How Widescreen Won
from the about-time dept
theodp writes “When Laserdisc makers adopted widescreen in the 80s, letters poured in from customers who thought there was something wrong with their discs. Just a few years ago, Blockbuster discouraged widescreen DVDs on the grounds that customers confused by the letterbox format thought they were defective. But now, even Blockbuster concedes that widescreen is superior to pan-and-scan. What happened? According to Slate, the DVD format, big-screen TVs, and the continuing education of filmgoers all played a part in changing the way we watch movies at home. “ Hurray for small victories.
Comments on “How Widescreen Won”
No Subject Given
Now if only HBO, Showtime, Starz, etc would show movies in WideScreen. They show alot in DD5.1 which is great, but not widescreen. Yea, original movies, and some original shows are. Even NBC shows ER and West Wing in widescreen, just wish more movies on the pay channels would.
Widescreen sucks
It’s still an inferior option for the increasing numbers of us who like the extra space created by not owning a TV at all. Watching widescreen on a PC monitor is painful.
Re: Widescreen sucks
Pan-and-scan sucks even more.
Re: Re: Widescreen sucks
I totally agree!
Once manufactures understand,that the biggest sellers are still 10:1,4×3 aspect ratios..things will finally get back to normal!
Widescreen totally sucks,and I will not give in,whatsoever!
4×3….RULES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Re: Widescreen sucks
I agree
anyone who was ever involved
in turning a martial arts movie into a pan and scan release should have a herd of ninjas released on them at their next family picnic.
Feh to wide screen!
I’m normally a cutting-edge kinda guy on video, audio, PC, and other tech. But widescreen remains a way to make video look inferior on a 4×3 screen in an effort to drive consumers to buy new ultra-expensive 16×9 TVs. The same way that 6.1 or 7.1 surround are now pushed at people who just bought 5.1, and Sony et al are trying their damnedest to make silver cool again in hopes of making black a/v gear uncool. F all of this hype or style over substance in an effort to move product. When something genuinely better or more useful comes along I’ll buy it, like my TiVos. For now, when NetFlix offers a DVD in non-widescreen or dual format, that’s the way I take and prefer it.
Re: Feh to wide screen!
I’m normally a cutting-edge kinda guy on video, audio, PC, and other tech. But widescreen remains a way to make video look inferior on a 4×3 screen in an effort to drive consumers to buy new ultra-expensive 16×9 TVs.
Nice troll.
Re: Feh to wide screen!
Most widescreen videos played on a large screen 1080p LCD TV sucks because of the black bands which shrinks the whole picture. Who cares about seeing the details on the “sides”, all I want is to see it on the FULL SCREEN not some narrow strip!! Who said life is fair? Maybe it’s the DVD itself. Some widescreens videos are bigger than others. Wonder how can you tell before you buy the widescreen DVD?
it's all about you, isn't it?!??
One *could* consider the position of filmmakers, to whom “pan’n’scan” is the equivalent of reframing the Mona Lisa to fit the vault.
The ubiquitous 16:9 “letterbox” format is the choice of filmmakers because the aspect ratio allows more interesting framing: for instance, a director can “weight” a frame by placing the subject far right or left in frame to create a narrative image. You can’t do that with the TV “sqare.”
I sympathize with those who don’t have big-screen’s to playback movies in their original aspect ratio because you miss the intent of the director and the experience of the film, and i understand the concept of wasting available display space.
I do feel, however, the vision of the director and cinematographer take *great* precedence over the preferences of viewers.
Re: it's all about you, isn't it?!??
Umm, reality check. If people don’t like the movie, they won’t pay to watch it and thats why we still have 4×3 verisons.
Re: it's all about you, isn't it?!??
Even with widescreen TV’s I see bands of black on top and bottom. I don’t care what justification hollywood gives. Widescreen sucks. I pay big bucks for viewing area. I want “ALL” of my screen to be in use when I watch a movie.
widescreen format sucks.
Re: it's all about you, isn't it?!??
“I do feel, however, the vision of the director and cinematographer take *great* precedence over the preferences of viewers.”
