Full Screen DVDs: Why?

[Sawyer]

Seriously, why were they ever a thing? Was it because it was still so close to the VHS age?

It pisses me off because, at one point, I was young and naive enough to think that full screen was the better option. The first two of Raimi's Spider-Man movies, the whole LOTR trilogy, and I think the first two Harry Potters too...

Luckily Target has the whole Lord of the Rings trilogy for, like, ten dollars, and both of the Spider-Man movies for a few dollars a piece, but I wouldn't be Sawyer if I wasn't raging about something.

 

[Mace Dolex]

I think it was probably due to not many households having widescreen HDTV's yet so that was why both fullscreen and widescreen were both being sold.

But I think that practice has stopped ever since Bluray beat out HDDVD for market dominance.

So now instead of people complaining of the black bars top and bottom they can complain about the bars on the left and right.

 

[C. Lee]

I think it was probably due to not many households having widescreen HDTV's yet so that was why both fullscreen and widescreen were both being sold.

That was pretty much it. When DVDs first started coming out, there were few widescreen or large screen TVs....so having a DVD play a widescreen picture on a small square TV just made it hard to see. Many people preferred a fullscreen picture. Then as newer TVs came out the widescreen DVDs got more popular.

 

[Spider-Aziz]

Most DVDs I watched of that time had the option to change view before playing the movie.

 

[Primal Slayer]

People didn't like seeing black bars on their tvs, so why not give them the option? Not to mention I think they made more money.

 

[Mace Dolex]

I actually thought that widescreen TV's would never catch on in popularity for the simple fact that many old TV shows were filmed at 4.3 therefore you're always going to have bars left and right.

 

[ThePhantasm]

our house had a fullscreen tv for the longest time... we got DVDs in fullscreen too. I wish we never had.

 

[Daltonio]

Yeah, we used to buy full-screen DVD's all the time. It's a bit annoying now when I go back to watch and find that it's a full-screen one but I get why we used to buy 'em.

 

[Apollo]

My Dad really confused Full-screen for Widescreen. He thought Full-screen was the "Full" picture of the movie. Meaning they didn't cut the edges. So he bought dozens of Full screen movies. Such as Attack of the Clones, Lord of the Rings, Spider-man, ex. My dad was all like "It says full screen, so it should be the full picture!"... No Dad that is Widescreen! Widescreen gives you the full picture. He says "AH!! They Should have called it square screen, not full-screen!! Why call it full screen if it is not the full picture! SOB's always pulling **** like this!"

LOL

 

[Brother Jack]

Fullscreen DVD's are a blight upon our world. And yes I do own more than one. I did think it was better than having those annoying black bars on the tops and bottoms of the screens.

 

[Tron Bonne]

People didn't like seeing black bars on their tvs, so why not give them the option? Not to mention I think they made more money.

Yeah, I think this is pretty much the reason. A lot of people either didn't know (or care) about the actual picture representation and just wanted to get rid of the bars.

 

[Orba]

I've always preferred to get version that is closest to how it was originally intended to look. Even before widescreen tvs became big I always tried to get the widescreen version, the only problem these days is when I pull out old DVDs and find that they are non-anamorphic.

A few years back the classic TV series 'The World at War' got a big digital remastering, everything cleaned up as much as possible to look better than ever. But after doing everything to make it look great they then cropped the whole series from its original 4:3 to a 16:9 frame because people didn't like 4:3.

 

[Mace Dolex]

I've always preferred to get version that is closest to how it was originally intended to look. Even before widescreen tvs became big I always tried to get the widescreen version, the only problem these days is when I pull out old DVDs and find that they are non-anamorphic.

Yeah I have only a few non-anamorphic movies and its a pain to watch them on a 16.9 TV.

A few years back the classic TV series 'The World at War' got a big digital remastering, everything cleaned up as much as possible to look better than ever. But after doing everything to make it look great they then cropped the whole series from its original 4:3 to a 16:9 frame because people didn't like 4:3.

Even on old sitcoms such as Seinfeld for example I've seen broadcast in syndication in widescreen which means cutting portions of the top and bottom of the screen for 16.9 which I would assume alters the original format ratio.

 

[DyeLorean]

I own the Eraser DVD (with Arnold) which was fullscreen on one side of the disc, and widescreen on the other. It was pretty useful.

 

[Orba]

Yeah. If I remember I have that with DVDs of Men In Black and Superman.

 

[Breogan]

Frak I remember having this debate back when videotape was still the norm, and didn't get why anyone was buying full screen ( also called pan and scan), and refused to own and hated to watch any video edited/panned to fit a tv. But people had made this the norm, so most crap was released that way.
Then as the world switched to DVD I thought for sure this madness would finally end, but no, still there they were on the shelves, and people buying them, making it the norm.
...

 

[Tron Bonne]

Not everyone is an aficionado of film, and a lot of people just didn't want to deal with the black bars. I didn't like full screen myself, but the explanation for why people wanted them is pretty obvious.

 

[Breogan]

Not everyone is an aficionado of film, and a lot of people just didn't want to deal with the black bars. I didn't like full screen myself, but the explanation for why people wanted them is pretty obvious.

I don't know if it's aficionado(ism)? I'll watch pretty much any crap movie. I do need to see it from the begging though(won't walk in late), and won't watch it panned and scanned. I don't care if it's Citizen Kane or Bill & Ted, I just need to know I'm not missing any of it in length(time) or in ratio.
The idea of having to "deal with black bars" seems a bit disingenuous, like they are the thing blocking something out, when it's the exact opposite.

 

[Tron Bonne]

And yet, there are black bars on the screen are there not? I'm not arguing for fullscreen, don't misunderstand, but the truth is a lot of people really don't care that much about what you're talking about. They just don't want the black bars. It's not a hard thing to understand on their part, even if I don't really agree.

 

[Breogan]

And yet, there are black bars on the screen are there not?

No there is excess space! The only thing baring anything, is on the pan-and-scan versions. Because they panned in so much - the right and left side of your tv are baring the full image.

That's why describing them as bars seems a bit disingenuous. It's excess space, they do not block or bar anything.

It'd be like taking out your favorite picture, then complaining about the background (in this case the bricks in your line of sight) as bars on your picture.

 

[Tron Bonne]

Obviously, you either don't understand what I'm saying or you're just being incredibly dense.

 

[Lasirius]

As others have mentioned, back in the day when DVD had just come out I got all of my movies Fullscreen. I even remember two instances when I thought I had purchased the fullscreen version of the movies, when I had really gotten widescreen; I was so angry at myself.

 

[Bobber]

Turning a Sergio Leone movie into fullscreen surely counts as vandalism?

 

[Orba]

Turning a Sergio Leone movie into fullscreen surely counts as vandalism?

Thats pretty much how I feel when I see a classic piece of film or television that has been cropped to a different screen ratio.

 

[Steamteck]

Obviously, you either don't understand what I'm saying or you're just being incredibly dense.

I do but it reflects really poorly on those who feel that way. I could certainly understand not wanting to think folks are that clueless about what they're watching and how full screen works.