Those of you that know me know that I prefer DVDs in widescreen or letterbox rather then fullscreen or pan & scan. So what is the difference, you may ask?
Movies are filmed at a different ratio then stuff for television. Movies are wider, with the image of a rectangle while television is closer to square. The only way a television can view the complete version of the movie is to shrink it leaving black bars on top and bottom. This is widescreen.
On the other hand, you can edit a movie so that it uses the whole screen, but this means some of the content is lost. The editor then decides which part of the image is the important part. He will then pan across the screen and scan that image in, thus the term pan & scan.
For example, in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (seen above), there is a scene on the train platform. In fullscreen, you see the characters but not the train, whereas in widescreen you see the beautiful train. It is a striking difference.
In another scene from Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban Harry talks with Professor Lupin about his parents. The blue box represents fullscreen while the whole picture represents widescreen.
Obviously, I prefer widescreen, but some people find the black bars distracting. Which do you prefer?
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6 comments:
I would much rather watch a movie in widescreen. After you get into a movie, you tend to forget about the black bars. Nice description of the differences between the versions.
I like letterbox, but sometimes we scoot the couch up closer to the tv so you can see some of the detail. Maybe we need a bigger tv.
Toughie, since in my room I only have a portable telly. Still, I just get close enough to see.
Letterbox all the way - as the director intended.
Apart from which, the black bars are like subtitles, you don't even notice after a while.
What's the deal with the TV show "Crossing Jordan"? They tape in the letterbox format, but why? So they'll look more like a movie?
Why would I care about missing the sides of the screen if it's 3 pixels by 2 pixels? I'll take what I can see, thanks! :)
However, when I get a widescreen TV...then I'll be all about the widescreen.
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