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:: Wednesday, January 19, 2005 ::

Widescreen vs. Fullscreen Movies


This post is dedicated to the topic of widescreen movies vs. foolscreen…oops fullscreen movies. :wink: I know everyone is entitled to their own opinions and preferences, but why anyone would choose to rent or buy a fullscreen DVD is beyond me.

When you watch a movie in widescreen format, you are watching the movie the way it was intended for you to view it. You see everything that you see when you watch the movie in the theater. Directors film scenes with the widescreen format in mind. So when you watch a movie in fullscreen format, the movie is chopped, for lack of a better word, and you lose a big percentage(I think it’s like 40%) of what was originally in the shot.

I decided to write about this because I was talking to one of my coworkers this morning and he mentioned he just got the Spiderman 1 & 2 pack in fullscreen format. I was like, “Fullscreen?!? Why?” He said he prefers fullscreen because widescreen is smaller. Yeah it’s smaller on your TV, but you see everything you are supposed to see. The funny thing is that he has a 50″ big screen TV. :lol: If you have a TV that big, what’s the big deal if the movie doesn’t fill the entire screen? Anyways, another one of my coworkers, who happens to be a Harry Potter fanatic, buys all the Harry Potter movies, but she buys them in fullscreen format too. Her reasoning is that her TV is small and watching the movie in widescreen makes everything smaller. I told her, “You’re a poor starving college student….of course you have a small TV. But you aren’t going to have a small TV forever. If you buy all your movies in fullscreen now, you might end up buying them all over again in widescreen format later when you have a big TV.” She didn’t seem to care. Oh well…like I said…to each his own.

Here are a few examples of the difference between widescreen vs. fullscreen:

Which do you prefer?

:: had nothing better to do at 12:34 pm ::

Comments
  1. i always buy widescreen format dvds. period.

    Comment by GizmoDogg — Wednesday, January 19, 2005 @ 2:08 pm

  2. Always go with widescreen. I think the only thing fullscreen is good for is you get a closer shot of the main shot, which is good for movies like… porn.

    413665

    Comment by GQ AZN — Wednesday, January 19, 2005 @ 2:17 pm

  3. Widescree Only. But then again, there’s the goof with the Back to the Future set, where they messed up. When they first made the DVDs, they actually chopped the Fullscreen to make the Widescreen so you only got like 60% of the 60%.

    Comment by Kelcey — Wednesday, January 19, 2005 @ 5:33 pm

  4. I prefer reading books! :lol: You can always zoom in to a fullscreen on a widescreen format movie anyhow…so widescreen is good either way.

    By the way, which of the coworkers you mentioned has a 50″ TV? Umm…trying to guess here….anyhow, I kinda know who’s the other coworker you mentioned that’s into Harry Potter…hehe

    Comment by Son — Wednesday, January 19, 2005 @ 10:19 pm

  5. i used like full screen, but now i rly rly like widescreen. so i was originally a fool screen.

    Comment by Pam — Wednesday, January 19, 2005 @ 11:15 pm

  6. Buying a fullscreen movie is like having dinner at an all-you-can-eat buffet and only getting one plate…what a waste of money! DVDs should only come in widescreen.

    What loser let’s a huge tv like that go to waste?! Tell me who it is so I can slap him!

    Comment by Bryan — Thursday, January 20, 2005 @ 1:07 am

  7. good to know. since i don’t buy dvds, i never knew the difference. widescreen all the way

    Comment by rosie — Thursday, January 20, 2005 @ 7:13 am

  8. Widescreen is the only way to watch movies as far as I’m concerned. When I worked in electronics as a salesman, people used to come in all the time and say, “I hate wide screen. You lose so much of the picture with those black bars.” What? Do you not understand simply geometry? Eh, yeah, but I love widescreen.

    Comment by Shawn — Thursday, January 20, 2005 @ 11:33 am

  9. I have always been a proponent of the full screen version (for movies only). Come on people, your perception is so skewed. Just because it doesn’t take up all your screen doesn’t mean it is smaller!

    Comment by pinayhekmi — Thursday, January 20, 2005 @ 1:29 pm

  10. pinayhekmi…im confused. proponent of fullscreen…meaning you are in favor of fullscreen? but then your last statement sounds like an arguement for widescreen. :lol:

    Comment by pete — Thursday, January 20, 2005 @ 2:08 pm

  11. Widescreen since my first dvd and never looked back. Fullscreen and VHS is the devil! hehe

    But now its all about watching those bad boys on a 16:9 DLP monitor, with an HDMI dvd player setup ::drooool::, oh and DTS surround ::droooool::

    Comment by Brian — Thursday, January 20, 2005 @ 8:54 pm

  12. Fullscreen for me unless using a widescreen TV. Very well done article tho.

    Comment by James — Sunday, January 23, 2005 @ 10:05 am

  13. Thanks for all the great advice everyone

    Comment by Tony — Friday, February 4, 2005 @ 5:29 pm

  14. I have a 32inch flatscreen Sony Wega. I don’t know much about all this. I did play a fullscreen dvd and it was terribly stretched. I don’t believe my tv is a widescreen. Still recommend using widescreen format?? Thanks in advance!!

