letterbox vs widescreen

[vytoland]

I sometimes I purchase dvds of my favorite movies and my preference has been those with a wide screen format. lately I am seeing dvds listed with a letterbox format.

please school me...I haven't a clue what letterbox is. can this be viewed on a regular dvd player. what is the image like compared to widescreen...

 

[Strato]

It plays on the same players. The format is like watching through a mail slot. Hence the name letterbox.

 

[timn8er]

+1 to Strato. I don't care for letterbox at all.

 

[vytoland]

thanks guys. looks like I will be avoiding letter box format....

 

[Rastoff]

Here's a perfect example:

It really depends on the shape of your TV and whether or not you want to see the whole image as it was originally presented on the big screen.

Most modern TVs have an aspect ratio of 16:9, width to height. Movies, as they are filmed and projected in the theater are a different aspect ratio. I could go on and on about it, but the short version is, if you want to see the whole movie, you'll need to see it in letter box.

 

[hangnoose]

LETTERBOX IS TOPS

My best friend is a camera operator/ director of photography & director for tv mostly now. He swears by letterbox because the format of movie cameras is different than tv (if I'm understanding him right) and letterbox is the only way you can see the entire scene when it is played on tv. If you are watching a movie from theater to tv and see a partial guy only 1/2 in the scene that is why. Full screen does not give you the full wide angle view that letterbox does. Personally both me and the wife prefer full screen. According to the sound guys vinyl records still are hands down winners over tape & cd's as they carry a much wider spectrum of sound, snaps, crackles ,pops and all.

 

[loutent]

I pretty much haven't seen much beyond 4:3 that warranted attention.

 

[BobC357]

Both formats were popular years ago with LaserDisc. The Letterbox was supposedly the same format that was in the cinema and the widescreen was what they called "pan and scan" to fit TV sized displays (including the now obsolete rear screen projection.) Many people didn't like letterbox because of the black bands above and below the picture area on the screen. The result was that the image was shorter but the same width as the TV screen.

Pan and Scan was when the producer would try and capture the most relevant part of the wide screen production by panning the image with the editor program and rescanning the image at the same time. The result would contain less than the original but would be a better fit for TV screen dimensions. Some movies didn't fare well with this technique because of those situations when both the left and right sides had relevant information and the viewer was left to imagine what the missing part was.

Personally, I always try and get the original ratio image because my screen is big enough that letterboxing still results in a quality image.

 

[rwsmith]

I just want to see....

I want to see all of a movie. I've been in theaters were the sides of the picture were showing on the curtains that were opened in front of the screen. Letterbox and wide screen are two ways that you can see the whole picture. In letterbox you sacrifice a full screen image in order to see the sides of the movie.

 

[Rule3]

I have a widescreen smart TV but even the DVD, say from Netflix are letter box so it's narrow. The top and bottom loose a few inches of picture. I change the aspect ratio (custom) on the TV so it fills the screen

 

[Autococker07]

letterbox is a solution to a non existent problem delivered by the good idea fairy....

Thats about all I can post without a one way conversation from our friendly mod staff... you could say Im not a fan....

 

[the ringo kid]

+1 to Strato. I don't care for letterbox at all.

Me either. Whoever thought that format up--must have had a brain with vision just as narrow.

 

[hangnoose]

LETTERBOX IS NOT POPULAR GRANTED.

BUT it does show the ENTIRE scene as filmed and shows everything the director intended to be in scene. NOTHING is missing which can't be said for full screen. What you are objecting to is the issue of blank space on your screen. Some would rather have the blank spaces above & below and be able to see the entire scene as shot. In some really bad cases of full screen you can hear dialogue from someone that is cropped out of the picture entirely. IT IS A NON ISSUE on filmed for tv. I for one thought technology would have been able to solve this problem by now. In some very panoramic scenes in westerns or a film like Laurence of Arabia you would not want to lose that wide angle shot. To each his own.

 

[johngalt]

Most movies are shot with an aspect ration of 2.35:1. Some were shot 1.85:1. A 16x9 TV screen is about 1.78:1. An old 4x3 TV is 1.33:1.

There seems to be a misconception that because a letterboxed movie has black bars on top and bottom, it has lost something. It hasn't. It is simply being sized so that a 2.35:1 frame can be viewed on a 1.78:1 or 1.33:1 screen. Nothing is lost.

If the movie isn't letterboxed, you are loosing a big chunk of the frame from the sides. If you don't mind missing part of the movie, well Ok.

Going back to when DVDs first were made, there were anamorphic (package usually said 'enhanced for widescreen TVs) vs non-anamorphic (sometimes called letterboxed).

Non-anamorphic means the frames are formatted as a 4x3 picture with black bars included as part of the picture data. It displays correctly on a 4x3 TV, but on a 16 x 9 TV it displays as a small 4x3 frame in the center of the screen, and you have to zoom it to fill the screen. This also lowers the picture quality - picture data is wasted on the black bars.

Anamorphic movies are encoded so ALL of the data is picture data. On a 4x3 TV, it appears compressed - everyone is very narrow. It displays normally on a 16x9 screen.

I doubt anyone makes non-anamorphic movies DVDs today.

 

[Bill Bates]

For years I've earned my living with a camera. You all know the saying " a picture is worth a thousand words." When a cinematographer shoots a scene, just like when I compose a still photo, each and every element top to bottom, side to side and corner to corner is there for a reason. That reason is to tell a story. It is to get all 1000 words. If an element is a distraction from the story and doesn't belong it is cut from the image or the scene is shot to exclude the distraction. If it isn't needed it is gone.

As a photographer before shooting, if possible,I like to know from the photo editor what the final format will be so I can plan each and every element. I hate when my work is cropped. Part of the story is missing and somthing is lost.

Movie films are the same. It should be watched as originally shot. If the movie is filmed in a format other than 16:9 or 4:3 it can only be watched in the original format by letter box. Yes you have bars at the top and maybe the sides but the images you are seeing is all there. You're getting all 1000 words as intended by the artist that worked so hard to bring it to you.