Wednesday, January 14, 2004
I'm not sure if I ranted on this subject recently here, but I'm too lazy to go back and look, so if I'm repeating myself, oh well...
If there's one person or group of people that I truly despise it's the person/people who make the decision to release a dvd or dvd set with two seperate versions: one wide screen and one full screen. I personally do not like full screen. If I'm watching the movie, I want to see what was on the movie screen. I want to see it as the director intended. I don't want a third of the screen removed just because some people don't like to see black bars on the top and bottom of the screen. My view of full screen being evil has lessened a little since I played Chicago for my parents and my mom just couldn't get use to the black bars. So if the bars annoy someone and they don't mind having a cropped picture, then fine. Make the full screen available. Just put them both in the same package so there's no confusion.
On my birthday this past summer, my brother and his wife got me the movie Daredevil. This was great since it was a movie I wanted to own but didn't particularly want to pay for. Daredevil also has good special features and makes good use of dvd abilities including an additional audio track that describes all the action and everything that can be seen on screen, so a blind person could listen to that track and it would be able to follow the movie almost as well as a person watching it. But my brother got me the full screen, so I had to take it back and exchange it. He got it at Wal-Mart and to their credit, the store gave me absolutely no problem or hassle exchanging it.
This fall, I picked up a used widescreen copy of Austin Powers in Goldmember at the local Electronic Boutique. They have a good deal where, if you buy a card for ten bucks you get ten percent off of any used movies or games for a year. When I got home and played the movie, it started with the notice that the movie had been formatted to fit my screen. Apparently, I got the wide screen box, but when the clerk fetched the dvd from the back, he grabbed the full screen version. There was no problem exchanging it, but still, I had to make a extra trip to the store.
And then there was this winter. My parents and I went X-Mas shopping at Wal-Mart. I went away from them for a moment to get something, and when I came back, I found them near the electronics trying to hurry up and hide something in the cart. It was the Indiana Jones Trilogy. My dad tried to throw me off the track by saying how they were out of the Godfather Trilogy (the other dvd set I wanted). Finally, they admitted they had picked out the Indy trilogy for me. So we went through the checkout and as we're walking out of the store - we were through only the first of the two set of doors - my mom goes, "You wanted full screen, right?" So, about a minute after checking out, I was exchanging the set for the wide screen version. Once again, Wal-Mart gave me no hassle exchanging a item for a nearly identical (and priced identical) item.
Of course, all three things would not have happened if they didn't put out two different set where the only difference is full screen/wide screen.
If there's one person or group of people that I truly despise it's the person/people who make the decision to release a dvd or dvd set with two seperate versions: one wide screen and one full screen. I personally do not like full screen. If I'm watching the movie, I want to see what was on the movie screen. I want to see it as the director intended. I don't want a third of the screen removed just because some people don't like to see black bars on the top and bottom of the screen. My view of full screen being evil has lessened a little since I played Chicago for my parents and my mom just couldn't get use to the black bars. So if the bars annoy someone and they don't mind having a cropped picture, then fine. Make the full screen available. Just put them both in the same package so there's no confusion.
On my birthday this past summer, my brother and his wife got me the movie Daredevil. This was great since it was a movie I wanted to own but didn't particularly want to pay for. Daredevil also has good special features and makes good use of dvd abilities including an additional audio track that describes all the action and everything that can be seen on screen, so a blind person could listen to that track and it would be able to follow the movie almost as well as a person watching it. But my brother got me the full screen, so I had to take it back and exchange it. He got it at Wal-Mart and to their credit, the store gave me absolutely no problem or hassle exchanging it.
This fall, I picked up a used widescreen copy of Austin Powers in Goldmember at the local Electronic Boutique. They have a good deal where, if you buy a card for ten bucks you get ten percent off of any used movies or games for a year. When I got home and played the movie, it started with the notice that the movie had been formatted to fit my screen. Apparently, I got the wide screen box, but when the clerk fetched the dvd from the back, he grabbed the full screen version. There was no problem exchanging it, but still, I had to make a extra trip to the store.
And then there was this winter. My parents and I went X-Mas shopping at Wal-Mart. I went away from them for a moment to get something, and when I came back, I found them near the electronics trying to hurry up and hide something in the cart. It was the Indiana Jones Trilogy. My dad tried to throw me off the track by saying how they were out of the Godfather Trilogy (the other dvd set I wanted). Finally, they admitted they had picked out the Indy trilogy for me. So we went through the checkout and as we're walking out of the store - we were through only the first of the two set of doors - my mom goes, "You wanted full screen, right?" So, about a minute after checking out, I was exchanging the set for the wide screen version. Once again, Wal-Mart gave me no hassle exchanging a item for a nearly identical (and priced identical) item.
Of course, all three things would not have happened if they didn't put out two different set where the only difference is full screen/wide screen.
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