Samsung - "letterbox defeater" (1 Viewer)

[Albert Noel]

please, excuse my ignorance. i'm just a bit dumbfounded.
i was walking around wal-mart yesterday looking for a christmas gift for my brother. got the idea of grabbing him up a nice little dvd player. it was a sammy and at $106, how can you go wrong? i was a little mad when i discovered one of the features was "EZ View"

what is samsung thinking by putting what is basically a zoom button on the front of the player and labelling it "EZ VIEW" (letterbox defeater in the manual)??

this is giving the consumer the wrong idea. especially the usually un-OAR/widescreen-educated people who shop at wal-mart. shouldn't they be more about educating the public about OAR and such instead of telling how to get rid of it?

i realise they may be doing it just for sales to the butchered pan&scan viewers, but why? i just don't understand :frowning:

 

[Jack Briggs]

It's just marketing, Albert.

 

[Reginald Trent]

It's basically ZOOM by another name/description.

 

[Ken Chan]

It could also be a slight mistranslation.

//Ken

 

[Bhagi Katbamna]

That's great, sort of like using the zoom button to fill up the 16:9 screen when watching TV programs.

 

[Albert Noel]

i realize it's less than i am making it out to be.
i had a better look at the unit itself today.

the unit actually is pretty good, that button is just basically the same asthe zoom button. like Jack said, it's pretty much just marketing.

 

[MannyE]

Except for the fact that it plants the seed of letterbox being a negative that requires "defeating". As if it was a pop-up ad, or had weapons of mass destruction.

 

[Tim K]

That's great, sort of like using the zoom button to fill up the 16:9 screen when watching TV programs.

No, that would be stretching all of the available material in order to fill up your screen thereby not losing any of the picture....

Letterbox defeater/EZview/Zoom features on a DVD player actually CHOP off the right and left side of the widescreen image and blow-up the middle to fill the 4:3 screen. This "feature" is cutting off a large percentage of the picture.

 

[Reginald Trent]

Like I said, zoom by any other name is still zoom.

 

[Bill Will]

Samsung has the "Zoom" feature on their tv's

 

[larry mac]

My latest DVD is an AKAI. It has a feature called the AFF button (I'm assuming automatic full frame?). This is not a simple zoom button, which is unfortunately used by many to defeat widescreen.

This AFF does not cut any picture from the left and right. It does however stretch the image vertically. Not the entire way, it is still letterbox, but enough to make the picture bigger.

I'll have to admit that I poo-pood this idea at first as nonsense for the uneducated masses. But as an experiment, I tried it out and now say it can be a useful tool for someone with a small to medium TV. Mine is a 32", and it just made a huge difference, or rather improvement. The picture is bigger, brighter seeming, and more enjoyable to watch. You LOSE NOTHING of the original image. However, everything is stretched vertically.

Example, Lord of the Rings. The hobbits appear skinnier. But, after watching it this way for awhile, and then swithing back to extreme letterbox, they seem TOO FAT.

I'm not saying this is good for everyone or every setup. But I would rather see this where at least you get all of the original picture as opposed to lopping off half the picture. Also, I would rather see all DVD players have this feature, and all DVD's be widescreen version only! This way, everyone could be happy.

 

[Steve Phillips]

How about calling it the "Stupid" button...

 

[Reginald Trent]

Larry, it sounds like your AKAI simply switch to 16:9 mode doing so would display the images you describe on a 4:3 TV.

 

[Bill Will]

Dean's right but Samsung is not the only company Philips also has the "Zoom" Mode on their tv's too.