Widescreen versus full screen DVDs

[lo123]

My wife and I have an ongoing "discussion" regarding the pros/cons of these fomats. We do not have a widescreen format TV, 32 inch JVC regular format set is where we're at for now. Anyway, her feeling is that when we play a DVD in widescreen she feels the top and bottom of the image is being cropped. I've always explained that what you're actually getting is the image as the director shot it. Full screen changes the image with pan and scan, etc.

Well last night we had a movie with both formats on one disc. So to make my point we looked at some scenes and did an A - B test. At least with this example, I was surprised to see the widescreen reduced the vertical image available (both top and bottom). We did not have a classic example, I've always heard the scene in the Indiana Jones movie with Sean Connery has a scene where the full screen version shows only one actor at a time during a dialog scene whereas the widescreen shows them both for the entire scene. So, I did not have a good example of the "benefit" of widescreen, and she was right that the vertical image was compressed. The interesting thing in the scenes we sampled (The Net with Sandra Bullock) was that the full screen image had more vertical detail. I always thought the widescreen preserved that and gave the wider aspect ratio as well.

Are some aspect ratio widescreen productions more likely than others to have this type of vertical compression?

This has now become a "discussion" that I'll never be able to win, but I have to at least understand why the full screen version does indeed give more vertical image (and yes, the widescreen does seem to clip the very top of the image). Anyone have good technical links? I'll probably Google this but thought I'd throw it out here. I'll be curious how the full screen DVDs my wife likes will look once we do get a widescreen TV, black bars down the sides I guess.

[JJkizak]

There are many types of widescreen, originally 2.66 x 1, then 2.5 x 1 then now 2.35 x 1. Also "Todao", "Cinerama", Super this and that, and the latest one which I can't remember.(Eimax) Add to this the actual processing of these aspects with the sometimes built in overscan of some DVD players, some TV's, which your conventional set has a probably 10 to 20% overscan built in. I am not sure how vertical compression can occurr but the conversion to full screen will always result in increased film grain and about 75% of the horizontal image missing. That's why they always show the bebinning titles squashed (anamorphic) so you can read them. These days there are so many variables to consider, such as is it a pirated DVD disc made in China where proper technical protocals are not followed? Or some form of adaption problem between the TV and the DVD player? What zoom is your tv set too? There are many. I personally have never noticed this problem on my system.

JJK

[Saturn5]

Your description of widescreen is correct, for the most part. There are some film makers who use "Super 35" when filming. It's captures a taller image with widescreen width and is then cropped for either widescreen or flat (full screen) display. In those cases, you lose some of the original picture with either method - it just crops to fit the format you want.

Regular widescreen films are cropped on the sides unless they do pan and scan when presented in flat.

Here's a comparison of full screen and wide screen versions of The Incredibles.

[JCHout]

I would recommend going to avsforum.com and searching for the thread of Pirates of the Carribean: Curse of the Black Pearl framing errors in the Blu-ray software area. You would be completely educated on this issue. Basically, some full frame movies can have more information; however, it is likely not presented as the director intended. When filming, there are no movies shot in full frame these days, so there is no way to see a 16:9 image in full frame without either some image cropped or being shown information you were never intended to see. Sometimes, the uninteded image is just extra fluff but detracts from the artistic framing of the image. Sometimes you can see stuff you really don't need to see, like the helicoptor blades in the Shining when it is supposed to be a natural fly over. Other times it can be a boom mike, or , as it the case of POTC, you can see set construction. Another good website is thedigitalbits.com. They have a very good tutorial on widescreen. I would bet any amount of money that either the transfer of the Net was incorrect on the widescreen or you were never supposed to have seen the extra information on the fullscreen. Best way to see the full benefit of widescreen over fullscreen in my opinion is comparing Lawrence of Arabia. Watching that in fullscreen should be against the law.