Special Widescreen

what’s so special about watching a movie in widescreen vs. fullscreen?

what’s the point of two choices

Full screen has the sides of the picture cut off to fit the formerly standard-shaped TV screen. It’s usually referred to as “4:3″ these days, although it’s more properly called by its aspect ratio, 1.33 (meaning the width is 1.33 times the heighth.)

Widescreen is how most TV shows are now produced, as movies have been for years. Unfortunately, there are many different widescreen formats and aspect ratios, ranging from 1.85 to 2.5 or wider. Most modern TVs can change the aspect ratio to come close to these figures, which minimizes the “black bars” on the tops and bottoms (or sides, for a “full-screen” presentation) of the screen. DVDs will usually say “optimized for 16:9 presentation,” which means it fills most of a wide-screen TV.

Why is widescreen better? Because you see the WHOLE PICTURE. Full screen is like reading an abridged book: you get MOST of it, but are missing some, and someone thought that info was important to include, so if you have the option, why not get it ALL?

CBS Fox video Special widescreen edition