Full Frame vs Widescreen

kingleon

Ok this is not actually a HD question. But I hope you guys will help me out anyway. I figured this would be the quickest place to get a response.
I've been noticing that almost every dvd that comes out is offered in full screen and widescreen. Do the full screen versions have the same picture quality as the widescreen or is it "blown up" so to speak. Like would it be the same as pressing the ez view button my remote to make a widescreen dvd be fullscreen(like panscan).

I asking this because i bought the war of the worlds dvd and got the full screen one and the movie looked like ass. Like it was shot in 1970 or something. Was it just the movie or will all full screen versions be in that horrible quality.

ChaosMan1014

I've never seen a difference between the quality of widescreen vs. full screen. I can say, however, I've noticed that you get about an inch more of picture on each side which is apparently cut off in your typical 4:3 full screen broadcast. Other than that I'd say, unless you're super pickey, the actual quality is the same maybe a little better with widescreen.

borromini

The actual picture quality is exactly the same for fullscreen and widescreen titles of the same film. Only the aspect ratio changes.

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kingleon

Ok so war of the worlds was just supposed to look like that? It was old looking. Horrible quality compared to most dvd's I've seen.

leevitalone

I cannot understand why people are unhappy with the W/W video. I see what they are saying. I saw that my Tv needed some tweaking, and at 1st I shut off prog. scan, omly to turn it right back on. I then realized It was very film Like, and had that appearance. After a few minutes I was so involved in the film I stopped noticing it, and after the start, it looked great! I think you are seeing the same thing here. Most have prog. scan anyway. I did not see it at the theater, so I don't know if it was like that, I suspect it was, but I saw it on Spiderman 2 at the theater. same as W/W. but, it's all a personal outlook I suppose.
Sony kv34hs20 HD HDMI
Integra DTR-7 by Onkyo
JVC XV SA 75 DVD-A prog.scan
Sony DVP NS 500V SACD
Samsung HD 941 DVD w/DVI out
H-10 HD receiver
Polk Audio ES series x 4
C/C PolkEs 10
PSW Polk 12' x 150 powered
all monster interconnects & 12G speaker cables

RSawdey

The fullscreen is often cut out of the middle of the widescreen film, and may lose large chuncks of the image... Turner has a demo commercial that shows a scene from Spartacus, where a whole subplot that's onscreen the same time as the main plot is discarded in the pan & scan version.

borromini

The issue isn't lost information of what's going on in the film but actual picture quality, which as I've said before is identical in both widescreen and full screen DVD versions.

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"I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy"

hoits2000

I just love the fact that most the new video games are widescreen it looks so good to see COD4 fill the whole screen.

BobY

Not to stir up trouble, but technically the sharpness of a Widescreen DVD is inferior to the Full-Screen version of the same film. Both discs have 720 pixels across and in the Widescreen version, they are cramming more horizontal "detail" into those 720 pixels, so some of the small details you would see in a Full-Screen version will disappear in the Widescreen version because they "fell between the pixels".

Please don't think that means I prefer Full-Screen to Widescreen--there is no better way to present a movie on DVD than Anamorphic Widescreen. In this day and age, however, Letterbox Widescreen is an unecessary evil, since it damages both the horizontal *and* vertical resolution and any DVD player built in the last 4-5 years can format an Anamorphic Widescreen DVD as Anamorphic Widescreen, Letterbox Widescreen or Full-Screen at your option.