Posted by Roy L. Fuchs on 03/23/06 19:13

On Thu, 23 Mar 2006 17:56:27 GMT, steveroberts@compuserve.com (Steve
Roberts) Gave us:

>On Thu, 23 Mar 2006 11:08:50 -0600, Jack <jack@jack.com> wrote:
>
>>I just rented "2010: The Year We Make Contact," which was billed as a 2-
>>sided DVD with 4:3 (pan & scan) or widescreen options.
>
>>I have seen "mini widescreen" on a few other cheap-label DVDs that I didn't
>>expect to be high quality. I have also seen it used for intro titles,
>>whereafter the movie switched to either true widescreen or 4:3. Is this a
>>known scam of sorts?
>
>I take it by 'mini-widescreen' you mean a 4:3 picture with a deep
>letterbox, as opposed to a 16:9 anamorphic picture with a shallow
>letterbox.
>
>A lot of these films came out in the early days of DVD, with
>distributors using older transfers of films that had originally been
>mastered for laserdisc. There's also a video compression argument, as
>the big black bars make the picture easier to compress than an
>anamorphic picture - I seem to remember this being used as an argument
>for 'The Abyss' also being 4:3 letterbox, as it's a very long film.
>
>I'd definitely re-buy 2010 if it was available in anamorphic with a
>decent new transfer!
>

GOOD answer!

I too WILL re-buy 2010 if it gets re-done! DANGIT!

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