# Letterbox eliminator: sign of the apocalypse. **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [April 4, 2004, 12:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/letterbox-eliminator-sign-of-the-apocalypse/238118 "2004-04-04T00:52:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![netscape\_6](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/8c91f0/32.png) [@netscape\_6](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/netscape_6)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2004, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/letterbox-eliminator-sign-of-the-apocalypse/238118/21 "2004-04-04T18:26:43Z")
> [@Brainiac4](#): > > It’s not bad enough that the morons are winning and every goddamn movie now comes in a fullscreen “all of my TV” version, so I have to be extra-careful every time I go shopping. Come on, people, you’re using all of your TV to get **60% of the fucking movie!** oh because you have trouble reading that packaging people should have the option of the format they want? ---
**Author:** ![netscape\_6](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/8c91f0/32.png) [@netscape\_6](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/netscape_6)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2004, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/letterbox-eliminator-sign-of-the-apocalypse/238118/22 "2004-04-04T18:27:50Z")
oh because you have trouble reading that packaging people should **not** have the option of the format they want? typos suck ---
**Author:** ![CanvasShoes](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/74df32/32.png) [@CanvasShoes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CanvasShoes)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2004, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/letterbox-eliminator-sign-of-the-apocalypse/238118/23 "2004-04-05T00:46:35Z")
> [@Brainiac4](#): > > I think you may have missed the point (or I may have not expressed it clearly enough). I’m not objecting to someone preferring one format over another as a matter of taste. I am objecting to the “they’re cheating me by not using all of my TV” argument. If someone says “I just prefer the fullscreen version” then I need to treat them like anyone else I disagree with on a matter of taste – politely agree to disagree. But when someone follows that up with a basis from which their conclusion proceeds apart from personal opinion, then I can (and will) argue with them about that factual basis. > > What’s being presented is not, to repeat, “I prefer this as a matter of personal taste.” Instead, I am told “that version cheats me by not using all of my TV.” To which I feel free to respond “you’re choosing all of your TV over all of the movie. The TV is a sunk cost, the movie is the same cost for all of it or 60% of it. Your argument is not logical.” > > From this, I proceed to clearly implying that those who hold that position are stupid. Yeah, that makes me kind of intolerant. But not, I hasten to add, of those who have different taste than me. Aha!, well yes, in that case you’d be right. They’re idiots. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![screech-owl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/82dd89/32.png) [@screech-owl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/screech-owl)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2004, 1:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/letterbox-eliminator-sign-of-the-apocalypse/238118/24 "2004-04-05T01:05:11Z")
**netscape 6** - not all DVD boxes list the format in easy-read type, or even in any common place like the little plastic sticky tape across the top. I’ve nearly bought movies I was drooling over (yea! I found Jurassic Park III) until I read the sentence (done in tinier print than this message board offers) across the bottom of the back of the package that said: This movie has been reformatted from its original release, etc…, where most of the sentence was covered by the store price code. Not always easy to read the warning keyword “REFORMATTED”. And now, more bad news: it’s no longer “Full Frame” vs “Widescreen”: disc one of Disney’s **Brother Bear** is in “ **Family-Friendly Aspect Ratio** ”, while disc two is “ **Original Theatrical Aspect Ratio** ”. And to make matters worse, the humorous commentary by the moose is on disc one, meaning I now HAVE to watch the movie in ferschlugginah’ “ **Family-Friendly Aspect Ratio** ”, meaning I lose a lot of the scene, as well as having to crowd the closed captioning into the picture as well, so I can follow the scene dialogue as well as listen to the moose/meese/whatever. ---
**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2004, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/letterbox-eliminator-sign-of-the-apocalypse/238118/25 "2004-04-05T01:34:08Z")
And in many cases, widescreen is never released. ---
**Author:** ![AtomicDog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ac91a4/32.png) [@AtomicDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AtomicDog)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2004, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/letterbox-eliminator-sign-of-the-apocalypse/238118/26 "2004-04-05T01:45:04Z")
What I can’t figure out is why cable movie channels like AMC, HBO, Starz, etc.will only show movies in fullscreen. I’m tired of seeing a character talking to no one. That’s why I wll see a movie ONLY in widescreen from my DVDs. ---
**Author:** ![Brainiac4](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/brainiac4/32/3534_2.png) [@Brainiac4](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Brainiac4)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2004, 3:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/letterbox-eliminator-sign-of-the-apocalypse/238118/27 "2004-04-05T03:36:52Z")
> [@netscape 6](#): > > oh because you have trouble reading that packaging people should **not** have the option of the format they want? > > typos suck I have no objection to people deciding on format as a matter of personal preference, as noted above. What I object to is the ill-founded argument that “fullscreen movies use all of my TV, as opposed to those widescreen mothers that cheat me out of the top and bottom of my screen!” Basically, I’m objecting to cluelessness and ignorance masquerading as preference. The result of an uninformed knee-jerk reaction on the buying public to seeing a smaller image on their TV screen is to drive buying preferences overall toward fullscreen versions. In response, major retailers of these products change their product selection. As Dangerosa points out, in some cases the widescreen version is not released, since the producers decide to limit costs by only doing one DVD version. In those cases, it doesn’t matter how good I am at reading the packages, since there’s only one to read. Until the past year, the only way to buy a widescreen version of Babe (the one with the talking pig), was to find it on Ebay and hope your DVD player could play it. ---