Let’s not forget who buys their movies though. If the customer is not happy, I’d say the customers “vision” takes precedence over what the director and cinematographer think.
That’s like putting BBQ sauce on a big mac and telling customers they can no longer get the burger they’re used to because the chef thought it would be better.
Widescreen displays suck.
Widescreen sucks, especially because of its influence on display (monitor/TV/etc.) manufacturers who insist on making 16:9 monitors that are just like bigger monitors, except they distort the width of the image and chop off half the height you would normally gain if you’re viewing a 4:3 image (which you are if you’re not watching a movie). Painful on the eyes? Yes.
Really, who uses their TV/monitor strictly for watching movies? I don’t, for one.
Re: Widescreen displays suck.
I couldnt agree more. I think if more people really understood this issue, they wouldnt so readily accept
wide as ‘starndard’ for modern large screen tvs.
screw widescreen tvs!
widescreen tvs
widescreen still sucks!!!
yeah widescreen does suck, read the following link to learn how it first came into existance, simply to lure people back into the theatres when tv first came out, all they did was block the top and bottom of the picture so they had a new fad to encourage people back into the theatre instead of staying at home watching tv
http://www.dvdcreation.com/2001/01_jan/features/widescreen_scam.htm
what is the most annoying is people who insist on watching non widescreen tv broadcasts, stretched to be widescreen so that everything is all distorted, thats so annoying
Confusion about standards
In case you guys might not know: 16×9 was the 35mm filmstandard long before the invention of the 4×3 “letterbox” TV. Widescreen however (professional name: cinemascope) is approximately 21×9 and was recorded “width-compressed” by an anamorphic or aspherical lens on 35mm film. Don’t blame the 16×9 standard, blame the TV guys for inventing an incompatible standard that forced the film editors to use pan-scan to fit the 16×9 films on a 4×3 screen or using black borders which compromises the vertical resolution.
I hate widescreen tvs and monitors. widescreen content is fine. but widescreen viewers are a waste of space and a terrible idea that took hold. In case you hadnt already figured it out, the biggest reason: same footprint widescreen set gives you less image in 4X3 or any format ‘less wide’ than 16×9., and you have no room at bottom for subtitles. Bottom line,
4×3 set gives you everything wide does, and more. There is NOTHING wrong with that more. it gives you bigger 4×3 image etc.
Re: Re:
i resent being literally automatically labeled anonymous coward. well resent is strong word.
I think its dumb
I wish there was a website solely dedictated to demand 4×3 hd lcd largescreens, with a full explination
of why thats better and a petition or people to join
so that someone might notice
Re: Re:
I cannot stand the site of widescreen tv’s! Why bother buying a “big” screen tv when half of it is chopped away? It does look big at all any more; it looks puny and cheap. This is just a huge plot to get normal non-techy people who think they need the latest and “greatest” new thing- like they’ve been missing something all along. It’s kinda like that panoramic camera craze years back. It never took off. Who really gives a crap what’s going on to the FAR left and the FAR right of the picture? During a movie your eyes don’t move that fast anyway: they generally scan in on the immediate central subject matter. I hate it and I’m not going to get suckered in!
anyone know of any continued effort to demand
4:3 sets in the future? Where’s a petition I can sign?
4:3 is best for all around TV and besides you lose nothing by making a 4:3 set. With wide sets you lose the top part they cut off.
rofl
Where did they dredge you people up? Most of you can’t even spell, much less appreciate what 16×9 is all about, and it would be an effort in futility to try to educate…
I quote: “Who really gives a crap what’s going on to the FAR left and the FAR right of the picture?” or “Widescreen sucks” or even “Widescreen totally sucks,and I will not give in,whatsoever!
4×3….RULES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” and “cannot stand the site of widescreen tv’s!”
Thank god for folks such as Stekker
Get a clue or go adjust your rabbit ears or something.
Re: rofl
Most of the content I watch (>90%) is in the 4:3 aspect ratio. Sure, I could get a 16:9 TV but that would mean that most of the content that I watch will have black bars. Stretching 4:3 to 16:9 looks frickin awful to me. I refuse to buy something that does not fit my needs just because it’s “cool”.