    Comment by Tony — Friday, February 4, 2005 @ 5:32 pm

  15. I have a 48″ LG LCD Screen :shock: , linked my computer w/DVD writer using DVI to it, use a DVD ripper, encode to DVD’s to DivX format, can burn 5+ DivX Movies to DVD-R for about .25 cents. Ah well…. Enjoy :razz:

    Comment by Sebastian — Sunday, February 20, 2005 @ 1:47 pm

  16. oh ya, widescreen #1 :lol: , in DVD-2-DivX encoding you can fix the aspect ratio a bit & remove any black bars before you burn the movies. l8r :mrgreen:

    Comment by Sebastian — Sunday, February 20, 2005 @ 2:14 pm

  17. Spiderman 2 Fullscreen vs Widescreen and guess what
    I win!
    Fullscreen Rules
    _______
    |SPIDER |0000_____
    |SPIDER | or |spider |
    |SPIDER |0000_____
    _______
    Look at the different between the screens sizes BIGGGER
    IS BETTER!!!

    Comment by Brian Paulk — Friday, April 8, 2005 @ 11:16 am

  18. I have to vote for fullscreen. Who really cares if i don’t see the tree branch that’s a little too far to the left for me to see it? The main focus of the flick fills up the entire tv screen and i prefer that. Personally, that blank area at the top and bottom of the screen just irratates me with widescreen. So let me raise the flag for the minority here. Now go watch a movie, eat some popcorn and don’t take all this fullscreen vs. widescreen debate too seriously.

    Comment by Doug — Saturday, April 23, 2005 @ 10:58 am

  19. MY MOM THINKS FULL SCREEN IS THE BEST SHES SO UN…EDUCATED :!: SHE MAKES ME SO MAD :evil: SHES A FOOL FOR LIKING FULL SCREEN!!! :mad: :roll:

    Comment by LOSTASO — Saturday, May 7, 2005 @ 10:26 am

  20. Not all films have information in the black bars. Alot of films are filmed in Super35 nowadays so companies can get the extra buck. But really, alot films also are only filmed in Wide-Screen format. So you are still missing out on Full-screen. Besides, most directors favor Wide-Screen.

    Comment by Terry — Friday, May 13, 2005 @ 3:45 am

  21. Hi everybody. I’m Bree-Ann. 2 words-my name i mean. Have a great day. I love Jesus!! :mrgreen: :grin: :cool: :smile: :lol:

    Comment by bree-anne — Monday, February 6, 2006 @ 2:51 pm

  22. Hey! It’s me again. Wats up. Sry bout last tyme. i didnt even talk about the sbj @ hand. i luv saying that. it makes me feel so… SMART! lol. Well i agree that widescreen is much better. Have a great day! again.

    Comment by bree-anne — Monday, February 6, 2006 @ 2:54 pm

  23. u no that happy crappy stuff was a bunch of b.s.God i frikan hate those retarted idiots who like foolscreen. They can go screw themselves. :evil:

    Comment by bree-anne — Monday, February 6, 2006 @ 2:56 pm

  24. is n-e-1 there. god if ur gonna have a freakin’ blog at least write sh!t. sry about my language. its almost as dirrtee as me. j/k lol

    Comment by bree-anne — Monday, February 6, 2006 @ 3:02 pm

  25. Whew! To the dork who said something about the inconsequential tree trunk that may just as well go unseen…well, try taking a conversation, at about a shoulder shot between two people and then converting it to full-screen. A good example is “That Touch of Mink” with Cary Grant and Doris Day. It’s really interesting–not to mention extremely distracting from the plot, and nerve-wracking–to watch their noses go in and out of the frame because the sides of the widescreen had to be chopped off to fit on a full screen. And don’t give me any excuses like “A movie with Cary Grant and Doris Day is better off without their faces on the screen.” If you come up with that one…you’re really a lost cause. To the author of this website–put that example on here and you’ll really make a case for widescreen. And it doesn’t just happen with old, outdated movies–of course, you fullscreeners don’t pay attention anyway. And yes, I’m an artist, so I have empathy for directors who get their pictures butchered.

    Comment by Natalie — Saturday, March 4, 2006 @ 10:11 am

  26. So… fullscreeners are irritated by the blank area at the top and bottom when they watch widescreen (proper) aspect ratio? Well, when all screens are 16:9 and they watch their precious fullscreen movies, then they’ll be irritated by the blank area on the left and right sides! Sweet revenge on the un-informed and un-imaginative!

    Comment by SGT Peepers — Tuesday, May 16, 2006 @ 2:04 pm

  27. :shock: that last comment is soooo true. akll those stupid fullscreen tvs are not going to be around much longer. everything is going into widescreen, even portable dvd players and portable tvs are all widescreen now. i work in an electronics store, and with this whole hi def and digital cable and what not, you wont want to be watching hi def and digital tv on your stupid full frame tv. and the directors make the movies in widescreen, how its meant to be seen. when you go to the theater, that is what you see, the widescreen format. then you wonder why when you buy the full frame dvd why somethings seem to be missing from the movie. WIDESCREEN ALL THE WAY!!! *altho there are a few movies that were not available at ALL on WS… SHAME ON THEM!!!

    Comment by arienfire — Sunday, August 13, 2006 @ 7:07 pm

  28. Let us not forget the horrible method of pan and scan. My god its annoying. Multiplicity is the perfect example of this.

    Comment by Bryan — Saturday, October 28, 2006 @ 2:40 pm

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