Aspect Ratios - Why Not More Customizable?

[solott55]

Originally Posted by charlieray1

It would sell -- no question.

Serious movie buffs are all about OAR, film grain, etc. But all you have to do is check Amazon reviews to see that the "great unwashed masses" hate grain, black bars and black & white movies.

THANK YOU! Nice to see someone here can look past thier own minority obsession (and hey, I can understand why people feel that way about movies, that's great for them), and see another point of view.

[hdfreak18]

For some reason I think that all blu ray movies should come in 2:39:1 or similar.. Why have a full screen movie!! Widescreen with black bars on top n bottom look much better on blu-ray!!!

[blindcat87]

Because the aspect ratio chosen by the director actually is important. Because, even in cases where there isn't any key information on the edges of the image, the framing still affects the mood and feel of a film. Because even cutting and zooming to get a wider aspect ratio down to a narrower one at the mastering stage will cost some detail. You can't move in on an image without some loss. So, that being the fact, why should the studios go to all of this trouble when the consumers concerned more with filling up the screen every time they turn it on instead of watching the film as it was intended have the zoom option? It is extra work on their part, and while the PQ hit might be a bit less with the zoom at home option, there will still be loss and they will tick off all of the people who care about the film being presented properly. When a film is shot, the framing, focus, and everything important to the image is selected based on the intended aspect ratio. Messing with the AR messes with all of those other things, there is just no way around it.

Chris

Originally Posted by solott55

Wow...pretentiousness has a name and it's Shireguy.

There are so many parts of you reply that make you sound like a total d-bag, but I'll focus on one:

At one point in my post did I say "I don't like widescreen movies"? My point is that most people seem to love 1.78:1 - nothing to do with the artform that is film - purely because it looks big and pretty on a widescreen HDTV ... is that "far too complicated" for you to understand? For how many years they released movies formatted to fit a 4:3 screen - if there was enough consumer demand to warrant that, is it not conceivable that there might be enough demand to have blu-rays with a 16:9 option? That's all I'm asking.

[solott55]

Originally Posted by hdfreak18

For some reason I think that all blu ray movies should come in 2:39:1 or similar.. Why have a full screen movie!! Widescreen with black bars on top n bottom look much better on blu-ray!!!

Hey that's your opinion and it's different from mine - that's quite alright, thank you for expressing it in a civil manner!

On my old 4:3 I did like the cinematic look of a letter-boxed movie, but now I just want a big picture. Maybe when I get a 50+" TV I won't mind as much, but for now I'm dealing with a paltry 37" (I guess I'll get harassed for that too!), so I wanna fill that screen!