Widescreen/Letterbox VS Fullscreen

[mw2merc]

I prefer Widescreen/Letterbox for movies & Fullscreen for TV. WS/LB has more of a movie feal & FS a TV feal. Only FS thing I know I'd take WS over is B5.

There are of course exceptions like 'Finding Nemo' (I believe) where the FS version was 'remade' to fill the screen beyond that of WS/LB.

It really seems stupid once you find out that MOST movies are originally filmed with film that shows FS, then cropped to be WS/LB.

[spudthedestroyer]

FS is shit, period.

I prefer anamorphic to (non-anamorphic) letterbox obviously (I don't see why people use non-anamorphic, I mean they must have access to the anamorphic original print, why encode with blackboarders? The player automatically draws them in unless you have a proper widescreen output, then you can disable the boarders.

I really don't understand why companys do wide screen non-anamorphic prints when they can do a much higher quality anamorphic widescreen.

[Jynks]

I try to get wat ever is closest to the theater release of the film.

[MCMLXXXVIII]

Who voted for fullscreen!

[maxpayne2409]

widescreen all the way, most movies are actually filmed in widescreen anyway, its just retarded to then lose all the director wanted you to see by making it full screen, and yeah which homjock voted for fs? a n00b i expect

[John_Doe]

I usually strech the picture to fill most of my tv screen, without making the AR look all fucked.

[mw2merc]

OK, this is another of those fucked up votes, cause 6 of us posted a reply & voted. So that means 4 jackasses just voted, & 1 was FS?!

[John_Doe]

eh, I didn't vote.

[Bassline]

i voted ws

[Blade Runner]

Yup me, i'm one of those Jackasses who just voted, it being a poll and all that malarky

[El Mariachi]

FS is shit, period.

I prefer anamorphic to (non-anamorphic) letterbox obviously (I don't see why people use non-anamorphic, I mean they must have access to the anamorphic original print, why encode with blackboarders? The player automatically draws them in unless you have a proper widescreen output, then you can disable the boarders.

I really don't understand why companys do wide screen non-anamorphic prints when they can do a much higher quality anamorphic widescreen.

Is there a way to turn off the jumping back to 4:3 letterboxed

I got Boondock Saints and it has the same problems you describe, but randomly... basicly I've to put the TV into zoom (16:9) mode dozens of times during the movie. (I use Scart)

[spudthedestroyer]

As in there are blackboarders on and off? Some material is mixed, open matte and letterboxed widescreen... with this. You need to put in on stretch and ignore the black boarders, tehre supposed to be there.

If its an anamorphic dvd, make sure you put your player to output in 16:9, non-letterboxed (not 4:3 [for FS and letterbox WS], not 16:9l [this option is for anamoprhic output onto a 4:3 tv, ie it will add letter box bars to correct it... not wanted for WS tvs], but 16:9 [puts it out without any boarders]). This will output the source filling the frame of the tv (ie, if it were on a normal tv, it would display all out of AR and squashed). Then with your TV it should not be in zoom mode, and the anamorphic dvd will be played to fill the screen in all its high quality beauty. It all relies on the dvd player being set to output in the right mode.

If its a non-anamorphic, then the boarders are there period (hence why these shouldn't exist when an anamorphic print can just be used imo). So when they are played, it is played in 4:3 always, it physically has the black boarders drawn onto the mpeg2. 16:9l option won't work (or it will add another set of boarders never tried), 16:9 won't work, it will just mess up the AR. smart players will not try and use either of those modes when using a non-anamorphic WS dvd. To get this to 'fill the screen', you now have to use your tv setup and set it to zoom. Depending on the AR it may or maynot fill the screen... if its 1.85:1 it will i think. Quality is not as good as anamorphic even though both fill the screen... anamorphic doesn't have the wasted bits.

There's also the option that it is a anamoprhic letterbox... this is where an extreme AR is used so its really wide. with these, you just let it output in 16:9 with boarders... they are meant to be there. Using zoom will cut off lots of the horizontal or screw up the AR.

