the reasons I started buying laserdiscs. I'd never buy a DVD that's not OAR.
You're doing a good thing, and bless your heart for it, but I'm not sure your example would have made much of an impression on me back in my "ignorant" days.
This page has some examples that would have grabbed me, especially the ones where Leia and Yoda are missing:
http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/H...reCompare.html

 

[Jeff]

I'd like to print this out and post it at a video store. Is there anyway you could resize it so it will take up a standard sheet or printer paper? Or can I do this myself?

Thanks,

Jeff

 

[Ted Todorov]

I think an even better example would be to use a shot wherein the primary characters are on opposite sides of the frame.

Actually the MGM DVD of Leaving Las Vegas which has a first rate anamorphic transfer as well as P&S has a great shot of Nick Cage & Elisabeth Shue on the opposite sides of the screen with a 4:3 frame imposed in the middle, where both of them are cut off! One of the best studio generated pieces of widescreen advocasy.
Ted

 

[Jim A. Banville]

It's fine to educate people people as to what the benefit of widescreen is, but you demonstration is what I consider a viual "trick". Since MOST people have 4:3 TV's, you should have the same actual outside dimensions of both images. In other words, not only have you made the P&S version vertically smaller than the WS in your example, but the WS version shouldn't be any wider than the P&S version, since watching the WS version doesn't physically stretch your 4:3 TV to twice its width Average non-videophile people prefer the largest image available, which the WS doen't provide in the real world on their 4:3 TV's. Just like in audio demonstrations where the Circuit City salesguy makes the stereo HE wants to sell you slightly louder than the one he doesn't want to sell you, your example skews the comparison between P&S vs. WS, toward WS because average people will always prefer the physically larger image. The average person is much more interested in using 100% of their TV screen to see the "main action" of a film vs. seeing 100% of the props in a film frame if it means they only use the middle 50% of their TV screen.

 

[BrandonG]

While I commend your effort AlbertH, that sign won't be posted for long. I used to work for the blue beast and they are so anal about no compliant signage. Vendors for software would come in and bring cool signage but the merch manager would rip it down eventually because it was not planogrammed. Hopefully you are a supervisor or senior in that dept and you can get away with that stuff.
Now back to the topic on hand...If people are looking for a good comparsion of movie aspect ratios go check out www.widescreenadvocate.com. That website has several examples from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade that I used as examples in a speech recently.

 

[Qui-Gon John]

One comment though... I think an even better example would be to use a shot wherein the primary characters are on opposite sides of the frame.

Another real good one is in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. When Spock, Kirk and Gillian are in her pickup truck. In WS you see all 3 through the whole conversation. With P&S it keeps jumping with only 2 at a time in the shot.

 

[Jay Villero]

I agree with Jim A. that the example is a little misleading. The example doesn't really show J6P the difference he/she will see on a 4:3 TV.

That said, I applaud your effort to at least get people to think about what they're missing.

 

[RobertCharlotte]

This page has some examples that would have grabbed me, especially the ones where Leia and Yoda are missing:
http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/...ireCompare.html

Example 6 is the best of those, because C-3PO's reaction in that scene is priceless!

 

[Mike_Skill]

We used to joke about how nobody even knew Ernie Hudson was in 'Ghostbusters'until they saw the widescreen version.

 

[Joshua Clinard]

Try posting our professinal looking brocure at Widescreen Advocate.
www.widescreenadvocate.com

 

[JJR512]

Anybody else having problems going to http://www.widescreenadvocate.com/ ? I am. I've been trying since last night to visit this site. Can't get there at all. ("Cannot find server or DNS Error")

 

[Dave Schofield]

I have been getting the same errors today...

 

[Rob Lutter]

I saw The Royal Tenenbaums on a plane last week and believe you me... if this is ever released on DVD in Pan and Scan... it would be the ULTIMATE demo between Pan and Scan and Widescreen, it was awful [great film though]