Widescreen

[Snake Diamond]

LOL !laugh!

[Bob Singleton]

Snake Diamond wrote:

> Snake Diamond wrote:
>
> EDIT ...
> > 99.99% of the entire population in the UK hasn't got
> widescreen
> > TV's/Computer Monitors, to what is this crap all about?
>
>


Around 700,000 HD-Ready flat panel LCD and plasma screen TVs were sold last year. Industry analysts say the figure for 2006 (thanks to the World Cup) is expected to top 2m - a rise of 185%.

Add to those figures all the non-HD plasma, LCD and CRT widescreen sets that have been sold in the last few years (about 4m) and you're way off your mark of 99.99% of households NOT owning a widescreen TV... and whatever the actual figure, it's declining every day.

Any new set above a 22" will invariably be widescreen. Sales of new 4:3 TVs tend to be small portable sets for use in bedrooms, spare rooms or kitchens.

[Dorrin]

Have had a 32" widescreen for several years and when I put a widescreen DVD on, I still get black screen top & bottom and have to adjust the picture to cinema to get the screen filled up.
Realise that if I want to see a film as it should look I go to the cinema to watch it, TV is not designed to watch epics unless you have the money to invest in a gigantic plasma screen.

[A-C]

Lot of TVs come with more options on that just 4:3 or 16:9 now. Mine has Auto, 4:3, 14:9, 16:9, Zoom 1 and Zoom 2 all flickable by remote.

Normally I watch in 16:9, and then if it's a really nice pair of celebrity breasts I flick to Zoom 1 so they fill my screen and are not just some little bee stings in the middle. !wink!

[Sam Slater]

I prefer widescreen muchly! (yes I know 'muchly' isn't a real word!) Why do some people care about the black band at the top & bottom? Even some cinama screens have this. In fact, some directors film their movie 'wanting' the black bands on the top & bottom of the screen! It's the way they want it to be watched sometimes. Call it the 'retro' view !laugh!

I'd much prefer to see the whole width of the film, rather than a cropped view where you lose about 10% of the picture either side. Sometimes a background scene is spoilt if you miss something thats been cropped off.

It's much better on the eyes as well because the bigger & wider your screen, the more your eyes have to move & re-focus, rather than staying in one position at the same focal point for 3 hours!

I also have a 20" widescreen monitor. I can view web pages whilst keeping my bookmarks open on the left of the firefox browser, and have enough screen to get to my ikons on the desktop. With a 24" widescreen you can have the browser and your e-mail programme open at the same time with no overlap. Much faster when quoting websites & stuff when writing e-mails.

Everyone will have widescreen tv's & monitors withing 5-10 years, and people will wonder how they coped with those tiny 21" 4:3 screens!

[Flat_Eric]

Sam Slater wrote:

>>>

Of course Widescreen's better on a "big telly" Sam. But there's a world of difference between watching a movie in the cinema or on a 5' TV screen and peering at it from 10 feet away across a living room on a 24" regular TV.

[Sam Slater]

Agreed. I can't see the point of a 24" widescreen tv really. 32" is probably the minimum, or 42" if you have a large living room.

[Snake Diamond]

I'm on a limited budget, so my Monitor is 17" 4:3, my TV here in the bedroom is 14" 4:3, Main telly in the Living room is a 28" 4:3.

[The Last Word]

A note on the widescreen issue:

During the early 80's, when the home video boom began giving studios a very large extra income, there was some concern over widescreen being cropped (panned and scanned as it's called) and losing some of the picture when going to 4:3 video. They countered this by getting directors to compose on-screen events square and central, and thus lose little of importance when transferred.