Of course, that’ll mean that everyone will have to agree on one HDTV format, which the last time I heard they hadn’t been able to do.
Sorry, gotta disagree. Letterbox SUCKS ASS. I rented Terminator 3, and all they had was the special “wide screen” version, which played as a tiny stripe across the center of my TV. COMPLETELY RUINED THE MOVIE. (Of course, it didn’t help that the movie was kind of a piece of shit anyway.;)) I only wish they had a letterbox eliminator feature before I bought the DVD player. I mean, big fucking deal if there was a tree over on the right that got cut out of the shot. Why should I have to go buy a new TV when pan & scan is perfectly fine?
Some previous threads on pan and scan vs. widescreen:
Full Screen vs. Widescreen
What’s wrong with the Pan and Scan in A League of Their Own?
There was another one I couldn’t find where some Dopers actually realized the error of their pan and scam ways. I do remember some of the scenes mentioned:
In Die Hard, the pan and scan version shows the beat cop poking into the office building, looking around a bit, then leaving. The widescreen version shows a bad guy lurking on the edge of the screen, ready to kill the cop if he goes any further.
In Star Trek IV, Kirk, Spock, and the marine biologist chick are all in her truck and talking rapidly back and forth. In the widescreen, you can see all of them at once, but in the pan and scan, the camera tries and fails to jump back and forth between each speaker.
In a certain Kurosawa movie (Sanjuro maybe, I don’t remember), the pan and scan version shows a weird battle scene with a bunch of spear points on either side of the screen moving back and forth, but no people. The widescreen version actually shows the people with pikes fighting and getting injured and killed, like you would expect in a battle.
In Demolition Man, when Lenina kicks John out of her apartment, in the pan and scan version he just kind of shuffles out like a sad puppy. In the widescreen version you can see her stomping her foot and pointing at the door.
The point is, a lot of movies actually have important action going on in all parts of the screen, which gets lost in a pan and scan format. Someone in one of the other threads talked about movies that are shot with fullscreen format in mind, like Harry Potter. Bacically, the top and bottom portion of the frame have peripheral detail only, and they get cropped for the widescreen version. In some sense, these types of movies lose something in the widescreen format, but because the movie was shot that way, the nature of the scenes remains the same.
Projection TVs can be ‘damaged’ by the static black bars on the top and bottom, so some folks use the full screen version to prevent this.
Companies that sell DVDs are wise to offer mulitple formats to satisfy their customers.
Customers are responsible for irrational behavior, not distributors.
I think what you mean is “Letterbox sucks ass on my tiny POS TV.” 
As noted before, a tiny TV screen is one argument for fullscreen format. It’s not a very good one in my opinion, but it’s okay.
However, the format not working with your TV does not equate to it “sucking ass.” It would have to have some quality inherent to the format itself, rather than one only evident in a particular circumstance, for that to be an accurate statement.
And if Pan & Scan is fine by you, then go ahead and continue to purchase it. Just don’t pretend that you’re getting all of the movie. As sturmhauke and **Dangerosa ** pointed out, you’re not, and in a fairly noticeable way.
Do it carefully: many of the changes are, IMO, goofy.
Cheated? Hardly. That’s just silliness. But I might prefer the version that makes the little faces on the screen as big as possible, so that I can see them well, and I might get annoyed at the version that makes the wee faces smaller than necessary. Pardon my technical jargon.
Daniel
Get a bigger TV. Movies should be seen in their Original Aspect Ratio (OAR) to preserve the integrity of the work. Foolscreen chops up the picture so that the viewer is not seeing the movie as it was meant to be seen. Now, for the run of the mill POS, such as Scooby Doo 2, that’s really not such a loss. But cutting down Raiders of the Lost Ark to fit a tiny postage stamp screen is just obscene.
For the record, I am technically a mouthbreather. At least at night.
But just to show you how complex a person I am, I am also someone who will ask for his money back if he accidentally brings home a bastardized movie rental. (I am also someone who occasionally, for questionable dramatic effect, writes of himself in the third person.)
Personally, I think myself superior to people who prefer their movies chopped off on the sides and thicker in the middle, the same way I feel superior to people who prefer their novels predigested and short, or who put ketchup on everything.
Nonetheless, I am glad that such bastardization will now be available to any daylight mouthbreather who wants to buy a DVD player with such a feature. It’s my hope that this will make it unnecessary for DVD distributors to contaminate the market with prebastardized films, so that I don’t have to turn around and drive angrily back to the Ballbuster when I’ve forgotten to read the fine print on the rental box.
You buyin?
Daniel
I prefer the version where you can actually see all the actors at the same time. A lot of acting is nonverbal; in a pan and scan scene you can’t see how offscreen characters react to the speaking characters. But don’t take my word for it (which apparently you haven’t, as you seem to have ignored my previous post):
General info on different filming methods, and widescreen vs. fullscreen
From the above site; notice the large number of scenes where you can’t see all the characters at once.
