Ban The Pan!!

[Simon T]

We have to ban the pan-scan 4/3 movies. The movie distributors must bring out their titles in the original 22/9 or 16/9-fomat on VHS.
(Happily, I don't use HVS, but their are a lot of people who still have them.

DON'T BUY 4/3 PAN SCAN MOVIES (OR COPY 4/3 MOVIES!))

[DanmanX]

I TOTALLY agree with you. I haven't bought a pan & scan title in...3 years!!

[mattward2k]

I agree to, 16:9 is just true movie viewing on a widescreen television... but I'm not sure about banning them - wot about people with a normal 4:3 television? - the 2.35:1 titles, which is like extreme widescreen like The Matrix, look really crap on a 4:3 television, especially a smaller one...

[admin]

I guess P&S is preferred by people who are used to watching movies on analog broadcast TV or on VHS.

I've known a lot of people who are not yet into DVDs because they don't like widescreen movies, and just as many (okay, probably ALOT more people) who can't watch a movie unless it is in the original theatrical aspect ratio.

My preference is to have both the P&S and widescreen versions released for the same movie in either one package (eg. region-1 Shrek), or sold seperately (eg. The Mummy Returns).

Hopefully, with the increase in digital (widescreen) broadcasting and large screen TVs, we can finally see an end to the P&S vs. widescreen debate.

[Simon T]

When I first saw a 2:35 movie I found it weird, but after a while I got addicted to it. BAN THE PAN!!!

[mattward2k]

It's one of those weird things isn't it - its a smaller area to watch, so technically you're getting less for your money but once you start watching them you want to continue....especially on a w/s television, now thats enjoyable

[Trancemaster]

Agreed. I recently bought a 28" widescreen TV, and films 2:35:1 are quite thin, but the TV has a cinema mode which stretches the picture vertically giving a much bigger picture.

BTW, I know a lot of people who won't watch films if they are letterboxed/16:9, because (and I quote) "They don't look as good" (say this in a whiny 6 year olds voice and you get the idea!)
Why????!!!!!!!

[phoenixmgs]

Pan and scan really does suck ass. I found this out about the time dvds came and I was really pissed that the movies I have are poorer quality but it's not even the whole f***ing movie. Why the hell would they use pan and scan as the primary option. If a dvd has the movie in pan and scan its usually on the second side not the first. The only movies that are a little ok to watch in 4 by 3 are comedies because the film is mostly not very wide and directing and camera angles arent as important. Also when there is a movie on tv it should be in widescreen.

And some just dont understand the whole thing. For example, I let my uncle borrow a movie that was widescreen and he said he didnt like it because he said the top of the people's heads were cut out. If you watch it in 4 by 3 it doesnt increase the height of the film it just decreases the width.

[Simon T]

true

Yep, that's true. You just have a bad uncle.

I don't know where you live but in Regio 2, most of times there is even no other side of the DVD with the 4/3 version. The only advantage you have with 4/3 is that you have full screen on a normal TV, but as I have a widescreen television, I just don't watch movies anumore on normal broadcast channels

[JDooty1234]

I find that watching Pan/Scan movies makes me wonder what I'm missing. I would rather watch the director's intended version of things, at the original aspect ratio, than have a small fraction of the action on the screen.

Also, I hate watching movies (or most anything) on TV anymore, because I hate censorship. Watching movies on TV where people are saying something but the words coming out of their mouths don't match it just remove me from what's going on. I think cursing is more like adding color to a conversation. I mean come on, would you rather hear someone say "You ****ing son of a bitch!" or "You fricking son of a gun!" Unless it was Dr. Evil saying that, I'd much rather hear the cursing.

John

[squidgy]

Cognitive distortion disorders

Of course, it's best to have a widescreen telly or monitor. Failing that, I prefer to see films letterboxed, so that at least you get to view the whole picture, even if it's in lower resolution.

Having said that, though, I still think that pan-scan is better than viewing a widescreen movie in the wrong aspect ratio. Let's be real, now, some people have cognitive distortion disorders, and think they're fat when they look in the mirror, when clearly they're not. If such people were to get into the habit of watching widescreen movies on a 4:3 TV in the wrong aspect ratio, so that the picture fills the screen, then their minds might be really ****ed up by it, and millions of otherwise healthy people will turn into anorexics!

So I think, for a 4:3 TV, letterboxing is better than pan-scan, but pan-scan is still far far preferable to full screen incorrect aspect ratio.

[grif_mcrenolds]

I hate 4:3 becuase most of the time they have the scan, but not the pan! Most of the time they're just cutting off the sides without offsetting the picture to let you see what's going on. When i'm watching a movie on broadcast, and there's two people talking who are both far to the sides, you hear the talking but you can't even see WHO is talking! Why would anybody waste their time with P+S? My dad rented JP3 on DVD and accidentally got the 4:3 version. I can't even see the dinos most of the time!

[squidgy]

There's nowt as queer as folk. Fortunately here in the UK the vast majority of DVD's are provided widescreen, no faffing about with pan & scan at all. I don't have a widescreen TV myself, but I like to think that if I get one in the future, then I'll be able to get the most out of it for any DVD's I've already bought, so I still insist on anamorphic anyway.

I'm led to believe, however, that the DVD format does support a feature known as "pan & scan vector". What this means is that a movie is presented in anamorphic widescreen format on the DVD, but that there are a few extra bits of data for each frame to give the left or right offset, which means that a DVD player can convert an anamorphic movie to pan scan on the fly for 4x3 TV's. The big plus of that is that it does away with the need to have either separate widescreen or p+s versions, or the need to halve the space available on a DVD for each version of a movie if both versions appear on the same DVD.

Snag is, though, very few DVD players support it. And even fewer movies use it too.

It seems that outside the USA, no-one takes pan & scan seriously at all, why there seem to be customers in the USA who do is a mystery to me. Could it be the influence of the media?

[TheShadow091]

I'm in 150%. Widescreen is the only way to and the way of the future and we're only delaying it more!