Do we really need widescreen anymore?

[Brian Drysdale]

The other argument against 2.35 is that there are no 2.35 televisions and very few home projectors that accept anamorphic lenses so you're always wasting screen space on the letterbox bars. It's still only a "movie theater" friendly aspect ratio. I'm not saying we should avoid shooting 2.35 for those reasons but rather put pressure on festivals and smaller theaters with HD projection to invest in anamorphic lenses. Companies like Optoma and Epson, Panasonic etc, need to start making affordable anamorphic adaptors for their home theater projectors.

 

CH 4 in the UK show scope films in their natural aspect ratio, so that you get black bars top and bottom.

 

You can get anamorphic lens for 2k cinema projectors.

http://www.christiedigital.com/AMEN/Access...phic126XLens388

[Jim Hyslop]

It's an interesting question with an interesting history. Theaters started all sorts of gimmicks in the fifties (Cinerama, etc) because TV was starting to make an impact and theaters needed a 'reason' for folks to come back to the movies. Wide screen was that gimmick. And now with Digital TV wide screen is also the gimmick of choice to get folks to buy new TV sets. It will be funny to see in twenty years when some TV or movie proposition comes around claiming to offer being able to see a movie in a way it is shown best, in 4:3. :)

I don't see a resurgence in 4:3 (no particular basis for that, other than gut feel).

 

No, I think the next "gimmick" will be 3-D - look how much of that is happening now.

[Walter Graff]

3D is definitely the gimmick that keeps on giving. How many times has 3D been resurrected over the years? And yes it's starting to show it's head once again. Funny thing about 3D though is it always remains a fringe gimmick, never going mainstream for long. Probably due to having to wear the extra equipment. I was involved a few years ago with some work on a TV system that uses no glasses or apparatus. Currently two companies make versions of this. The idea was to sell it for advertising displays. But like all 3D gimmicks it never caught on mainstream. More gimmicks like RED will be in the pipeline for viewers, with TVs that boast higher resolution numbers, but it will never catch on as in the end you can't really see the "higher resolution". Already they tried the 1080 gimmick after 720 sets were first introduced, and I think they will revisit this in some form or fashion, even though it didn't work much the first time around.

[Ryan Patrick OHara]

So I ask you again, do we really need widescreen anymore?

 

Instead of a long winded post, I'm going to suggest we put "blinders" on your eyes (things that keep peripheral vision blocked from horses so they look ahead) and in one week, tell me if you need widescreen. ;)

[Brian Drysdale]

3D is definitely the gimmick that keeps on giving. How many times has 3D been resurrected over the years? And yes it's starting to show it's head once again. Funny thing about 3D though is it always remains a fringe gimmick, never going mainstream for long. Probably due to having to wear the extra equipment. I was involved a few years ago with some work on a TV system that uses no glasses or apparatus. Currently two companies make versions of this. The idea was to sell it for advertising displays. But like all 3D gimmicks it never caught on mainstream. More gimmicks like RED will be in the pipeline for viewers, with TVs that boast higher resolution numbers, but it will never catch on as in the end you can't really see the "higher resolution". Already they tried the 1080 gimmick after 720 sets were first introduced, and I think they will revisit this in some form or fashion, even though it didn't work much the first time around.

 

I suspect this may depend on how close to sit to the TV screen and how large it is. Having looked at HD sets before Christmas to replace a 20 year old CRT, (which was still giving great pictures but was taking 10 mins to warm up), the 1080p screens did look sharper than the 720p screens beside them. I believe they were taking BBC HD 1080i and blu ray feeds. However, I was comparing them from a distance of about 5 ft or closer rather than a standard household viewing distance. The real test would be comparing them at this distance, although I suspect it would pointless in the end if 720p was the only format available from the broadcasters.

 

In the end, I got a 32" Sony 720p and if you sit too close you can still see all the pixels and compression artefacts on the Virgin Media SD cable feed here in PAL land. The 1970s' "King Kong" was particularly bad in the shadows the other day.