Lobby against letterboxing

Comment

Comment by Cheryl on May 24, 2010 at 8:15am

Why the hell should a viewer get to choose how they see someone's artistic work? Would you cut the background off the Mona Lisa if you found it distracting?

Comment by Sevorin on May 23, 2010 at 1:29pm

It's not your right to choose that troubles me. It's the justification of your choice that I find obnoxious.

It would be wonderful if you could flip a switch on your remote control and instantly replace letterbox with pan-and-scan or -- if you're particularly interested in a bit of content that you find more "principal" than another -- to flip a switch and focus on the screen with an even more microscopic intensity than pan-and-scan gives you. It would be quite as wonderful to use that remote to instantly transform black-and-white to color and vice-versa, to replace subtitles with dubbing, to suddenly remove all the actors' clothes, to change their dialogue, or modify what's on screen in any way that feeds your imagination. God bless technology and the men who made her free!

But until that golden age arrives, both broadcasters and viewers must exercise whatever choices are afforded them by the state of technology and by the cruel forces of the marketplace.

As I grew up watching movies on TV there was no letterboxing -- not even for network broadcasts of Lawrence of Arabia and It's a Mad, mad, mad, Mad World. In fact, pan-and-scan versions -- which are actually quite sophisticated and cost time and money to engineer -- were just as rare. More often than not a TV station would fix its camera on the center of the wide-screen frame, regardless of where the action was, and that would be that.

If you're old enough to remember the VHS or betamax movie rental craze, then you'll likewise recall that letterboxing was a rarity even in those days.

What you seem to regard as a conspiracy to force another person's vision down your throat was a long time coming. Before it happened those of us who prefer letterboxing were on the outside looking in. We were the ones who had no choice. So believe me when I tell you I'm sympathetic to your feelings.

But even in this new world of the international Jewish Communist Letterboxing Conspiracy, you still have what we conspirators did not have in all the years we were laying our plans against you -- you have the right to choose. As it happens, your choice must usually be made from among stations that show films your way, but show them with commercial interruptions and probably censored as well.

I could say, "Well, that's show-biz." But it's not show-biz at all. It's cold economic reality. Once a movie is sold or licensed to TV, the station can do just about what it likes with it. It can cut out frames or even lengthy passages -- often done to fit a film into a broadcast time slot. It can, and even does, replace dialogue or delete scenes not just to preserve us from the horror of sex and violence, but simply to keep their sponsors from appearing in a bad light.

In my own rage at how a favorite film of mine was cut for TV broadcast I telephoned that station's "standards department" to complain. The answer I got was, more or less, "tough shit."

At lo-o-ong last people who share my point of view seem to have enough votes or economic clout to get what we've been deprived of during most of our TV-watching lives -- some respect for the integrity of what the filmmaker originally intended. Our choice was not earned overnight.

As far as you're concerned, if you want a bigger image than your TV screen currently gives you, buy a bigger TV. If you don't like the black borders that letterboxing produces, mask them off with cardboard. If you're really passionate about the matter, devote your energy to creating that wonderful remote-control technology I talk about above.

Or you can sit and seethe that your right to choose is being disrespected. I felt the same way, pal. And I'll give you the same answer I got:

"Tough shit."

Comment by sheffield on May 23, 2010 at 10:46am

I a somewhat surprized by the negative hostility towards offering freedom of choice. The more options a viewer has to control their content the better. I am not presenting this view to dispel the vision of the producer, director or any of the "manufacturers" of the content in any way. I am simply expressing an interest in utilizing technology to enjoy this form of light entertainment in a manner maximized to my preference, utilizing simple technology that clearly already exists. Offering this choice in no way impacts on the person that wants to watch a letterbox as the director intended, and it in no way diminishes the pleasure of those that do not.

As technology evolves the hardware is dissolving user preferences piece by piece. The letterbox technology now reduces most movies to 50% of the available screen in one format, it "theater curtains" programming in another format, and then it fills the screen by stretching the content to "wideface" in another. Surely if the technology exists to give the end user maximum control with no impact on hardware that would be a good thing right?

Bottom line is, I know that I have the ultimate control over this technology, and as more and more presentations force their vision of how I should enjoy programming on me, the more I simply turn them off. That is too bad as I am sure there is great entertainment to be had, but I refuse to be told how to enjoy it.

Comment by Sevorin on May 23, 2010 at 4:10am

You probably have good reasons for preferring to watch a pan-and-scan version over a wide-screen format. But not among those good reasons is your expressed desire "to see only the principal content of each frame."

The "principal content" of the frame in pan-and-scan versions can only be discussed intelligently after a viewer has acquired some familiarity with the material in its original format. How do you know what's on the screen is more relevant than what you can't see?

If you really hunger for the "choice" to watch pan-and-scan versions of material originally done in wider screen ratios than 1.33:1, you're likelier to get such a choice on stations that abuse the material in other ways -- breaking it up with commercials, excising "objectionable" language or visuals, etc.

Comment by sheffield on May 22, 2010 at 10:02pm

It is time for the content providers to overcome the misguided idea that letterboxing of programming on television in any way improves or enhances the viewing of the programming itself. It is time to give the viewer some control over how the programming content is presented on our screens. I am tired, frustrated and completely alienated by the content providers that choose to diminish my experience by forcing a shrunken image onto half of my screen just to satisfy someones selfish vision of how the picture should be presented.

I want to see only the principal content of each frame, and be able to see it in the maximum practical magnification possible as enabled by the "pan & scan" technology that is clearly available to the content developers. I am more interested in becoming absorbed in the storyline that is more clearly visible, and could care less about peripheral movement or artistic framing options that are designed for the movie screen. I want to see a concentrated focus that I can enjoy that does not render useless 50% of my viewing screen at the whim of someones arrogant imposition. Kindly offer and leave the choice to the viewer, or I for one will simply cease to watch such programming, and hope that the vast majority of like minded viewers will join me in their shunning of such forced and user unfriendly content.