[Publib] RE: DVD Widescreen vs. Fullscreen - Which?

[Chris Ely]

At 03:41 PM 7/30/2007, Polly Bonnett wrote:
>I previously worked at a large library system in the Phoenix area, 
>and one of our patrons was furious that we only had widescreen dvd's.

Reminds me of when I worked at the local cable company (please don't 
throw any rocks *g*) about a decade or so ago. Back then, widescreen 
television wasn't very common, but AMC would sometimes do special 
showings of movies in widescreen. Despite the fact they aired a 
notice at the beginning about it being widescreen and the black bars 
being normal, we'd sometimes get complaint calls about something 
being wrong with the cable. Of course we also got complaints when 
people accidentally turned on their SAP or had their VCR on and 
didn't realize it too.

I think most people are getting used to widescreen now, even if the 
bars still bother them sometimes. We prefer to get widescreen, but 
it's not a rule. For those few who have big issues with widescreen, I 
ask them to look for the "zoom" button on their remote. It's not a 
perfect solution, since it only zooms in on the center of the image 
instead of "panning and scanning" for the best image, but it can help 
for some. I do know a few people who're convinced that widescreen is 
actually less of the original picture because they can see the black 
bars, so there's got to be something missing.

The irony is early movie screens were shaped like traditional TV 
sets, but when TV came along (using the same screen shape) and was 
"stealing" movie theater customers, they fought back with a lot of 
various high tech stuff, such as wide screen. Now TV screens have to 
catch up with their older cousin again.

Chris Ely

=====================
Whitewright Public Library, Whitewright, Texas
www.whitewright.lib.tx.us  <librarian at whitewright.lib.tx.us>

"Pathetic human race. Arranging their knowledge by category just made 
it easier to absorb. Dewey, you fool, your decimal system has played 
right into my hands." Futurama