Full Screen Vs. Wide Screen: Full Screen is Not The Way Movie Lovers!

Full Screen is DVD poison

By Jonathon Knight, published Oct 03, 2006
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Before I start, Full screen isn’t 100% evil. A lot of older of older movies like King Kong, Frankenstein, and Dracula etc. were filmed in full screen and a lot of older Television shows, too. But in this day and age, buying full screen is bull crap.

Most theatrical movies are filmed in some kind of Widescreen and studios sometimes release 2 versions of a movie on 
DVD, a Widescreen version and a Full screen version. I see a lot of naïve people picking up the full screen version and only a few picking the widescreen version. The people who pick up the full screen version have no idea that they are losing a lot of picture (and quality) on the sides of the movie when they pick the DVD off the shelves and buy it.

What they are getting is an incomplete image. When the movie was filmed and director was looking through the camera, they did not see a full screen image, they saw widescreen and if you’re buying full screen you’re not seeing the director’s vision of the movie. You’re seeing a butchered and modified version of his vision.

You know the reason why a lot of people buy full screen? Cause of those “annoying “black bars on the top and bottom of the screen. They think those black bars cut off the image on the top and bottom. Oh how wrong they are. Some movies are featured in matted widescreen, where the black bars is added later on, but that’s to hide microphones, wires etc. It doesn’t cut off anything important. Full screen is the one that cuts off stuff.

If you love movies and buy Full screen, you don’t love movies all that much then. If you loved movies you would want to see the movie how it was presented in theaters and how the director wanted it to be seen, and not the way your lazy butt wanted to be seen, and that’s zoomed in.

 
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Full Screen Vs. Wide Screen: Full Screen is Not The Way Movie Lovers!

Credit: www.phillips.com

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Takeaways
  • Buy Widescreen
  • Avoid Full Screen
  • Hvae Fun
Did You Know?
Monster Squad has yet to released in Widescreen on DVD.
Comments
Showing Comments 1 - 7 of 7
 
 
with a widescreen tv you can have the best of both worlds a widescreen picture with no or at least less black bars a fullscreen movie is like looking at a photograph then taking a pair of scissors and chopping off the left and right sides of it

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Posted on 05/11/2007 at 3:05:00 PM

 
The widescreen box cut off the rest of my comments again. Widescreen remids me of what Doc Brown said when looking at Marty's photo of his family in Back to the Future. He said that the photographer was lousy because he cut the top off of Marty's brother's head. If the widescreen version has the tops of the actors heads cut off, does that mean the movie had a lousy cinematographer? (If you maintain that the widescreen version is "as the director wanted it to be seen.")

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Posted on 03/31/2007 at 6:03:00 PM

 
THe widesceen box cut off the rest of my comments. I meant to say "I will buy anamorphic widescreen if no full screen is available." I lost track of what I was typing because it was cut off at the top. By the time I got to the end of the sentence, I thought I had written "If the full screen version...", so I typed "is unavailable." Bad editing. At the end I was writing "It looks like you lose a foot on the top and bottom and gain an anch on the sides with the widescreen version." The scene where it is most apparent is when they are sleeping on the grass. I also wrote that some movies don't appear to lose anything in the widescreen version. The Legend of Zorro is notable in that regard. I bought both versions and watched the widescreen version first. I did not see any need to watch the fullscreen version because I didn't notice any heads cut off or any missing lower female anatomy. I would prefer if the movies were released as filmed and let the consumer decide what format to display

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Posted on 03/31/2007 at 6:03:00 PM

 
To get true widescreen, it takes two cameras. One 4x3 Academy Standard camera will not produce a native widescreen image. Anamorphic widescreen is filmed with a lense on the camera that squeezes a widescreen image to fit onto the 4x3 frame. The theater has another lense on the projector that converts the squeezed widescreen fim back to the widescreen ratio. I have several DVDs and LaserDiscs in both full screen and widescreen and you see more with fullscreen unless the widescreen version is anamorphic in which case both show the same picture information. I will buy anamorphic widescreen if no full screen version is unavailable. I sometimes buy widescreen if I can't find fullscreen, then look for the fullscreen version if I like the movie and the top of actors heads are cut off or if everything below the waist is cut off on actresses. (Buy both versions of The Scorpion King to see what the wide screeen snobs are missing.) Sirens is another good movie for comparisons. It looks like you

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Posted on 03/31/2007 at 5:03:00 PM

 
Well done, Jonathon. I also think that with today's DVD players - most have ZOOM - so if the person watching doesn't like the widescreen format with the black bars just ZOOM it away - that way you have the correct ratio which the director intended and if you want it bigger, just activate the zoom function.

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Posted on 12/14/2006 at 8:12:00 PM

 
It bothers me that I have an HDTV and I the movie is only showing on 1/2 the available screen, the remainder with black bars. People are not stupid as you seem to think, its not that they think they are losing any part of the movie, like me, if I have a 37'' screen, I want to see 37''s of movie.

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Posted on 10/28/2006 at 5:10:00 PM

 
Good article, Jon(athon). It doesn't bother me THAT much, but it does bother me when people complain about the black bars.

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Posted on 10/08/2006 at 4:10:00 PM

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