Fraser wrote:
"half_pint" wrote in message
...

"Bob Brenchley." wrote in message
...
On Sat, 27 Dec 2003 01:29:24 -0000, "half_pint"
wrote:

I dont watch DVD period.
Why should I suffer for you to indulge your fetish?

I watch films in the aspect ratio they were made in, period. You
wouldn't take the Mona Lisa and cut some of it out to fit a nice
frame you happen to have available. And as TV generally sucks, most
of my TV watching is movies. So I have a widescreen TV. Must I
apologise for that to you?


Of course you are wrong, you can build two widescreen cinemas in the
space used by one equivilant 4:3 picture. Thats the *only* resason
we ended up with this WS garbage. Nothing to do with that oh so
pretensious phrase "as the director intended" so go stick you fingers
in your ears and chant "I love my widescreen".

Nonsense, learn some film history. Widescreen came about as the movie
industries counter to television, which was affecting it's income.
They were still showing news reels etc at the time, which TV negated
the need for, and in many ways surpassed. Some directors didn't take
to it for a long time, Stanley Kubrik for example. Mind you, most of
his films were also made in mono sound!!

Can I just surprise you there?
If you look at a wall and focus on a point which is far enough away
to be in focus (about 10 inches, but a reasonable distance for discussion
is about say 4 feet?) the image you can see in detail is round effectively
perfectly round. This is because visual sensitivity on the eyes retina is
round. (Consult any text book or google on fovea and macula).
And you can forget any two eyes arguement, both eyes are focused on the
same point, this is how our eyes work.
Yes the field of vison when moving your eyes is wider, due to the bone
structure of the face, but if I look between my legs I have 360 degrees
vision in the horizontal range.


You have been brainwashed into buying widescreen, although how this
was achieved is perplexing since it implies you had a brain to wash.

No, this time learn some DVD history and consumer electronics
marketing. The first lot of people to buy DVD were the enthusiasts.
We wanted digital surround, multiple audio tracks, all that sort of
thing. To be a success, you have to get their buy in, then capture
the public. Laser disk never got popular with the enthusiasts, so it
died. My player cost £750 at the time, but that was with being
chipped etc. Most of us want widescreen, so that's the way it was.
Releases got slated in all the review mags if they were masked down
to 4:3. DVDs were intended to be the "perfect" delivery mechanism for
movies, and cutting parts of the movie out didn't fit into that
picture.

Who exactly is doing this brainwashing anyway? :-) Does your tinfoil
hat protect you?


Widescreen TV - giving you a more natural view on the world.

Which is very true. Look at a blank wall and see how much of it you
can see without moving your eyes. Not much in the up & down
department, but you've got around 120 degrees (a lot) of horizontal
view. The widest common format,
2.35:1, is a lot closer to this than TVs traditional 4:3. For framing
"normal" images, such as landscapes, groups of people, text/signs,
widescreen is more natural. Just look at the unusual ways people
stand in 4:3 media, they usually much closer than normal people are
in day-to-day life. It's unnatural.

Lol you mean like the way a picture of two men carrrying a ladder
is used to advertise WS TV?

If you look at a randon selection of 'art' pictures you will find only
about 10% in a WS format.
Unsurprisingly you will find that on average the ratio is 1:1.
Pick up any newspaper and count the WS images (I just
did) there are hardly any, most are taller than wide.
How do you explaing that? Answer - You can't.

I actually have a copy of the Sun here with an article on
the Beckams (which was filmed in WS), 3 out of the four
pictures printed are in a portrait format (taller than wide).
(I only bought it for a cheap TV guide btw).

However if the visual sensitivity of the eye does evolve
into a WS format I will conceed it is a more natural format.

In the mean time I think you are living in the land of clouds and
cookoo's ( or should I say seagulls, which do actually have a
WS visual sensitivity)


Fraser.

--
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regards half_pint