Unfortunately the world doesn’t exist in widescreen. Life is more 4:3…. life in 16:9 would be like wearing some sort of device that blocks your vision from everything higher than head/eye level and everything lower than waist level. who the hell wants that?
The saddest part about widescreen is the fact that it doesn’t even fit widescreen TVs. Widescreen, even viewed on a 50″ plasma TV STILL has the black bars which look horrible. The only way to get rid of that is to stretch the picture, which makes it look even worse. Characters in widescreen do not look natural, they look squished and disproportionate.
What I don’t exactly understand, is why widescreen doesn’t show the top and bottom portions, why replace it with a black bar when it could be just as easily show what is higher and what is lower in the shot? It seems ridiculous… as I said, widescreen is like standing out at the ocean and only being able to see what is between 3 and 6 feet high… not be able to see the sunset or the sand on the beach.. life isn’t like that… gaze out at a sunset and you can see the sand, the water and the sun.. not with widescreen you can’t
Re: Re:
To Anonymous Coward on Mar 10th, 2007
Unfortunately the world doesn’t exist in widescreen. Life is more 4:3…. life in 16:9 would be like wearing some sort of device that blocks your vision from everything higher than head/eye level and everything lower than waist level. who the hell wants that?
The saddest part about widescreen is the fact that it doesn’t even fit widescreen TVs. Widescreen, even viewed on a 50″ plasma TV STILL has the black bars which look horrible. The only way to get rid of that is to stretch the picture, which makes it look even worse. Characters in widescreen do not look natural, they look squished and disproportionate.
What I don’t exactly understand, is why widescreen doesn’t show the top and bottom portions, why replace it with a black bar when it could be just as easily show what is higher and what is lower in the shot? It seems ridiculous… as I said, widescreen is like standing out at the ocean and only being able to see what is between 3 and 6 feet high… not be able to see the sunset or the sand on the beach.. life isn’t like that… gaze out at a sunset and you can see the sand, the water and the sun.. not with widescreen you can’t
The only widescreen that doesn’t fit widescreen tvs is 2.35:1. And the “bars” (not really bars, by the way) are way smaller than on a 4:3 set. There are no black bars. What the “bars” are are just unused portions of the tv, areas where there is no picture shown.
Re: Re:
Thanx for your comment. Now I have even more ways to bash Widescreen. Nice perspective.
Re: widescreen sucks etc
I just found this site and I am surprised at how many people agreee that
letterbox is a terrible way to watch a movie on a TV screen. Most of the
supporters are apparent “Movie People” and detractors seem to be mostly
TV watchers. My opinion is that the sole purpose of TV is not movie watching.
If I want to comment on art form I will go to an Art Movie Theater. At home
I like my viewing to be full screen TV.
For some reason the HDTV WS format shown on a “regular” screen does not
seem as objectionable even though the whole screen is not used.
The bottom line is choice. The DVD makers should allow choice of full screen
or letterbox. There was a time when movies were formatted on both sides of
a DVD—one side full screen and the other letterbox. Lets go back to that.
widescreen BLOWS
Widescreen absolutely blows!!! There is nothing great about it at all. It cuts off half the picture so we can see unimportant things going on on the sides. Who cares about what is happening on the sides! The action is in front of you! You widescreen supporters are the same people who got suckered in by HDTV. That blows too!! The screens are blurry and blotchy and I see no improvement in picture. Especially for the extra money they cost
no it doesn't, but whatever
Widescreen, to me, doesn’t suck at all. What you aren’t realizing is that those black bars aren’t cutting everything off, they’re allowing you to see the entire picture. If you saw more above and below of what they’re filming (the area of the black bars), you’d see boom mics and cables everywhere. When you see a movie presented in widescreen, you get to see it just as you would’ve in a movie theater, just on a smaller screen. You don’t miss anything, because you see everything.
On a side note, though, I watched King Kong on my buddy’s HDTV with his HDDVD player, and I thought it looked horribly fake. Everything looked animated, way too crisp to be real. However, if you’re a gamer, video games look SO good on an HDTV.
