Everytime I go into CVS or a similar business, I always notice that the small selection of DVDs they have on sale are always pan-and-scan, as opposed to widescreen. There’s not a widescreen DVD to be seen. This despite the fact that a widescreen DVD costs the same as its pan-and-scan counterpart. And they’re selling movies that truly benefit from being in widescreen: Movies with lots of special effects like Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings and Spider-Man
Do these businesses think their customers aren’t sophisticated enough to appreciate the advantages of widescreen over pan-and-scan? A part of me almost feels there’s some sort of prejudice at work here, but that’s just a gut feeling and I have no real evidence to back it up.
At Best Buy, pan-and-scan DVDs are put on the bottom shelves, while widescreen ones are put at eye-level. And that’s the way it should be.
I know it’s not a big deal in the grand scheme of things. But, I’m the type of person who, were I a benevolent dictator, would ban pan-and-scan DVDs across the land. It just pisses me off that CVS and other places assume their customers are so uncultured.
Well, I personally like the widescreen version. And I can see why you would as well. But it seems a little harsh to describe people who prefer the image to fill their screen “uncultured” (I realize this isn’t what you were doing, directly).
As a personal observation, I occasionally watch DVDs on my tiny bedroom TV. I’ve found that I prefer pan n’ scan in this specific instance because it makes the action easier to follow, and such things as facial expressions tend not to get lost. I worry less about composition when it comes via sacrificing information.
I think that is a reasonable reason to want pan-n-scan, stoli, but I don’t think that explanation is sufficent to explain why pan-n-scan would predominate in the way described in the OP.
One customer we had in our bookstore wanted to know why Wal-mart didn’t have the widescreen Harry Potter.
Another customer absolutely refuses to purchase wide-screen dvds, even if she has specially ordered them. According to her “they don’t work on my TV” because she can’t stand the black bits on the top and bottom.
Actually, they know that this is the case. Many people(for some reason) are frustrated when they have the black bars on the top and bottom of the screen. I’ve never been able to figure out why.
Because the picture is smaller than the picture they are used to, and they are not getting the full benefit of whichever size TV screen they chose to purchase. People in general don’t like change, particularly in something that is as familiar and comfortable as watching television. If the box that you always trusted to show you a picture of a certain size and shape no longer performs as expected, it’s frustrating.
My guess is that stores that don’t stock widescreen DVD’s have found that they don’t sell particularly well to their customers.
I’m one of those people who will neither buy nor rent a Pan-n-Scan movie. I’m lucky in that I have a decent (32") TV. I suppose I can understand someone who’s watching a 20" TV preferring P&S…but…
if someone’s got a decent TV and still watches P&S, then yes, I lean towards the ‘uncultured’ label
Since I work in a retail store like CVS, personally I’m happy we sell only pan-and-scan movies. Stupid customers have enough trouble finding items they’re standing directly in front of, you think I want to explain widescreen to them? So in my opinion, it’s definitly pandering to the uncultured.
Lest anyone think we are a nation of visual illiterates, widescreen DVDs do normally outsell fullscreen versions for the typical movie, often by wide margins. (The one important exception being kid’s movies, where the reverse is true.)
Nonetheless, the executives persist in believing that Joe Average has a much deeper desire for fullscreen editions than he actually has. Which is why the cutout bins are full of unsold fullscreen DVDs.
Mind you, that’s DVD sales. No doubt there are tons of renters out there who are still used to fullscreen, because That’s What They’ve Always Had.
Maybe now you can know my pain. I’m in the Army, stationed in Germany, and we have a huge ‘Power Zone’, the electronics store for the military…which, consequently, is the only place I can buy US DVDs that will be both in English, and play on my DVD player (Region 1). You are lucky if you even FIND the widescreen version of a film there, and if they do carry it, they usually sell out immediately, and never reorder. I’ve been waiting for the in-stock Harry Potter 2 widescreen version for 5 weeks now, and they still only have Full Screen. Tons of full screen. Drives me up a friggin wall. I have given up ever seeing the Widescreen version there, and I’m just going to order it on Amazon.
I think why some people (probably a bit less educated) don’t buy widescreen is because they think the black bars are the things cutting out the picture, not the P&S version cutting off the sides. I wonder if so many people would buy Full Screen versions if they knew that was the version where 30% of the film is chopped off.
As far as my exchange goes, I can’t tell why they don’t order more Widescreen…they’re the versions that always sell out first!
Yes, many of them would. They don’t care what the film is supposed to look like. They care whether their screen is filled. Witness the OP of this thread for an example.
Also, beware of the “more picture” = “better” argument, because it will turn around and bite you in the ass when it comes to the open-matte versions that are used for most 1.85:1 films. These actually contain more content than their widescreen counterparts. Similarly, for full frame versions, many 2.35:1 films cut off the sides but add to the top and bottom at the same time. (This includes the Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings films.)
True pan-and-scan is generally limited to anamorphic 2.35:1 films and most special effects shots.