By the sounds of it, randomly is referring throughout the course of a movie? You have a mixed letterbox and openmatte. You should be seeing the blackboarders, this is because some scenes the AR changes, particularly the case in music documentries... or documentries in general. Switching between interviews and film clips etc.

Incidently cropping of rips should be done for this reason too, not to waste bits on the black boarders that shouldn't be there and to maintain the AR. The players sort out the boards for you

[bobbystills]

Who voted for fullscreen!

full screen sucks

[Purple.Nightmare]

WS without doubt

[dinky]

as much as I like WS, and my actual perspective on the topic is that I want to see whatever the director intends as s/he intends it, it's a real pet peeve that when they film something in open matte, they end up cutting off everyone's head when they crop it to its "original" WS AR. there are a lot of shots that intentionally focus on body parts, but they cut off foreheads all the time even when they aren't trying to draw particular attention to eyes, lips, etc. so I guess I'd like to see them crop to WS better or shoot in that AR from the get go.

[mw2merc]

... Boondock Saints ...

Good one. My buddie gave me it to watch last year. Best scene gives a new meaning to being 'Shit Canned'!!!

[Jim123]

Many movies are actually shot in Full screne then cropped in the movie theatre, I agree with Dinky that the best for me is whatever gives the most information. Never did like cropped heads for the sake of making it WS. I have never seen a lens in the WS shape, don't think it can be done, if it can be done what is the point when they can just matte the film afterwards.

[El Mariachi]

... Boondock Saints ...

Good one. My buddie gave me it to watch last year. Best scene gives a new meaning to being 'Shit Canned'!!!

I bought boondock saints 3 times and none of the 3 is anamorphic AND uncut
it's either one or the other

and they wonder why we have movie pirates on the net.

[Jim123]

I was comparing the wide screen and the 4:3 ratio versions of Total Recall. The wide screen gives a bit more information on the sides but they removed parts from the vertical section.

Which is bettter is up to each individual, I like both. I would prefer letterbox if they did not reduce the vertical portion of the film.

[spudthedestroyer]

Actually, the cropping isn't done in the theatre, its done by the director and the editor in post production to cut the frames to how the director intended. They go through the negatives, and decide where to crop off, if the directors done his job, then the frame shouldn't really jump around the open matte negative and should cut off the redundant top and bottom.

I think with total recall, Mr Show Girls print, the one he supervised editing on, will be the widescreen one. The other will be done for TV/DVD by someone without his authorisation (if its anything like 90% of this crap happens). Thusly, the better in my opinion is by far widescreen (taking the assumption that the 4:3 takes the redundant matting), since the data in the vertical is redundant unless Mr Show Girls was doing a sloppy job, and the widescreen represents the human field of vision, its more favourable gain information in the horizontal since, that information is more 'useful' in representing what we should see and isn't awkward to view.

If he's filmed it with information happening at the top and bottom, then he's really messed up and zoomed in too far. I hate action happening at the top and bottom of the screen because you have to move your eyes up to see the info. As an experiment, notice how far you can see things to the left and right and up and down. You can see a lot further in the horizontal without moving your pov than you can in the vertical. I get annoyed when I see stuff happening that's just outside your vision and you have to move your eyes all over the place to see whats happening Normally gives me a headache after an hour of it

edit:
some articles here I have read in the past and found interesting regarding the many formats.
http://www.thedigitalbits.com/articles/anamorphic/
here's just a quick, why widescren exists, and the best way of presenting it slideshow:
http://www.dvdweb.co.uk/information/anamorphic.htm

Cameras capture in 4:3, there's some that don't now, but the cropped area was never intended to be viewed., that's the assumption I use. There are rare instances where the director didn't have an AR in mind and thusly the info isn't waste in the frame, in that case open matte is more favourable, even though it isn't as comforable to view (given it doesn't represent the field of vision, it is notably harder to view what happens at the top and bottom of the frame than the left and right).

Never Pan Scan though, that makes me want to vomit I don't understand why anyone would do that to a movie