Posted by def456 on 02/11/07 13:16

"mk" <mkay66@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1171173788.412788.102080@m58g2000cwm.googlegroups.com...
> The new netflix "watch now" service is unfortunalty adding movies in
> the pan and scan, cropped format. The first round of movies they put
> on were widescreen, and the additions are now P&S. I find this to be
> annoying since I always thought netflix was a proponant of the
> widescreen format.

I have a regular TV with a 4/3 aspect screen (1.3 ratio) so I usually prefer
the "pan & scan" movies, all other things being equal. I used to be very
sensitive about it and avoided the widescreen versions of movies. Now I
realize the 16/9 aspect movies (1.8 ratio) are usually reasonably OK,
especially if I watch them on my computer monitor rather than TV. It's the
extra-wide 2.35 ratio that is a big problem, and I would like to see them
cropped down to 1.8 ratio, in most cases. Of course a panoramic movie like
Lawrence of Arabia really needs the 2.35 ratio. Conceivably I'll get a 16/9
TV someday but that could be several years away. They're still expensive and
my current model purchased in 2003 still works fine.

As for the new Netflix "watch now" movies, I've watched a few but the
selection is very limited and they're generally not what I want to watch.
The video quality is poor. Rather than trying to provide streaming movies
which probably requires high compression, they should allow a complete
download in good quality (low compression) for later playback. But that's up
to them. It's a freebie that I'll probably seldom use.

[Back to original message]