Just my opinion.
Don't get it!!!
What’s the point of blocking out half the screen? I don’t get it. If I only wanted half the screen I’d get a smaller T.V. I’m not someone that all I do is screw around with technology, like appartently many people are now, so I just want my T.V. filled in with the show I’m watching, not 2/3 of it black bars.
Fullscreen (4x3) seems dead
Been googling for hours trying to find a LCD tv in 4×3 aspect ratio lager than 20″. Seems they don’t exist. I don’t watch movies all the time, I prefer news and sports more often, and those are real life, those happen in fullscreen. Widescreen only works for movies or scripted shows where a director has time to make sure you dont miss anything.
Black bars above and below the screen (letterbox) hardly bothers me for the few hours I spend watching movies.
My sports and news and live programming has been sacrificed to hollywood, whether I want it, or not. I’m sick of looking at people who look short and fat during interviews.
Woe to the non-homogenous consumer. 🙁
Fact: you can only make out details of an image within a centrally aligned circle that constitutes 3% of your total vision coverage. The other 97% is peripheral, which is designed to detect movement and some specialized things like seeing weak light sources in the dark, but the information there is “muddied up” by the design of your eye.
The circle of discernible visual details is approximately 1:1 in ratio, if it were looked at as a circumscribed square. It is NOT 16:9 or any other “wide” form; your ability to see what’s going on is pretty much square, and 4:3 screens are also pretty much square.
So what do you see on a widescreen display that you don’t on a standard one? Peripheral vision and miscellaneous distractions that may appear on the sides of the screen. Important? I sure as hell don’t think so.
Now, conversely, what do you lose with wide formats that you have with standard 4:3 format video? The top and bottom. With a square-ish screen, you can sit X distance away and make out almost all of the details of the video you’re watching. You can fill your circle of “good vision” with the entire screen, thus you can make out every detail of a movie. With a widescreen, you go through what is essentially a human form of “pan and scan” where your eye moves around the screen if it is interested by something off to a side. This means that you can actually be distracted to one side and miss details on the other. If you back away to where you can make out all of the details of the widescreen format in a similar fashion to the 4:3, a good chunk of your detailed vision is focusing on your black entertainment center instead of a movie, and that ruins your experience, because the TV seems so small.
4:3 is better because you were made to see in that approximate aspect ratio naturally. 16:9 forces your eyes to work a lot to take in what they’re seeing, and leaves ugly letterboxing on a proper 4:3 display.
If nothing else, 4:3 has been the de facto standard for all televisions and computer monitors for well over three decades. Websites are designed around 800×600 or 1024×768, not 1280×768 or 1440×900 or 1680×1050. Ever render a site that’s not MY site on a widescreen? Notice how 1/3 of the screen is C|Net while there’s a huge 1/3 empty margin on each side? That’s because the world isn’t designed for widescreen. The only reason wide is catching on is because all the digital movie formats are being forced to widescreen: the standard res for a DVD is 720×480 and HD images can be 1280×720 or 1920×1080, but dread the thought of HD being 1600×1200 instead, despite the fact that tons of CRT or LCD monitor max out there!
I subscribe to the conspiracy theories that various industries are “scratching each others’ backs” to support trends like this. LCD/TV makers need to sell more TVs, so DTV and especially HDTV are important to them; likewise, Hollywood wants to (A) stop “rampant movie piracy” and (B) simultaneously sell movies to people to watch in their homes, so they both conspire to make this digital widescreen shift trend to make people feel like they need to buy TVs AND to make HD movies look like total crap on a standard 4:3 monitor (which is still the majority of CRTs, LCDs, and laptop screens) which discourages using the computer (the piracy tool of choice) as a digital media center. In the same fashion, I believe that XP and especially Vista are the result of collaboration between Microsoft and prominent hardware manufacturers behind closed doors to create artificial obsolescence of hardware through core software upgrades that requires better hardware to run, and hardware that does not work without the newest core software on top of it: thus, downgrading a Vista laptop to XP is a very painful experience, and putting Vista on a machine with 128MB of RAM will never work, not because they can’t make it work, but because they need it to not work.
