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Obsessed With Widescreen?

But even with an HD the movies are not in 16:9 so the aspect ratio is still wider then widescreens.
 
MacNut said:
But even with an HD the movies are not in 16:9 so the aspect ratio is still wider then widescreens.
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But as Lethal said earlier, most any film before the advent of television was shot in 1:33:1 or the 4:3 of standard TV (and some foreign directors didn't switch to a wide format until much later)...therefore, if you watch it on your HDTV without black bars on the sides, you are also negatively altering the intended composition of the frame because it stretches the image to fill the frame.
 
Either way watch the intended aspect ratio. What ever was original is the best way to view. If it was shot 4:3 watch it that way if it was shot wide screen then view it that way. I hate when they format stuff to fit the screen. Pan and scan is the worst.
 
Original Aspect Ratio is what I like to see. I don't care whether there are black bars on the bottom/top or on the sides. I just want to see it as the director intended.

I used to have some movies in both formats. When you see both versions side by side there is no comparison. The Widescreen version is so much better.
 
Looks like a lot of people are liking the Widescreen! I don't even see the black bars. I watch the image of the movie, not the edges. Just for fun... take a look at a DVD that has both versions on it... watch a scene in full-screen and then flip the disc over and watch it again in widescreen... it's better looking visually even thought it doesn't FILL the screen in the tall direction.

Our EYES are horizontal! I also find panoramas really fun to make too!

My camera takes photos in almost a full screen format (it's a little wider though) but, on my favorite photos, I'll crop it down and arrange it better within the wider frame and I usually end up really liking the edit and the way the photo looks more interesting after.
 
LethalWolfe said:
You have backwards actually. The 35mm frame is about 1.33:1 (4:3) and the top and bottom are masked off either in production (hard matte) or projection at the movie theater (soft matte) to give the desired aspect ratio. An exception is the relatively rare anamorphic movie in which the camera lens distorts the image so a widescreen image is "squeezed" vertically to fit into the 4:3 film frame and then upon project a special lens is used to "stretch" the image so it displays undistorted on the screen (typically at 2.35:1).l
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In the heyday of VHS you had the pan-scan/letterboxed debate. In that era, the choice was easier, because the typical prep was to take the full theatre aspect ratio and chop out a chunk for video. With masked or Super 35 it could be beneficial to have 4:3 if the studio bothers to release it on video as it was shot, but anamorphic is still too ubiquitous to be ignored.

Here's a nifty graphic:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Super35_and_Techniscope.png

The long and short is that you're always going to lose something with film. I think most would rather have the theatre experience reproduced in their house. And in any case, digital cameras are creeping in and will change the industry again anyway.
 
Obsessed? Nah. I like how, well it seems like all the TV i watch is now in Widescreen. It fits my 16:10 monitor perfectly. Maybe a bit of stretching from 16:9 but its negligible. And everything I play on my Wii seems to be in Widescreen too.

Victory? But I'm not obsessed, it's nice its there though.
 
As someone above said, the original aspect ratio is usually the best, and today that happens to be widescreen for movies and hdtv. However, since I watch very few modern movies (I prefer film noir, which was almost all 4:3) and very little tv, a widescreen tv would be a waste for me because I would be losing so much of the screen width due to black bars. I would much prefer a 4:3 tv with black bars top and bottom for the occasional widescreen viewing that I do.
 
Initially, I hated widescreen displays/TVs - they seemed to me far too 'short' (i.e. from bottom to top). Now, it's the other way around, and any 4:3 screen feels far too narrow!

Incidentally, if a 16:9 TV still has bars on top and bottom when showing some films, what aspect ratio are they? I want a TV like that! 😛

My cable TV provider somehow manages to muck up some channels completely; with a 4:3 signal, stretched to 16:9, then cropped back to 4:3, which my TV stretches back to 16:9 again; meaning objects look ridiculously wide and much of the image is missing.
 
I think that widescreen only looks good on widescreen tvs/monitors, i don't really like the black bars you get when you have widescreen on a non-widescreen tv.
 
whooleytoo said:
Incidentally, if a 16:9 TV still has bars on top and bottom when showing some films, what aspect ratio are they? I want a TV like that! 😛
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While 16:9 of HDTV translates to 1.77:1, a lot of films use aspect ratios such as 1.85:1 or 2.35:1...while the older films used the aspect of 1.37:1. The film most of these films are shot on has the traditional 1.33:1 (or 4:3) aspect of silent films, but the addition of the soundtrack to the film changed the aspect ratio. Then as stated above, the aspect ratios were changed further to differentiate film from television during the 50's.
 
Widescreen is the better format in todays world.

It's like saying vinyl records are better because they produce a "softer" or "glowing" sound. While cd's produce a harsh or crisp sound. Yes, vinyls produce a better stereo sound, they are an older technology, just like full screen is a hold over back when television "moving pictures" was just being discoverd.

The reason we still have full screen is because almost everyone owns a full screen tv, so broadcast companies will make a videos to be compatible with everyones tv. Widescreen is gaining ground and will become the new standard. Just like the switch from regular quality tv to hd-tv.

Evolution of technology.

- Scott
 
Not obsessed but i like it. Especially on my computer, widescreen helps. I dont like the 4:3 monitirs. Fugly apart from the clear Apple CRT studio displays. Sex on a swivel stand
 
Widescreen FTW.

I generally purchase movies in the format they were filmed, but like as a few have mentioned already the studio standard is becoming widescreen.

Also for example, when I was just playing around with my newley aquired miniTV HD, I was switching between SD Jericho and HD Jericho and noticed the cropping on the SD channel version.

But again it's a preference thing, some people would rather have there imaged cropped and zoomed on there 4:3 television rather than having the entire image (smaller) with black bars on top and bottom. My preference is I'd chose the latter, even if it is a little bit smaller.
 
If a movie was filmed in Widescreen, I buy the Widescreen DVD. Only a handful of my DVD's aren't Widescreen and that's only because they weren't filmed in Widescreen. (A couple of music DVD's, IIRC.)

Widescreen is also way better on computer displays. It gives you much more screen real estate to work with and honestly, I think it LOOKS a lot better! This is one of the reasons I'm gonna be upgrading to an iMac sometime in the near future. I have Widescreen envy. Right now, I use a Dell 1707FP with my mini, and while it's an awesome display, I'd love to have more screen real estate.

So yeah, I'm a huge fan of Widescreen.
 
I wouldn't say I'm "obsessed" with Widescreen, but i do like it. I'm so used to it in fact that i don't even notice the bars on the top and bottom of the screen. My family, however, hates it. They cannot stand the bars and they get distracted. I guess if you aren't into what you're watching as much then it can be annoying 😛
 
I have yet to see a movie that wan't better in Widescreen.

At least in the USA, the majority of movies are indeed shot in a widescreen lens (usually higher then 16:9, though). Lawerence of Arabia is definitely a good example.

Personally, I would just like to see them standardize a ratio. If home displays are going to be 16:9, then can we just standardize 16:9 for theaters as well as for film?

I'm all for standardization! Oh, and I'm a big fan of widescreen as well, definitely more natural.
 
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