Pan&Scan format really sucks.

[Smokey]

I have Odd Couple (with Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon) on DVD which is in wide screen format and I watch that movie at least three or four time a year. Couple of night ago, they were showing that movie on one of the movie channels in P&S format, and the way movie is chopped on sides is really horrible. Especially when there are more than two persons in a shot.

Since one don't to get to see the reaction from other actors in a shot due to fact that they are too far to the right or left of where the center action is, it takes away the full impact director had intended, especially when it is a comedy.

Long live wide screen format :)

[cam]

I have Odd Couple (with Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon) on DVD which is in wide screen format and I watch that movie at least three or four time a year. Couple of night ago, they were showing that movie on one of the movie channels in P&S format, and the way movie is chopped on sides is really horrible. Especially when there are more than two persons in a shot.

Since one don't to get to see the reaction from other actors in a shot due to fact that they are too far to the right or left of where the center action is, it takes away the full impact director had intended, especially when it is a comedy.

Long live wide screen format :)
I'm with you smokey. I want to see everyone that is supposed to be on the screen on the screen. I have a 4:3 tv and if I have a chose of widescreen or fullscreen, it's wide all the way and forget about that pan&scan crap.

[magictooth]

The manufacturers call it "Pan and Scan." I think the more appropriate term is "Butcher and Distort." Squat fat people, truncated image - wow, now there's a technological innovation.

[kelsci]

Look fellows; Until letterboxing was demonstrated to show what was being missed by not using that format, many of us were quite satisfied with what we saw in Pan and Scan on tv stations for years because there was no home video market to think about this issue. Now we have that market with widescreen tvs that if we have the bread we can purchase and see most movies in their correct aspect ration. It is Hollywood that started widescreen films in the 50's to get people into the theaters since television was killing their business. I doubt that Hollywood thought about the home theater subject as we know it today back then; there was no concept or way that the average person would be able to watch a movie in their home unless they were wealthy up to the kilts and had their own film projectors in their homes. At that time, I think that the only person that was discussed with projected Hollywood films in their own home theater was Rock Hudson. I do not know what kind of aspect ratio of films were given to him, but most likely, if they were widescreen movies on 16mm prints they were probably some form of Pan and Scan at that time. Lets be thankful for what we have been given as the result of most if not all of us fighting for OAR. Kelsci.

[Smokey]

Thanks guys for comment.

Still, majority of commercial channels (and Premium channels) still show movies in P&S format. The only channels were one ,ight find alot of wide screen of a movie might be TCM, AMC, IFC and Bravo.


I doubt that Hollywood thought about the home theater subject as we know it today back then; there was no concept or way that the average person would be able to watch a movie in their home unless they were wealthy up to the kilts and had their own film projectors in their homes. At that time, I think that the only person that was discussed with projected Hollywood films in their own home theater was Rock Hudson.

I might be mistaken here, but when Cinemascope was patented in the 50s, one had to have a special projector called "Anamorphic Projection" to view such a material. I bet nobody had one of them in their home :)

[kelsci]

Hi Smokey; I do not know if anybody who had a l950s projection system like Rock Hudson featured an anamorphic projection system in their home. It is a good question to ask, but who do you ask that kind of question today. I could try the tv journalist for the SUN-SENTINEL of Ft. Lauderdale. Smokey, I think the projector could still have been a normal 35mm type but would have needed an adaptor to change what I think was a sliding addition to the normal lens to give the widescreen effect from a film that was compressed to restore it to a widescreen geometric projection. Out DVD players obviously do this in an electronic domain rather than a physical one. One time when I went to see the EMPIRE STRIKES BACK, the projectionist failed to put in that anamorphic lens assembly causing everybody to look like pencilsticks walking and talking on the screen.