Widescreen by EvilDude02

GENERAL DISCUSSIONS

Widescreen

POSTED BY: EVILDUDE02
UPDATED: Saturday, November 23, 2002 09:50
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Thursday, November 21, 2002 5:34 AM

EVILDUDE02

Im just wondering how I can watch Firefly in widescreen format? Do I need a widescreen tv or do i need Digital cable?

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Thursday, November 21, 2002 8:06 AM

INVISIBLEGREEN

I think you just need a widescreen TV. Personally, I don't know how good it would look, b/c "Firefly" is made to be seen in the fullscreen format (excluding the letterboxed 'The Train Job"), but that's just my opinion. I'd really have to see them both to compare them acurately.

I'm not a big fan of the animorphic widescreen format on television, although I like the letterbox widescreen format when it is used correctly (like on "Angel"). I didn't think "The Train Job" looked that great in letterbox, it seems that the fullscreen format fits the show much better (except it seems kind of awkward in "Bushwhacked").

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Thursday, November 21, 2002 9:42 AM

OMV

The DTV broadcast is widescreen, but thats a solution thats gonna cost a lot of money - HD ready TV + decoder box is at least $1200. IMAO, its just not worth it for non-HiDef shows.

(I coulda sworn the standard broadcast was letterboxed, but I must be misremembering...)

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Thursday, November 21, 2002 10:02 AM

DELVO

Just getting the wide screen TV won't change the source data that your TV has to show, and the source data is already either 4:3 (regular old-style TV) or 16:9 (new digital format that all TVs and TV stations will switch to eventually) and can not really be changed.

When one kind of screen shows material originally made in the other screen's shape, it has to either use black bars, zoom in so there are no black bars but some of the image is lost, stretch the image out in one dimension or the other, or use another projection mode that combined some amount of zooming, stretching, and/or clipping to fill the screen with no black bars.

Most of us are probably still on old-style analog TV data sources, which send a 4:3 signal. The above paragraph covers what your choices are in dealing with this signal on a 16:9 TV. Apparently, at least one episode of this show was filmed in wide screen format but "letterboxed" to fit 4:3 TVs, which means that the black bars were added in to the TV signal and are a part of it. But if you have your 16:9 TV zoom in on the picture, the only part of the picture you loose is the black bars at the top and bottom anyway, so the part of the image that you're supposed to watch fills your screen, so that's obviously the choice. For episodes without those black bars, again, see the above paragraph... You might choose to zoom in and figure you're not loosing too much material, you might not mind a bit of stretching or even the full stretch modes to show more material but still fill your screen, or you might want to see the whole picture without stretching and let the black bars be there at the right and left.

But zooming in on a low-resolution picture such as standard 4:3 analog results in a somewhat fuzzy picture, BTW, compared to watching a show that was intended for the 16:9 screen and didn't have to get blown up.

Here's where it gets fun. The major networks are now broadcasting parallel digital and analog signals, and many shows are either filmed both ways or filmed in widescreen and letterboxed for 4:3. The digital TV format stanard 16:9, but digital cable signals might not all be showing "authentic" digital sources meant for widescreen; some channels or shows might be converted to digital from analog sources! Similar story with satellites; their mode of transmission is digital, but the nature of their source material is a mess that you'd have to find out one network or one show at a time. And some people with 4:3 TVs might be getting widescreen signals into their digital cable box or their satellite dish, but not know it because the box converts it for 4:3 like the way movies are put on video tape.

So seeing this show in widescreen format would depend on the show actually being originally recorded that way, transmitted that way to your home, and then displayed that way on your TV if the TV services available to you don't happen to include true digital formats yet (which they will in a few years), then having a 16:9 TV won't make it happen on its own.

BTW, the word "anamorphic" doesn't describe the shape of the wide screen; it describes the way that movies are now made into DVDs, so that the same DVD can be shown on either kind of TV, if you just set your DVD player to "know" which kind you have so it "knows" how to treat the data.

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Friday, November 22, 2002 5:54 PM

GATORMARC

Quote:
Originally posted by InvisibleGreen:
Personally, I don't know how good it would look, b/c "Firefly" is made to be seen in the fullscreen format (excluding the letterboxed 'The Train Job"), but that's just my opinion. I'd really have to see them both to compare them acurately.

I would agree with that assumption but "24" was done very well as I compare the 4:3 broadcast to the Widescreen DVD version.

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Saturday, November 23, 2002 5:13 AM

OUTLANDER

I believe that Firefly is filmed in 16:9 Widescreen but broadcast in 4:3 Fullscreen (Not including High Definition Television). One thing you guys night not know is that Buffy from season four onwards is I believe also filmed in widescreen. I saw the Australian season four DVD release for Buffy and all the episodes were in 16:9 Widescreen, which looked Fantastic on my projector, the picture quality was as good as any movie I have seen on DVD. It was like watching Buffy at the cinema. I was in heaven. I can't wait for the DVD release of Firefly, it's going to be an absolute treat.

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Saturday, November 23, 2002 8:19 AM

JONDUPONT

Huh? How can you dislike anamorphic widescreen, but like letterbox?

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Saturday, November 23, 2002 9:50 AM

INVISIBLEGREEN

Quote:
Originally posted by outlander:
I believe that Firefly is filmed in 16:9 Widescreen but broadcast in 4:3 Fullscreen (Not including High Definition Television). One thing you guys night not know is that Buffy from season four onwards is I believe also filmed in widescreen.

Almost all TV shows are filmed in the full-length widescreen (movie theater proportions) but are then edited to fullscreen or sometimes letterbox ("Angel", "Crossing Jordan"). I believe this is just because of the cameras used.

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