Films/DVD Asylum

Posted by Victor Khomenko (i) on July 02, 2001 at 20:08:58

In Reply to: Re: DVD with 16:9 capable, purchase only,who cares,never? posted by John_N on July 02, 2001 at 19:52:25:

...is that many of those films, made for very wide screen, don't show well on small screen. You hardly get the intended effect of the 2.78:1 original format that was supposed to envelop you, draw you in, on your TV, even a 16:9 one. You in effect watch it from great distance, reducing the effect many-fold. In some of those cases close-ups and pan-and-scans actually do make sense. Watching something like Ben Hur when you can't even see the faces while capturing the whole panorama is not the best possible way, in my view. Of course it is always a matter of degree.

As always, this is a tradeoff, with no single right answer. I think it makes sense to be flexible in these matters.