Widescreen 101: Educating Mainstream Consumers (1 Viewer)

[Tony-B]

Malcolm, what did TV Guide say in response to that person?

And yes, that definitely deserves a :rolleyes.

 

[Craig S]

Tony, T.V. Guide printed no response to that letter.

 

[Lars Vermundsberget]

A "T.V. Guide" certainly should have, don't you think...?

 

[Jack Briggs]

Not necessarily. Only rarely do magazines or newspapers run answers to letters. In addition, TV Guide has given widescreen-originated programming on television one of its weekly "jeers" in the "Cheers & Jeers" section. The magazine, therefore, is not our "friend."

 

[Randy A Salas]

Two bits of good news:

1) Scripps said it is hoping to start sending Widescreen 101 over the wire by the end of the week for other newspapers to pick up. I've asked the editor there to do as much as possible to replicate the presentation we came up with in the paper. To that end, Scripps will make all of the art (screen captures) available to newspapers.

2) A reader actually called our readers' representative--the Star Tribune is among the few major daily newspapers to have a full-time ombudsman--to complain that he had marked today on his calendar for Lesson 2 but couldn't find it in the paper. It was right there next to the DVD column as promised, which the rep pointed out after double-checking with me. But it's remarkable that someone went through the trouble to note the series and call about it. One assumes he was among the target audience.

 

[Lars Vermundsberget]

Jack, I'm sure you're absolutely right.

However, I'm just suggesting what the magazine should have done, if it were really a TV _GUIDE_...

See?

 

[Robert Dunnill]

In addition, TV Guide has given widescreen-originated programming on television one of its weekly "jeers" in the "Cheers & Jeers" section.

You've got to be kidding?

RD

 

[Dan Rudolph]

Can't wait for part two to go online.

 

[Joshua Clinard]

It's already online. It's also shorter than I expected. It's very basic though, so it won't go over most people's heads, so that's a good thing.

http://www.startribune.com/stories/459/3974408.html

I had trouble opening the PDF's though.

 

[Randy A Salas]

It's also shorter than I expected.

If you take a look at the PDFs, you'll see why. The lessons are designed to fit in a formatted space next to my weekly DVD column. The space can't get longer and it can't get shorter. After allowing for two illustrative photos, I'm left with 4.5 inches of space in that column measure. That's really challenging, which is why I broke the series up into five lessons (there were no space concerns with the first lesson) so that I could explain various concepts of the widescreen debate in basic terms.

 

[Malcolm R]

It's only a "guide" in the sense it tells what programs are on what channels at what times, along with a bunch of entertainment fluff articles. It really has no technical/enthusiast content.

 

[Joshua Clinard]

Randy, it does indeed look better in print than it does on the web.

Keep up the good work.

 

[Lars Vermundsberget]

Quote: "It's only a "guide" in the sense it tells what programs are on what channels at what times, along with a bunch of entertainment fluff articles. It really has no technical/enthusiast content."


Let me put it this way: I'm a linguist and sometimes I see meaning in words where there is none.

 

[george kaplan]

Lots of people do that. With political speeches.

 

[Tony-B]

TV Guide has given widescreen-originated programming on television one of its weekly "jeers" in the "Cheers & Jeers" section. The magazine, therefore, is not our "friend."

We should backlash against them. They have now joined the ranks of Blockbuster and Wal-Mart. Let's get em'!

 

[Randy A Salas]

As has been noted in a (now-locked) duplicate thread, the Detroit News has picked up my widescreen article. That's part of the good news: Scripps Howard News Service sent it out late last week and newspapers are running it.

The bad news is that Scripps opted just to send the introductory article, not any of the accompanying lessons that form a continuing series called Widescreen 101. That wouldn't be so bad, except that Scripps sent out the main article without art, the illustrative screen captures from The Mask of Zorro.

 

[Clinton McClure]

The streets will flow with the blood of the non-believers!

Great job Randy! You've earned the respect of this online community.

 

[Joshua Clinard]

Well, it's partially good news. I'm guessing this means that none of the nespapers running this artilce will print the screen shots? That's a bummer!

At least they are running it. The article minus screen shots is better than no article at all. We do appreciate all the hard work that went into this Randy.

Any chance you can get a list of newspapers that pick it up?

 

[DaViD Boulet]

Great article and great effort.

However, you'd save more non-believers if the word "idiot" wasn't applied to them so specifically. I can easily understand how someone could take offense, and why provoke that so unecessarily? That's my only bit of advice...nix the "idiot" phrase.

Otherwise...great article and great campaign!

dave

 

[Randy A Salas]

David, I thought long and hard before including John Carpenter's "idiot" quote. It came down to that it was a powerful quote from a big-name director. When someone like that makes such a strong, clear-cut statement, it's worth noting. I probably wouldn't have included it if Leonard Maltin or Bob Harris had said it. That having been said, I heard from only two people who were offended by it. Both were clearly in the "I know what pan and scan is, and I love it" crowd. As Leonard said, you're never going to sway those people. So offending them doesn't really matter to me. Thanks for the kind words.

Joshua, it's harder than one might think to track which papers use it. Finding many major-circulation papers is easier, because many are archived by Factiva. Smaller regional papers are more of a challenge. Some papers, such as Detroit, don't show up in any search. The article went out late last week, and so far the Detroit News and Scripps' ticker site, the Knoxville (Tenn.) News Sentinel, have picked it up.