Widescreen vs. Full Screen DVD's

dkg999

OK, I'm confused on the merits of widescreen dvd's vs. fullscreen dvd's? As for equipment, I have a Denon 910 and a Sony 34" Widescreen, the 510 model. I have always bought widescreen version dvd's, and only because I guess I thought this is what I should do based on the TV I have. I was given the fullscreen version of the new Star Wars Trilogy, and it seems to fill up my screen much better, with no issues as to which mode to use to get rid of the black bars (full, zoom, wide zoom). I guess I don't understand why you would buy a widescreen version vs. a full screen version? Could someone explain the differences and benefits to me? I would really appreciate it!

tryrrthg

http://www.widescreenadvocate.org/whatis.html

Airplay355

fullscreen movies chop off the left and right edges so it fills the screen of regular tv's without distortion of the picture. widescreen dvd's give you the original aspect ratio. that's why you get the black bars with a regular tv. if you have a widescreen tv then you won't get the black bars when watching a dvd.

dkg999

Thank You! I'll spend some time reading the site tonight!

Tour2ma

Pan and Scan vs. Wide Screen? Gimme the latter all day long, even on my 4:3 ratio Toshiba.

Great old TV program on this. Wish I could remember its name. Best example were scenes from the old, Cinerama feature, "How the West was Won". So much missing information in the full screen, broadcast version.

PolknPepsi

DKG,
When the wife and I started buying DVD's sometime ago to go with our "regular" size tv a salesman told us he buys the widescreen version. Really glad we took his advice,now with over 75 + on hand and contemplating a nice widescreen TV it should work out great in the future because that widescreen version should fit the widescreen tv perfectly.........I hope.

..............Pat

Dennis Gardner

You still have black bars on a widescreen TV when watching movies formatted in a different version of widescreen. There isn't simply one aspect ratio of widescreen.

I have seen movies in 1.67:1, 1.85:1 and 2.35:1 all referred to as widescreen. Each has a diferent height of the picture which forces them to use black bars on the 2 higher ratios.

The ratio refers to the width compared to the height. Normal 4:3 TV in 1.33:1 in ratio. Width is 1.33 times as much as the height.

I prefer and buy nothing but widescreen, but I have an 8' wide projection setup. On a 27" TV, widescreen images can look very small and distant if shown in the higher aspect ratios.

DG

Early B.

Thanks for that link. I have a 36" full screen TV I bought last year. I wanted a widescreen TV, but because of our room configuration, we sit about 9-10 feet from the screen. We tried a 47" widescreen HDTV, but since it was hurting our eyes, we returned it.

I buy fullscreen versions of DVDs. After checking out the link given above, I never knew just how much of the movie I was missing. My TV can adjust for the various aspect ratios, but the picture becomes smaller (damn them annoying black lines!!). I guess I'll have to be content with fullscreen for a while until I get a dedicated HT room someday.

Dennis Gardner

A good way to get adjusted to viewing widescreen DVDs is to make the room totally dark when you watch a movie. The black bars disappear into the room when you get it dark enough and is less distracting.

kberg

I suppose the simplest response would be to say that the widescreen version is the only version that director intended to be seen by the viewer. As mentioned earlier, the P&S or full screen version chops off the widescreen image - in fact, on some P&S DVD's, you may notice that if there are two characters facing each other from the left and right far side of the screen, you may see very little of either one!

gregure

Personally I don't think Full Screen DVD's should even be made. I love DVD's because we at elast always have the option. I don't even watch VHS anymore. Or movies on television. Now that we can view films uncompromised, I'll never go back.

I also have a Sony HD, although 30" rather than 34". Still, I feel that w/ widescreen films, I'm getting more picture than on a 4:3 tv at 32". The screen is wider, so the 2.35:1 films, while still viewed w/ black bars on top, fill more screen because they are not being shrunk to fit a 4:3 screen. They have room to expand width wise, which make the viewable screen taller. Not sure if I'm making sense. It's a no brainer that w/ 1.85:1 films, 30" of widescreen affords more viewable picture than 32" of full screen, because 1.85:1 fills the whole screen.