**Author:** ![Kamino\_Neko](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kamino_neko/32/34_2.png) [@Kamino\_Neko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kamino_Neko)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2004, 4:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/letterbox-eliminator-sign-of-the-apocalypse/238118/28 "2004-04-05T04:52:48Z")
> [@elfbabe](#): > > I hate “full” screen with the fire of a thousand suns. I think I’ve accidentally bought the cropped version because I was tired and thought, “mm. Full good. **elfbabe** like to see FULL movie.” I’ve done that. Actually it was I was tired and not thinking quite properly, saw ‘FULLSCREEN’ in big letters, registered only that it was making a big deal out of the screen ratio, thought ‘Ah, good, that must mean it’s the widescreen version’. Oops. ---
**Author:** ![netscape\_6](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/8c91f0/32.png) [@netscape\_6](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/netscape_6)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2004, 5:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/letterbox-eliminator-sign-of-the-apocalypse/238118/29 "2004-04-05T05:50:57Z")
Oh well in that case let me join you in condeming full screen dominance. Not having choice sucks. ---
**Author:** ![BwanaBob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bwanabob/32/2985_2.png) [@BwanaBob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BwanaBob)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2004, 12:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/letterbox-eliminator-sign-of-the-apocalypse/238118/30 "2004-04-05T12:59:50Z")
Just wait’ll post-2006 when all the goobers start complaining about those gray bars on the sides of the picture when they watch I Love Lucy on their new-fangled widescreen TVs! ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2004, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/letterbox-eliminator-sign-of-the-apocalypse/238118/31 "2004-04-05T15:23:53Z")
Some of my customers stretch their 4:3 movies and programs to 16:9 because they don’t like the black bars on the side. They don’t care that everything on the screen looks squashed. (rubbing my eyes in pained frustration) Sometimes I wonder why I bother making everything perfect for them. ---
**Author:** ![Gangster\_Octopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a8b319/32.png) [@Gangster\_Octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gangster_Octopus)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2004, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/letterbox-eliminator-sign-of-the-apocalypse/238118/32 "2004-04-05T16:02:31Z")
Well, the battle IS being won, albeit slowly. For example, Blockbuster announced about a year ago that they were giving preference to widescreen over fullscreen. I went into Best Buy back when the Raiders of the Lost ark came out and all they had was a few hundered copies in Fullscreen…because they had sold out of the widescreen. I asked someone who worked there and they said they had a lot of widescreen anfd that they always are way overstocked in the fullscreen, but people just won’t buy them. The real culprit in this is Wal-Mart, who steadfastly will not support OAR. And Wal-Mart is the 800-pound gorilla. We just need to keep educatin’ the masses, esp. the masses who shop at Wal-Mart. ---
**Author:** ![urban1a](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/e47c2d/32.png) [@urban1a](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/urban1a)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2004, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/letterbox-eliminator-sign-of-the-apocalypse/238118/33 "2004-04-05T16:25:04Z")
> [@dropzone](#): > > Some of my customers stretch their 4:3 movies and programs to 16:9 because they don’t like the black bars on the side. They don’t care that everything on the screen looks squashed. > > (rubbing my eyes in pained frustration) > > Sometimes I wonder why I bother making everything perfect for them. Count me as one who shows everything (movies, TV shows) in wide screen. And it’s stretched (on my TV, the right side), not squashed. It has nothing with wanting to use all of my 65" HDTV screen. It’s just being too lazy to switch the TV to the proper format. My TV, however, adjusts automatically when receiving a HDTV broadcast signal, to the format being broadcast. Bob ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2004, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/letterbox-eliminator-sign-of-the-apocalypse/238118/34 "2004-04-05T16:43:16Z")
Philistine! ---
**Author:** ![Equipoise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/equipoise/32/151_2.png) [@Equipoise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Equipoise)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2004, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/letterbox-eliminator-sign-of-the-apocalypse/238118/35 "2004-04-05T16:46:30Z")
> [@CanvasShoes](#): > > Aha, well, in that case see my answer to **earthling** , I honestly don’t think it’s stupidity to prefer one “look” over another, anymore than it’s “stupid” to prefer beige over blue (though perhaps horrible taste in decorating :D). No, it’s more stupid than a preference of colors. It’s like having a choice between two CDs. One CD contains the entire album. The other CD starts 3/4 of the way into the first song, then cuts off 1/4 of the way into the last song. The person who chooses and pays for the second, lesser CD, _knowing that they’re getting less music_, is, excuse me, stupid. ---