The Mummy
Demolition Man
Here are some other movies where you may not miss anything important, but they don’t look nearly as good in pan and scan format:
Fifth Element
Star Wars Episode II
Star Wars Episode IV
And then we have the Harry Potter movies, which were filmed in such a way that either final version would look ok. I still think the widescreen looks better overall.
Philosopher’
Sadly, portions of the above post were deleted due to technical incompetence by the studio. The offending parties have been sacked. Here are the deleted lines that the director intended to be part of your reading experience.
the hackjob that is The Two Towers pan and scan
Star Wars: The Pan and Scan Strikes Back
Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone
HP and the Chamber of Secrets
Sorry–I read it, but just didn’t respond to it. If it makes you feel better, I’ll add my own example: in my favorite movie City of Lost Children, there’s a scene in which the narcoleptic sextuplet idiot clones all start crying hysterically. In the TV-sized version, you can see five of them crying, and assume that the sixth is also weeping. In the original version, however, you see the sixth clone on the end look in bafflement at his sobbing compatriots; after a second of staring at them, he clearly makes up his mind and begins sobbing, too. It’s a great visual joke that you miss in the P&S version.
Even so, there’s a tradeoff. Until gobear buys me that bigger TV, there are surely going to be references on the screen that I’ll miss if I watch the letterbox version. In the same movie, you see the villain’s ring at one brief moment, and if you look closely you’ll notice that it’s an ourobouros, a serpent devouring its own tail, and it’s a cool little symbol of the character’s tragedy. But that ring would be small enough on a letterboxed version of the movie that I might miss it on my small TV.
It’s not a case of anyone cheating me; it’s a case of having to compromise one way or the other. I’m not gonna buy a bigger TV–I’d much rather spend the money on a trip to somewhere cool. So instead, I’ll just deal with whichever version of the movie I get, and not worry too much about it.
Add to that the fact that I’m not a terribly visual person, that I’m far more verbally oriented, and you’ll understand why I don’t lose sleep over P&S movies.
But if you want to start a rant about stupid fucking dubbed movies from other countries that don’t recognize the immense superiority of subtitles, I got your back, brother :).
Daniel
Well Ah likes mah 25" TV jes fine. It fits real good right up on top a the old broken one. The Walmart done gots some a dem fancy big ones, but Ah only gots 50 bucks when I done solds my pickup. I don’t gots a fancy job like a janitor or nuthin.
Hmmm…I wasn’t aware that “sucking ass” was supposed to be an “accurate statement.”
Thanks for your permission.
And actually, Sturmhauke, I just looked at some of your examples of the superiority of widescreen, and I gotta wonder whether we’re looking at the same sites.
First, lemme say that I hated HP and the Philosopher’s Stone; I thought the movie sucked just as much ass the second time I was forced to sit through it as the first. (promised to take my cousins to it; long story). But looking at some of the fullscreen shots vs. widescreen shots, it looks much better fullscreen.
For example, you get to see the whole letter from Hogwarts, and
you see full shots of the Weasleys and Harry and their luggage while losing only empty space on the side, and
you see the full station number for the Hogwarts Express, and
you see the brooms on which the Quidditch players ride, and
you see all of the screaming book.
The Star Wars pictures are more significant, but none of the shots there particularly impressed me.
TTT pictures definitely looked better in the widescreen – but that’s due in part to the fact that the site designer shrank the fullscreen pictures down, so that the primary benefit of fullscreen, showing the focus of the action in a larger size, was eliminated.
And I haven’t seen Chamber of Secrets, so I can’t comment intelligently on that one.
Like I said, I think it’s a tradeoff, and I think that the mediageeks are downplaying the legit concerns of those of us who aren’t willing to spend money on big freakin’ TVs. I don’t really mind, though.
Daniel
If it wasn’t supposed to be accurate, why’d you say it?
[QUOTE=Philster]
Projection TVs can be ‘damaged’ by the static black bars on the top and bottom, so some folks use the full screen version to prevent this.
QUOTE]
Only if the TV settings are adjusted incorrectly.
Actually, my Harry Potter examples were supposed to show that the studio tried to accomodate both formats. In these shots, the widescreen shows more of:
the chess pieces
Fluffy, the three-headed dog
the Quidditch scoreboard
I guess this is kind of tangential, but during his lifetime Stanley Kubric refused to allow the release of The Shining and* Full Metal Jacket* in letterbox format (for TV viewing) because he had carefully framed each movie to be released in both 1:1.85(theatrical) and 1:1.33(TV). So in this rare instance, viewing one of these films in widescreen format on your TV with the “letterbox eliminator” would be in keeping with the wishes and creative efforts of the director. 
Uh, 'cuz I felt like it? Is this a trick question?
By the way, got enough screen signatures there?