MGM DVD settlement

[atszyman]

mgmdvdsettlement.com

Actually I'm kind of amazed that this has not been discussed here. It appears that for a few years MGM simply chopped off the top/bottom of their full screen DVDs and marketed them as widescreen. To make matters even more obvious in a few of the 325 affected movies they have a picture illustrating the difference between the standard/widescreen formats where they have an overlay of the 4:3 aspect ratio on a scene from the movie to show what is cut off. When you go to the scene they pictured on a Widescreen disk you only have the full frame width (illustrated best on the Princess Bride).

So you have to call 1-800-285-2168 to request a claim form. You can only list one DVD per call and they don't tell you if the claim form is valid for multiple DVDs so I just called them 8 times in a row. Once I get my form(s) I will post again to let you know if you only need call once so not everyone will look like as big of an idiot as me.

 

[clayj]

Here's where you can get the full skinny (including a very detailed technical explanation for the whole "problem"):

http://www.thedigitalbits.com/articles/mgmsuit/mgmsuit.html

It actually doesn't sound like that big of a deal to me. The guys at The Digital Bits don't believe it's a problem, either.

Oh, and you are aware, I hope, that they're not just going to GIVE you anything... you have to send in your old "defective" MGM DVD, and they will send you back either $7.10 OR a new MGM DVD from a list of specific titles.

 

[atszyman]

Oh, and you are aware, I hope, that they're not just going to GIVE you anything... you have to send in your old "defective" MGM DVD, and they will send you back either $7.10 OR a new MGM DVD from a list of specific titles.

I am completely aware of the fact that I don't get something for nothing. The explanation does some good, and I have heard some of that information before. It may change the number of discs that I swap but for at least 2 of them (Princess Bride, and A Fish called Wanda) they have pictures like the one below illustrating the WS/FS difference. Yet when viewing the WS it is definitely cut off from their illustration. Assuming that the list is the same as the eligible movies I may only exchange those 2.