In short, never buy full screen when you own an HD tv. You are getting more picture w/ widescreen DVD, and it fills more of the screen than it would on a 4:3 screen, black bars or no.

gregure

Just to give you a couple of examples of how much you're missing going w/ full screen:

1. In Empire Strikes Back, when Leia kisses Luke to antagonize Han, there are reaction shots from Chewey and Han in the full screen versions, but in widescreen, you can see 3-PO scoot forward and curiously look on as well, which adds an element of humor to the scene previously unavailable. Until the films were rereleased in theaters, I'd never scene that part of the scene at all.

2. In Jaws, the scene where Quint tells his Indianapolis story, the mood/tension is intensified by the rapt look on Richard Dreyfuss's face as he listens. His reaction to the story is invisible in full screen, which really robs the scene of some of its intensity.

Those are just two examples that come to mind in favor of widescreen. You just miss too much when you watch it in fullscreen mode.

Toxis

I have the exact same TV as you, and have a Denon dvd player so I know what you're going through.

As already stated, when you put a 4:3 version of a movie on our TV, it gets stretched and distorted to fill the whole screen. If you get the WS version of the same movie, you'll have a little bit of black on the top and bottom but at least the picture is not distorted at all. I have a couple DVD's in full screen and I hate watching them because I see the distortion. Then again, that's why I watch as much HD as I can instead of regular digital cable...

shack

http://www.ryanwright.com/ht/oar.shtml

dkg999

Thanks everyone for helping me understand the differences! Walmart in Belvidere IL still had hundreds of copies of SW on sale for $37, so I picked up the Widescreen Version and will give the full screen version as an early birthday present to a friend of mine back in IA who has my old Zenith 27" TV and Toshiba DVD player. I do need to go thru the menus on my Denon 910 and make sure I have all the right options set. I know I have it switched to progressive scan, but I didn't look at a lot of the other options!

Arch NME

I’m pi$$ed!!!

I’m sorry, but I have to vent.

I am a WIDESCREEN fan. If it’s not in widescreen, I’m not impressed.

A co-worker just purchased Fast & Furious Tokyo Drift in full screen and brought it to work on the same day I had the widescreen version. We set them up side by side and synchronized them so that I could brag about how much better my version was. To my dismay, those jerks merely chopped the top and bottom of the movie to make it widescreen. Sure, some scenes were a tad wider than the full screen ver, but most of the scenes were taller, you saw the tops of peoples heads, and their feet, whereas you only saw them from waist up, and their heads were chopped. Why would anybody do that???

Ok, so we need a new format. “ALL THAT CAN BE SEEN SCREEN”.

I understand that the movie The Godfather was filmed in full screen, and they chopped it up for die hard widescreen people. I don’t want that, I want to see the entire movie. Don’t these idiots understand that widescreen people don’t get their cookies off of seeing bars at the top and bottom of their screens, they merely want to see all that can be seen.

Thank you for your time.

faster100

Ok ive had a 42" plasma since the first of the year... and prefer widescreen, however we always zoom or change settings to get rid of the black bars because we were told its bad for the tv

sounds like here, that it doesnt matter..

So is it safe to have the black bars show on a plasma?
HD channels always have the bars also and some shows zoomed look like crap... please let me know what's up with this, Thought i was doing the pain in the butt correct thing

Holydoc

Arch NME wrote:

I’m pi$$ed!!!

I’m sorry, but I have to vent.

I am a WIDESCREEN fan. If it’s not in widescreen, I’m not impressed.

A co-worker just purchased Fast & Furious Tokyo Drift in full screen and brought it to work on the same day I had the widescreen version. We set them up side by side and synchronized them so that I could brag about how much better my version was. To my dismay, those jerks merely chopped the top and bottom of the movie to make it widescreen. Sure, some scenes were a tad wider than the full screen ver, but most of the scenes were taller, you saw the tops of peoples heads, and their feet, whereas you only saw them from waist up, and their heads were chopped. Why would anybody do that???

Sounds like either you had your TV or the DVD player set to zoom when you played wide-screen. Be sure that your DVD player knows you are displaying on a wide-screen TV and that the zoom feature is off.

millerman 3732

I had a similar case of this acouple of years ago I rented the full screen version of Terminator 3 and then bought the wide screen version the next day, it looked just like what Arch NME is describing with the whole half the body and the top of the head cut off thing. So I don't think it was how his rig was setup. I haven't really noticed it in any other movies since then, but there are very few movies that I get to see both versions of now days either. could be alot more common than we know?