If XP is essentially a much improved version of Windows 2000, and the only big memory consuming aspect that has been added (and can’t be turned off by a novice user) is the prefetch mechanism, why does XP run so lousy in 128MB of RAM where its predecessor, 2000, was sittin’ pretty in that same 128MB of RAM? Likewise, why does XP consume 2GB when the base install is finished while 2000 consumes about 600MB?
It’s all a conspiracy, not because it’s easy to say that, but because there’s not really any other obvious explanation for these trends.
Widescreen really does suck
I agree with all of you who say that it sucks. I likewise think that it is a conspiracy and a ripeoff. These corporations just want people to buy the latest and “coolest” things. I hate it so much!
Re: Widescreen really does suck
Widescreen really does suck:
I totally agree.
If you use a regular monitor and draw a perfect circle then display it on a widescreen you will have an oval.
If you use a widescreen and draw a perfect circle then display it on a regular monitor you will get an oval.
This example illustrates the illusion of widescreen, if you don’t believe me, test it out for yourself.
It doesn't matter what kind of screen you have.
What really sucks is watching a Film not in its original aspect ratio. Whether you have a wide screen or a more square one, there is always an opportunity for black bars. Now, I for one don’t give a crap about the damn black bars, I don’t find them distracting. Options are a good thing. If you have a 4×3 screen and a 16×9 image you will have bars on the top and bottom, and left and right for the other way around. Almost never is there anything cut off in either case. Having a wide screen doesn’t automatically squish or stretch an image! The tv should have options for you to set. The goal is to let people watch everything as it was meant to be seen. They could have decided to make very large 4×3 HDTV’s and have the best Television viewer ever. But most electronics companies agreed that having a set form factor would lower costs from the top to the bottom, and wide screen was a change from the same old 4×3 with instant benefits for watching films. It’s nice to fill up all the space on the screen all the time but that’s never going to happen. One option you do have is to get a projector, which if you wanted HD, is more cost efficient. Oh and filmmakers originally chose wide screen formats to emphasize what the eye sees. That is to not put everything in the obvious, and to make the viewer work to understand the film, just like life, you have to work. I know it’s a little different than just sitting back and watching a straight to video release of Steven Segal almost hitting people while trying not to show his double chin. With that said widescreen won for the right reasons and is here to stay. Go listen to some cassettes and piss off those hard core guys with 8 tracks. That’s all for now…Ugh
It doesn't make since.
Why is 4:3 out and 16:9 in. I love old shows. I thought widesreen HDTVs would be the coolest thing ever. Was I ever wrong I have watched a few wide screens and humans all look short and fat. A friend was so excited about his new widescreen he called I went up and we watched. I could tell he was embarrassed at the wat people looked on his screen. I was right he returned it. So, what do we do get two TVs a 4:3 and 16:9 according to what your watching.
Great example of Rip Off!
Example: I see the movie “Blow” with Johnny Depp on FX or USA channels. All the profanity is cut but an otherwise entertaining movie. I decided I’d like a copy (profanity included and whatever else) so I run to the local Wal Mart and purchase a copy. DIS-AP-POINT-MENT! Johnny is no bigger than the nose on my face (I actually think the nose WAS bigger). I scan the DVD box…I see in one VERY small sentence (hold it…gotta put on the reading glasses for THIS!): Widescreen Version: presented in a “letterboxed” widescreen format, blah, blah, ect. SOOOO, I march back to Wal Mart and tell the little Mexican girl that I live in a bedroom that does not have a “widescreen” ANYTHING in it and I want my peso’s back. No can do senior, you have opened it. I shout back “how the hell would I know that Johnny Depp was only 2 inches tall IF I DIDNT OPEN IT?!!”. The moral to this story (if there is one) is, this could all be avoided (my trashed bedroom, the fired Mexican employee, the back tires on my car, my overdose of anxiety medication, ect.) if some stupid shit for brains would’ve wrote in big letters across the top of the DVD box…WIDESCREEN STUPID! DONT BUY IT!..nuff said…goodnight!
