2006-06-19 11:50:45 · 15 answers · asked by crazymama 1 in Entertainment & Music ➔ Movies
Because most films are made in widescreen originally. If you size them to fill the screen all the way from top to bottom, stuff gets left off at the sides, which means you're missing part of the picture.
For VHS they used to do something called "pan and scan," which meant that they'd let stuff fall off the side of the screen unless it was important; if it was, they'd "pan" over to whatever you needed to see. So, for example, if two people were talking to each other from opposite sides of the picture, and showing one would cause the other to not be seen, they'd pan back and forth between the two to follow the dialogue. This was disconcerting. You could always tell when it was being done. But at the time, if you wanted to see the whole picture, you were out of luck with VHS. You usually had to go to a laserdisc for it. Laserdiscs were for movie buffs, who were interested in seeing the movie as the director shot it, rather than having huge chunks of the picture missing.
When DVDs came out, some films were released in full-screen pan and scan, some in widescreen, and some in both versions. The market has spoken, and since people seem to prefer widescreen, that's what you see more of. Full-screen pan & scan is dying - as well it should. It's a relic of the VHS age, and with the NTSC 4x3 video standard in its final days, there's no reason to preserve it any more.
2006-06-19 12:00:57 · answer #1 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋
Your player should have a setting to fill your screen in a couple of ways. One is to compress the entire wide image onto your screen, making everything tall and skinny. The other setting just takes the middle of the screen image and uses it to fill the screen. This method cuts off both far ends of the image.
Remember, if it was filmed in a wide screen format, the director had his artistic reasons for it. If you cut off some of the image, you may miss some important action. Example, a scene where two people are sitting at either end of the table. You may not see either person, only the table in between. When you see a movie broad cast from a television station, it may have been specially edited, with someone "moving" a camera back and forth between the actors.
2006-06-19 12:00:10 · answer #2 · answered by Vince M 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
The television industry is making a move to produce only wide screen TV' s in the near future. To reconfigure an original movie to full screen takes a lot of work. The full screen will be a thing of the past. This is why it is getting harder to find a full screen movie.
2006-06-20 01:57:40 · answer #3 · answered by canner 1 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Because movies aren't shot Full Screen. The old style TV ratio of 4:3 cuts off part of the image in most movies, almost in half in some movies. When these movies are transferred to video, there are two choices on normal TVs (ones that aren't widescreen). One is a letterboxed widescreen view where you get the full picture shrunk down in between two black lines. The other is to show it in full screen but to do artificial panning from side to side of this full screen to the part that is most important to the action at that time. The disadvantage is that it can look really horrible, especially in movies that use the full widescreen frame. Full frame is less and less in favor these days because so many people are buying big screens.
More can be found here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Widescreen
2006-06-19 11:59:05 · answer #4 · answered by crutnacker 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
In a few years I think that the only TV you will be able to buy will be wide screen. At least for now you have a choice but as TVs transition to HD they will also transition to wide screen. The people that make the DVDs are catering to that transition. I know the black lines at the top and bottom can be annoying but on a WS TV you don't have that.
2006-06-19 11:58:32 · answer #5 · answered by cfolkes 1 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Because most tv's now are made widescreen. Some have the option built in to view full screen or wide screen.
2006-06-19 11:54:36 · answer #6 · answered by lisjebe 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Its because they make it for the collectors and most want it in its original theatre format. When I hated wide-screen, I used to just push zoom on my clicker twice. It minimized the bars to be about a quater of an inch. Also keep an eye out for double sided disks. One side is usually widescreen while the other is fullscreen. Plus widescreen actually has more of an image than fullscreen. For example, if you had 4 people on the screen, fullscreen will cut out the people on the edges, whereas widesceen shows all.
2006-06-19 15:54:55 · answer #7 · answered by DevanBlack 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Well, widescreen whoulf be what you realy want. It's the way you would see it in a movie theater, and the way it's actually released. By watching full screen you're actually chopping off the right and left side to modify the picture to fit your TV....which is another issue..go buy a widescreen TV, anyway you're losing a lot of image this way. You should just get used to the black spaces in the top and bottom because this way you see the whole picture. :)
2006-06-19 11:56:29 · answer #8 · answered by Brie22 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
wide screen is most asked for i guess, it shows more of the picture. but if not many people buy the full screen version than the company wouldnt make much money from making full screen movies when not many people buy them.
Its the movie companies bottom line. try searching ebay or something
2006-06-19 11:54:30 · answer #9 · answered by Miami 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
actually is because widescreen has better image quality, wich it may see as the same as full screen but thats why most of them are being sold as WS, cuz it has better Screen quality.
hope it helps, wich movie are you looking for maybe i can help u to find it full screen. later
Ben
*Dont forget to choose the Best Answer it gives 10 points to the user :)
2006-06-19 11:55:27 · answer #10 · answered by america_2008_2008 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