Widescreen/Standard

[tillitea]

I was under the impression that widescreen formatted DVD's are the original format seen in the theaters and that DVD's that say "formatted to fit your screen" are modified versions that have had pieces cut off of each side of the film so that you can fill your 4:3 TV without having a funny picture (i.e. less picture).
I rented a DVD where you could watch either version. The horizontal picture area was the same in both, which completely baffled me. Of course, when I say horizontal picture, I mean the picture content, not how much the screen is filled up. There was more vertical picture content in the standard version than the widescreen version (i.e. content like the tops of people's heads were cut off in the widescreen format). Thus, there was more total picture content in the fullscreen version. Is this normal? Can someone explain this? Thanks

tillitea

[setarip]

(Assuming you're not doing your viewing on a widescreen television)

If, when you were viewing the widescreen version, you did NOT see black bars on the top and bottom of your screen, you were being "deceived", because portions of the left and right sides were not visible to you. If you observe (or better still, measure) this type of widescreen presentation carefully, you'll note that the images have been stretched vertically versus those of the 4:3 "formatted to fit your screen" images.

With such DVDs, if you want to appreciate the true widescreen effect, set your standalone DVD player to "4:3 Letterbox"...

[benderman]

Most movies for cinema are filmed in 4:3- or 16:9-format (or something like that). From that source they make the TV- and the cinema-version. For cinema they cut it at the top and bottom, for TV at the sides.

[tillitea]

In the so-called widescreen version, there are black bars at the top and bottom and of course in the fullscreen version there are no black bars. To me it seems that whoever made the DVD for Blockbuster (which is where I rented it), simply took the fullscreen version and cut off the top and bottom to make the widescreen version. One thought. Maybe the movie was shot in 4:3 format. Maybe in the theater the view was the same as what this "widescreen version" shows with the tops of heads being cut off? You can't show a 4:3 version on a theater screen right?

tillitea