"half_pint" wrote in message
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"Bob Brenchley." wrote in message
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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!!


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.

Fraser.