Comments | _jems_: What fresh hell is this?!

_jems_

What fresh hell is this?!

Jul 10, 2006 21:29

I'm growing increasingly annoyed with DVD sets these days. First we have the Spooks DVD sets, which have those plastic sleeves that you're supposed to insert the cardboard packaging into, and since it's open only at the top and bottom it has to fit really snugly or the DVDs will slip out. All this in combination means that the corners of the ( Read more... )

caps, dvd sets, tv: weeds, capping

Comments 16

meko00 July 10 2006, 19:40:27 UTC

FWIW, I think the .avi files at least were normal widescreen, but I'm not able to check if I'm right at the moment, as I've away from my computer. Of course, Weeds is a Showtime original, so maybe they have a bias for 4:3? I'll check my .avis when I get back.

I've heard about the design of the Spooks DVD sets, but I've yet to buy one for myself.

_jems_ July 10 2006, 19:44:18 UTC

Showtime also aired Dead Like Me, which had widescreen DVD releases. I can't figure out why anyone would want full screen these days.

The Spooks sets have been available for £11,97 at Amazon lately, so I've been buying them while they're cheap (they do tend to go up and down in price daily, though, so you never know what price it will be the next time you go and look).

spectralbovine July 10 2006, 20:02:26 UTC

Widescreen has those icky black bars! It doesn't even fill the screen! You're obviously seeing LESS!

I think it matters whether the show was shot for widescreen, though. For instance, Angel S2 was not, but the DVDs are widescreen, and there are places where you can see crew members because of it. I expect most TV shows to be fullscreen because they're normally broadcast in fullscreen.

_jems_ July 10 2006, 20:33:05 UTC

I guess that all depends on your TV, now doesn't it? I'd wager that there are now more widescreen sets being sold in this country than full screen sets.

Angel was shot for widescreen, as was Buffy from season 4 onwards. The problem with those production errors is that people just didn't care enough and when the episodes are shown overseas they look like amateurs. I think my favorite is still Marster's "sock" in Wrecked.

I haven't downloaded a full screen show in ages, apart from Scrubs and The Daily Show/The Colbert Report. You might see them in full screen, but practically all of them are broadcast in widescreen, though maybe that's only for viewers with digital TV or something.

Thread 5

adolwyn July 10 2006, 20:08:19 UTC

It was always in full-screen for me... I don't recall it ever showing up on the widescreen channels. :)

_jems_ July 10 2006, 20:34:55 UTC

Well, that's weird, now I'm all curious about this. If the show is shot in full screen (maybe they're going for a retro look or something) then the full screen DVDs are unavoidable. But if it's shot in widescreen, then there's really no excuse for not releasing widescreen DVDs.

xanis July 10 2006, 20:46:58 UTC

WTF. I just realized that you are from Sweden. Damn.
Hej hej. :)
Tack för Moulin Rouge capsen!

_jems_ July 11 2006, 10:45:44 UTC

Ingen orsak!

lapses July 11 2006, 04:55:45 UTC

If it helps at all, this is how it looks in .avi format. And I didn't realise it when I was watching, but my DVDs are full-screen.

_jems_ July 11 2006, 10:47:51 UTC

Well, damn, it is widescreen. Now I'm just pissed at the crappy DVDs. I don't mind full screen so much when watching (at least until I get my widescreen TV), but I hate full screen caps because there's so much left out of the image. And let's face it, good as a show may be, when it comes to caps it's all about the superficial aspects.

spectralsoul July 11 2006, 05:54:18 UTC

Full screen is still popular. I live in Australia, and surveys have been done here which indicate a lot (one report indicated the figure was as high as 75%) of people are still yet to catch onto the HDTV technology. Of course, if they cater to this group of people now, then in four or five years time when this group finally catches on to the technoloy and High Def TV's are much cheaper, then they can cater to the die-hard fans a second time around with a widescreen release. They might be anticipating big success with this series (I suspect in Oz particularly) - who knows what their reasoning is?

I downloaded one episode and it was in widescreen. You might want to dig up some caps from 'Cap-it' and compare to see how severly cropped the picture is.

_jems_ July 11 2006, 10:54:01 UTC

Of course full screen is still popular, but the TV industry realized several years ago that in order to be competitive in the future they needed to move to widescreen, while still making sure full screen viewing possible. Releasing a new series in full screen is just stupid, in my opinion, because it limits options for the viewer. And heck, even my cheap-o, bottom-of-the-line DVD player has an option to view widescreen DVDs in full screen.

I think that in Sweden it hasn't really been about HDTV technology until this year, before that it's just been a better way of viewing movies (so all home entertainment systems came with widescreen TVs).

spectralsoul July 11 2006, 14:51:38 UTC

I'm just thinking they can reap more dollars from having a release now and then re-releasing in widescreen a couple of years down the track. I totally agree, full screen feels inferior! But what is even more annoying are the non-anamorphic widescreen DVD's in which they take a widescreen picture and stick it in the centre of a 4:3 frame and digitally add the black bars at the top and bottom to fill in the space - reducing vertical resolution by about a 1/4. TWW Season 3, R2 & 4 DVD's are an example of this.

It seems weird though, because the R1 DVD's in the US are also being released in full screen format.