**Author:** ![Equipoise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/equipoise/32/151_2.png) [@Equipoise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Equipoise)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2004, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/letterbox-eliminator-sign-of-the-apocalypse/238118/36 "2004-04-05T17:54:00Z")
Coincidentally, after I posted here I was reading on another forum about an Italian movie (Don’t Move aka Non ti muovere) that’s getting rave reviews in Europe. Penelope Cruz is in it and she’s being touted for an Oscar nomination, which is cool because I really like her. It’ll play Cannes and will probably get in to several of the American festivals. Anyway, this paragraph of a review caught my eye: > [@](#): > > There are some unexpected auteur touches in Don’t Move, sealed by Facing Windows cinematographer Gianfilippo Corticelli’s **inventive use of the widescreen format (events happening at the edges of the screen are sometimes used as ironic glosses on the main action**. And there is some nice but never in-your-face play with symbols of faith, including crosses and bells. Though I doubt that the type of people who prefer Foolscreen would be watching an Italian drama (when it comes out on DVD) in the first place, that’s exactly the kind of reason I will never buy a non-Widescreen DVD. ---
**Author:** ![Equipoise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/equipoise/32/151_2.png) [@Equipoise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Equipoise)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2004, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/letterbox-eliminator-sign-of-the-apocalypse/238118/37 "2004-04-05T18:05:20Z")
Coincidentally, after I posted here I was reading on another forum about an Italian movie ( **Don’t Move** aka **Non ti muovere** ) that’s getting rave reviews in Europe. Penelope Cruz is in it and she’s being touted for an Oscar nomination, which is cool because I really like her. It’ll play Cannes and will probably get in to several of the American festivals. It doesn’t have an American distributor yet, but it will. Anyway, this paragraph of a review caught my eye: > [@](#): > > There are some unexpected auteur touches in Don’t Move, sealed by Facing Windows cinematographer Gianfilippo Corticelli’s **inventive use of the widescreen format (events happening at the edges of the screen are sometimes used as ironic glosses on the main action**. And there is some nice but never in-your-face play with symbols of faith, including crosses and bells. Though I doubt that the type of people who prefer Foolscreen would be watching an Italian drama in the first place (when it comes out on DVD), that’s exactly the kind of reason I will never buy a non-Widescreen DVD. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2004, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/letterbox-eliminator-sign-of-the-apocalypse/238118/38 "2004-04-05T18:44:07Z")
> [@Brainiac4](#): > > And before anyone jumps in to point out that they can’t afford to buy movies or a new TV, let me head you off with this: you’re not part of the problem. If you’re not spending money in the market, then the market isn’t trying to please you. The ones who deserve vilification are those who are participating and are buying fullscreen movies… so they “get to use all of their TV.” Well, I buy new movies, but not new TVs: the only TV I have is a six-year-old cheap model that I received as a graduation present, and I’ll probably keep it until it catches fire or something. And since I’m not an El Dorko Cinema Studies Mr. Gadget Boy, I don’t much care about the aspect of the movies I buy. I buy 'em for the story, for the acting, for the script, and while I’d guess that I’m buying the widescreen version, I really have no idea. Given my druthers, I’d probably get the edited-for-TV version: my television is pretty small, and I don’t feel like buying a bigger one, and they don’t edit off the parts that I like (script, story, acting). But it’s not something worth getting into a tizzy over, for me anyway. Granted, I am an El Dorko Dungeons and Dragons player, so I’m not in a position to judge anyone else’s dorkitude. Daniel ---
**Author:** ![Brainiac4](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/brainiac4/32/3534_2.png) [@Brainiac4](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Brainiac4)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2004, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/letterbox-eliminator-sign-of-the-apocalypse/238118/39 "2004-04-06T01:34:20Z")
> [@Left Hand of Dorkness](#): > > Given my druthers, I’d probably get the edited-for-TV version: my television is pretty small, and I don’t feel like buying a bigger one, and they don’t edit off the parts that I like (script, story, acting). But it’s not something worth getting into a tizzy over, for me anyway. > > Granted, I am an El Dorko Dungeons and Dragons player, so I’m not in a position to judge anyone else’s dorkitude. > > Daniel First… howdy, fellow D&D player. Althought I must confess I have not played in some time, and I have yet to upgrade to the 3.5 ruleset. 🙂 That said, I think the point has been made already that the fullscreen version does indeed edit out some of the acting. And I think you mean the “formatted for TV” version rather than the “edited for TV” version – the latter is very definitely going to be missing some of the parts you like. But hey, if you actually prefer the fullscreen version, go right ahead. Just please don’t tell me you’re being cheated out of some of your TV by the widescreen versions. Please? ---
**Author:** ![Wumpus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8c91f0/32.png) [@Wumpus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wumpus)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2004, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/letterbox-eliminator-sign-of-the-apocalypse/238118/40 "2004-04-06T01:55:34Z")
The horrible thing is that when the Wal-Mart nation FINALLY upgrades to HDTV, we’re gonna hear endless bitching about “Hey! Why doesn’t my fullscreen DVD fill up the whole screen anymore?” :rolleyes: [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/letterbox-eliminator-sign-of-the-apocalypse/238118.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/letterbox-eliminator-sign-of-the-apocalypse/238118.md?page=3)