PhantomOG

there are movies that have had bad released widescreen DVDs. Terminator 3 was the only one I remember reading about online, but I wouldn't be surprised if there were others as well.

faster100

so are the black bars safe or what?

PhantomOG

faster100 wrote:

so are the black bars safe or what?

From what I've read over at AVS forums, you are safe as long as you also throw in some full screen material once in a while.

Especially since you have a newer plasma I don't think you have much to worry about.

Holydoc

PhantomOG wrote:

From what I've read over at AVS forums, you are safe as long as you also throw in some full screen material once in a while.

Especially since you have a newer plasma I don't think you have much to worry about.

Just to be on the safe side, it is recommended both on AVS forums and some manufacturers spots (like panasonic) that the first 100 hours of operation of your new plasma should be run with no black lines or static images. This allows the pixels to age and burn in equally. Supposedly the first 100 hours of use is the most critical as far as image retention.

On the AVS forums, you can actually download a SACD image that you can run on your TV to maximize this burn-in time. In other words when I went to bed at night, I would start up these images that would gradually transition over the color spectrum and thus exercise all the pixels evenly.

Phantom is correct that the newer plasmas are not likely to burn-in. However why take the chance when it is so easy to avoid it?

faster100

Its not all the time, mostly on HD channels and dvd's.. but we always stretch and some content looks like **** stretched.. hence the question, if its safe to have the black bars now and then, Thanks for the response

bobman1235

This whole plasma thing sounds like more trouble than it's worth. Can't even watch movies in certain aspect ratios for fear of hurting your TV? If it's not doing its job, maybe it deserves to be hurt.

univera

PhantomOG wrote:

From what I've read over at AVS forums, you are safe as long as you also throw in some full screen material once in a while.

Especially since you have a newer plasma I don't think you have much to worry about.

All of this reinforces my decision NOT to buy a plasma. What a pain to even have to think about this stuff. My LCD does show some things I don't like from time to time, but I never worry about ruining my picture.

univera

I am curious whether or not most people watch things in HD stretched or not. I so far like the normal, full widescreen without any zoom. Zoom distorts the picture a bit, so I see no use for it whatsoever unless you want to enlarge something in particular. ESPN during commercials always goes to the black bars, but then full screen when they come back to their broadcast.

Would most of you rather watch a movie with the black bars and smaller picture viewing for the movie effect or do you prefer to watch in full screen? To me, watching sports in full screen is a no brainer.

bobman1235

Anything in HD should fit your screen perfectly. Widescreen TVs are made to fit an HD signal.... movies are a whole different story, but any HD programming, including sports, is supposed to be the size of any HDTV.

As for things that don't fit (movies, standard def TV), I opt for black bars. I hate distortion.

ND13

Widescreen forever!!!!

TheReaper

millerman 3732 wrote:

I had a similar case of this acouple of years ago I rented the full screen version of Terminator 3 and then bought the wide screen version the next day, it looked just like what Arch NME is describing with the whole half the body and the top of the head cut off thing. So I don't think it was how his rig was setup. I haven't really noticed it in any other movies since then, but there are very few movies that I get to see both versions of now days either. could be alot more common than we know?

There was a class action suit against one of the studios. For taking the full screen version of the movie. Chopping out the center and selling it as a widescreen. I forget which one it was but I had 3 of the dvds. The money grubbing lawyers came up with the worst settlement. I could return the dvds and get my money back. Wtf, I could have done that when I first got them. I kept them, because even a bad copy is better than no copy (these were movies that I want).

scottvamp

TheReaper wrote:

There was a class action suit against one of the studios. For taking the full screen version of the movie. Chopping out the center and selling it as a widescreen. I forget which one it was but I had 3 of the dvds. The money grubbing lawyers came up with the worst settlement. I could return the dvds and get my money back. Wtf, I could have done that when I first got them. I kept them, because even a bad copy is better than no copy (these were movies that I want).

I clearly remember this -
Also remember a lawsuit on over charging for cd's. I did not persue either....