Watching movies on TV: "letterbox" vs. "pan-and-scan"

Ummm...I'm lost

Mariah - the size of a TV screen is almost square, whereas theatrical moves tend to be a lot wider than they are tall (like an envelope or folded letter). The question is asking how you prefer movies that don't fit right on a regular TV to be shown - with black at the top and bottom to make it more square or with the sides cut off and the "camera" moving back and forth to try to get the relevant bits on the screen.

I remember seeing a non-letterboxed/non-pan-and-scan version of The Lion In Winter years ago; they just cut the sides off. There's a scene between Peter O'Toole and Katherine Hepburn where they're doging at one another and all you could see was their noses and chins.

I kind of get it. I guess that I don't really have an opinion, then.

Letterboxing is the way to go!

Letterbox all the way!

Letterboxing. I never realized it till I saw the same movie both ways, but you miss sooooooo much with panning.

I'm not quite sure I'd know the difference, but I suspect I prefer letterbox.

Pan-and-scan must die! People who think letterboxing 'cuts off the top and bottom of the screen' and thus prefer pan-and-scan, should also die.

Some movies suffer terribly from pan and scan. Such a shame.

It depends on the movie. Since my TV isn't that big (27") I like to have the screen filled with the picture. But for movies that have great cinematography or special effects, it's usually worth it to have the picture a little smaller so it's not chopped off on the edges. I'd love to have a widescreen rear-projection TV, but it's not a top priority at this point.

I find pan-and-scan SO damn distracting. I love watching two people have a conversation and either you can only see half their faces on either side of the screen, or the frame lurches wildly left and right with each line of dialogue. Thanks goodness the industry seems to have settled on letterbox as the standard on DVD!

SueBee: A 27" isn't that big? Gee, I thought I was doing so well! :) I actually upgraded to 27" to better accommodate letterbox movies.

Unless it's a small TV, letterbox.

ILJ...It's small compared to the TV she used to have.

Letterbox.

Letterbox does not appear right on a 19" diagonal. Maybe if I had a big projection TV it would look good, but I don't.

The empty black space bothers me, I'd prefer it to be filled up. It seems wasteful. Letterbox looks small to me sometimes. ...If I got a TV that was letterbox ratio, I'd be happy with letterbox though.

bill: Maybe hey should put ads there. Or show two movies at once?


There is a really annoying trend lately in TV where at the end of a show, they scrunch the credits over to the side (or the top or the bottom) of the screen and show promos and ads in the remaining space. As a person who likes to sit through the credits in movie theatres, I am particularly annoyed by this. Especially when they do it for something like 'Buckaroo Banzai' where the end credit music is so good. A recent movie I watched (which I will not name because I am ashamed to have liked it) the characters were doing stuff I wanted to see behind the credits and it is really hard to watch with a 2-1 aspect ratio.

ILJ - I guess it all depends on one's perspective. So many people have really large screen TVs these days, this one seems toward the small end of the scale to me. But it's perfect for the size of our living room. I'm actually quite pleased with it since I waited several years for the 19" (with no remote) to die so it could be replaced. Before that I had a 40" rear-projection TV, so I was spoiled.

letterbox. pan-and-scan gets distracting for any movie that's made to use the whole screen (panning back & forth, etc ect).

yeah - putting ads there is a good idea... that reminds me...

I prefer 16:9 (wide screen/letterbox) to 4:3 (full screen/pan-and-scan).

bill...the ads are a good idea. Now we don't have to each send you ten dollars like I suggested before. :)

...which is good...because..I'm broke from Christmas shopping and staying home from work ...unpaid...with a poxy child.

...actually, I was thinking that if the ads bothered some people I could have a way for them to pay me $10 per year (an SC subscription fee of sorts) and I'd turn the ads off for them during that period. So, I could do it either way.

I thought there was already software available for people to install on their own machines that blocks ads? I think that is a better solution for people who do not like ads here. I mean, if ads bug them here, chances are they are bothered by ads elsewhere. I have a question. If I set my browser for text only, that would make the ads just a box of text, correct?

TwM: the problem with that being, if you install the software, you really ought to send bill $10 to make up for it. I use adblocker software and will probably disable for this site unless the ads get annoying (I will certainly use it to stop the animations).

Letterbox, definitely.

Most adverts don't cater to text browsers. I had no clue that you added anything until i just went and looked on a pointy-clicky browser. Burst seems to have a decent privacy policy & not coming up with any hits in the vile spammers archive. cool.

I am not really fond of the black lines on the top and bottom of the screen with letter boxing.

I find the vertical resolution loses too much in letterbox format.