Do you care if a show is widescreen or fullscreen?
 

http://www.tvshowsondvd.com/newsitem.cfm?NewsID=6496

This news angers me some, having HDTV capability I get to see that shows like LOST, How I met your Mother, My Name is Earl are all presented in Widescreen and the "regular" feeds are obviously in full screen due to the way HD works.

With the DVD release it bothers me they are cropping it to Full Screen because I saw how it was originally intended.

For the most part you wont miss much, some things happened in LOST last season that you only saw on HDTV (a plane crashing in the upper right hand corner) and they do some little jokes on My Name is Earl (having stickie notes and other things in the HD area)

With HD being as high quality as it is, I just dont see the reason to crop it outside of the complaints people like my mom and other old people give about "not liking widescreen"

I guess I should be happy, it saves me money because I might as well use the DVD recorder on the HD feed since it will only be a small difference compared to the official release and the image will remain in tact.

I like Widescreen. Period. Anamorphic should also be standard.

I prefer widescreen. I hate full screen....it takes so much away IMO

they keep doing things like this people will have no choice but to record it themselves or find another way *cough*torrent*cough* to get them in the format they want.

I for sure prefer widescreen. :)

widescreen is thw way to go...to much is left out when its fullscreen

The need to make it so you can select either WD or P&S on the same disc. Some sort of P&S code, so the film is only on the disc once.

Most movies I have rented lately are widescreen on one side, full on the other.

I know in my basement, or used to- I like widescreen
but my bedroom tv is too small for widescreen.

But I PREFER it if the tv allowes

I prefer whichever is correct or right for the release, like mentioned with seeing things in the corners...

I like FS. Mainly because it looks best on my crappy 20 yr old non cable ready 19 inch TV [:p] [88][88][88][88][88]

I prefer that it be in its original apsect ratio, meaing if it was made for ws keep it ws and if it was made fs then keep it fs, I dont like for them to alter or edit the orginal formats at all.

I like wide screen myself. I didn'i even realize there was a difference until I got on a Titanic buying binge and was buying all the different formats I could find VHS/DVD, and then I noticed a difference. So after some searching I found out there is indeed a bi difference. I Will always go for widescreen vs full screen.

Widescreen. Specifically w/surround system.

here's my 2c....

i'm all for OAR (original aspect ratio) - whether that was full or wide - just as the director intended.

and as others have stated, give the user the choice of showing it in FS/WS as they wish.

now here is one for you... have you noticed that a lot of today's WS tv shows still mainly use the middle area of the screen? maybe because there are still loads of FS tvs out there?

ie the main characters & action takes place in the center area of the screen - hence the left & right extremes are basically not used / not critical.

i'm not saying this happens in all shows - but in some of them.

hence in this particular scenario - then i suppose it's ok to crop WS to FS?

so you've spent $$$$ on your brand spanking new HDTV - only to have watch tv shows using the central area - sort of like FS.

how does that make you feel?

here's another one for you...

lets say you were watching something in WS - eg one character on the left edge and another character on the right edge. nothing happening in the middle.

now say the character on the left is talking.

so, how does your brain work?

do your eyes / ears / brain shift focus to the LHS and so, in a way, you block / hide the RHS?

or do you actually take in everything - you have complete focus on the whole screen.

if you say, you tend to focus on the character who is doing the talking, ie say LHS in this case, then isn't this a sort of self imposed crop?

so then, just maybe, cropping is fine?

i'm not sure myself.
have to conduct a few experiments.

tho right now, i'll stick with my OAR preference.

I prefer what preserved the integrity of the original director.
In most cases, that's the native aspect in which the video/movie was shot. (Though not always.)

I'm easy to please, really. :)