Re: Great example of Rip Off!
Talk about ignorant, you get upset at the “mexican” girl for your mistake. I must assume that with your racist remarks you must be cockasian (SC). The fact that this purchase upset you enough to have a redneck tantrum, shows that your ignorance knows no end. If it meant that much, you should have reasearched the product (i.e. look at the friggin dvd case).
The Bitter End!
I just used my copy of “Blow”, for target practice in my backyard with a 38. and I’m happy to say it’s now “mulch”! Now if the exec’s at Infinifilm or New Line Entertainment ever decide to come over and “watch a movie” with me, I’ll politely invite them to the backyard to “view” their latest release and reload in front of them. Okay, this story seems a little overblown for a $9.95 DVD but I could’ve bought “almost” 2.5 gallons of gas with that money, so I still have pent up anger. Johnny would be proud!
Silly puzzles for geometry challenged
The widescreen format aspect ratio is 16:9, the standard screen is 4:3. After visiting widescreen advocacy website Jonny decided to sew off the top and bottom his standard television box to widescreen aspect ratio. Calculate the percentage of additional cinematic material John can watch on augmented TV set which was hidden from his view before.
WS=BS
There is one very important fact that everyone here seems to be missing:
Virtually everything that has ever been filmed, in the entire history of film itself, was put on 4:3 fullscreen film. Charlie Chaplin movies, Casablanca, Gone with the Wind, the Wizard of Oz, everything that Walt Disney made during his lifetime… it was all in fullscreen. Even after movies started being shown in widescreen, they were filmed on the same old 4:3 film and cropped for theaters.
Anything made for TV was, needless to say, made in 4:3 as well. That includes everybody’s favorite classic console games – like Sonic, Mario, and of course, teh Halo.
The principle even extends to computers. Start up any game with Doom, Duke, Quake, Unreal, whatever in the title, and go mess with the resolutions. 640×480, 800×600, 1024×768, 1280×960, 1600×1200… have you noticed that they all have one thing in common? THEY’RE ALL FULLSCREEN TOO!
Widescreen does absolutely nothing for anyone, except put money in the pockets of the companies who are orchestrating the change in format.
WS=BS. It’s historical reality.
widescreen
I just don’t get it why chop the top and bottom to add some trees or something off to the side. I want my 16.9 screen full.
widescreen sucks!
I read all the “pros” of wide screen format, but I still say it sucks. Even if you have a “widescreen” TV you still have a band of black on top and bottom effectively wasting 30% of your viewing screen.
I’ve watched the exact same movie in both formats and I enjoyed watching the full screen version better.
widesceen format blows!
widescreen
Widescreen sucks. Why would anyone want to lose part of their tv screen just to feel like they are ‘at the movies’? I want to watch a picture that fills every available inch of my tv.
widescreen
Widescreen sucks. Why would anyone want to lose part of their tv screen just to feel like they are ‘at the movies’? I want to watch a picture that fills every available inch of my tv.
I don't like the HD formats
They can make more screens per wafer using a widescreen aspect ratio. For example, they might only get X number of 20 inch 4:3 screens out of a wafer, but they can get X + Y number of 20 inch widescreens out of the same wafer (X and Y are both positive integers).
I don’t mind widescreen displays as much as I dislike widescreen video cameras. There isn’t even an option of 4:3 HD movies. If I want to shoot 4:3, I’m stuck with 640×480. Why do I dislike widescreen capture? Because I’m losing information above and below! Why not a native widescreen sensor then? Because virtually all video cameras don’t really have that wide of a wide angle. Widescreen just makes it worse! I can no longer fit the scene into the frame. If I can’t move farther back, I’m stuck! I hope someday they’ll add back 4:3 video capture.
widescreen
is there some reason they just can’t make all dvds with both a full and widescreen option instead of just a few it put and end to all complaints I think widescreen is just plain stupid i mean really am I supposed look at it and go wow
We gave them a world of knowledge at there fingertips. Instead , the herd bought computers to watch DVD’s on. Even business user notebooks with the correct 4:3 screen is almost gone.