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

[James Casey]

If anyone remembers the Tony Curtis movie entield "The Boston Strangler" that was released some 40 years ago, it was critically acclaimed and one of the best acting efforts ever put forward by Curtis in his long career.  What killed the popularity of the movie was the style of presentation with small boxes of pictures floating in and out as the movie progressed.  You never got a "full screen" experience in the theater or on TV screens with VHS or DVD.  Great movie or not, the viewers didn't like watching images that seemed to be cropped and confusing. 
 
While I realize that the widescreen image with 5" off the top and bottom is really the full image of the actual movie, what viewers with old fashioned TVs actually see with widescreen appears to be a cropped image and a waste of some 50% of their TV screen.  Widescreen may be the full image that the movie makers intended, but it is harder and less comfortable for many TV viewers to see.  Many of them just plain don't like it no matter how hard the DVD sales reps insist that they "should like it".  
 
We should avoid telling patrons or customers who complain about the bars that they are just misguided and "should like" the widescreen presentation and put up with the inconvenience.  We'll have to make our own decisions about what to buy -- full screen and/or widescreen -- but the marketplace will have to sort out the complaints from the public.  We shouldn't feel ourselves deputized as sales representatives to argue the case for widescreen and new hardware initiatives.  
 
James B. Casey -- My own views
 
 
 
 

________________________________

From: publib-bounces at webjunction.org on behalf of Chris Ely
Sent: Wed 8/1/2007 3:32 PM
To: publib at webjunction.org
Subject: RE: [Publib] RE: DVD Widescreen vs. Fullscreen - Which?



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

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