Aspect ratio - HELP

[Sergio Pozzetti]

Hi all,

I live in Lisbon (Portugal - Zone 2). I recently bought a
DVD Player and I am thrilled and amazed both with
the image and sound quality and with the potential features
that are (and will be) implemented in future DVDs.

BUT...

I bought the two following titles (PAL):

"A few good men"
"The client"

NONE OF THEM has any indication of the aspect
ratios in which they were encoded. In other words I
bought them, I arrived home and found out there was
NO WAY of switching to pan&scan mode, simply
because the DVDs didn't support it.

I later checked in the Internet Movie Database and
it seems the PAL versions of these movies were
only released with the "anamorphic" encoding.

Other titles like "In the line of fire" also have no indication on
the package whatsoever of the aspect ratio encodings
or features.

I now submit to you three questions:

1) Leaving aside any paranoid issues, WHY IN THE WORLD
do most NTSC DVDs support BOTH encodings (anamorphic
and pan&scan) while I only found about 10 PAL movies that
support them? I don't plan on switching to widescreen. Am I
doomed to see 95% of PAL movies occupying about 1/2 of
the TV screen? Because if that's the case the only solution is
switching to a player that supports both NTSC and PAL
(which fortunately my TV does).

2) Is this some kind of conspiracy to force the european
market to switch to widescreen TVs?

3) How does this work in the rest of our beloved continent?
Is the indication issue a local (Portuguese) issue? Do you
guys out there see an indication of the aspect ratio encodings
on your boxes?

Thanks in advance,

--
___
Sergio Pozzetti - spoz...@mail.telepac.pt
http://alfa.ist.utl.pt/~l40274

[Michael Garner]

>2) Is this some kind of conspiracy to force the european
>market to switch to widescreen TVs?

In a sense, yes. The EU is funding a 16:9 "Action Plan" to try to make EU
citizens embrace widescreen technology (mainly by encouraging broadcaters to
broadcast in widescreen and for videos/DVDs to be released in widescreen.

>3) How does this work in the rest of our beloved continent?
>Is the indication issue a local (Portuguese) issue? Do you
>guys out there see an indication of the aspect ratio encodings
>on your boxes?

In the UK, it's always indicated on any video/DVD that I've ever bought.

M

[Paul v/d Berg]

Yes, here in the Netherlands the aspect ratio is listed on every DVD box.

bye,

Sergio Pozzetti wrote in message <6suomg$he8$2...@duke.telepac.pt>...

>2) Is this some kind of conspiracy to force the european
>market to switch to widescreen TVs?
>

>3) How does this work in the rest of our beloved continent?
>Is the indication issue a local (Portuguese) issue? Do you
>guys out there see an indication of the aspect ratio encodings
>on your boxes?
>

[John Maton]

Don't agree with it being a Euro initiative,

I have a Pioneer 606 all zones. The only region 2 DVD that I have bought up
to now is the Shawshank Redemption. Scanned the box for about 10 mins
looking for the aspect ratio without any clue. The only place that it is
printed (unless I am missing a subtle message) is on the disk inner ring and
to find that out, you have to open the sealed box and its in 4:3. The staff
at the Virgin Mega Store in Oxford Street London could not tell me what the
ratio was so I had two options; purchase the DVD or have a wasted journey.
As the box has every other bit of information that you need to know, why do
the leave the aspect ratio off?

I would suggest that due to the lack of region 2 stuff, your more likely to
purchase if you cannot decide. I know that I would have got a region 1
version in wide screen if I had known! PS I could have probably found out if
I had been standing there with a mobile phone, modem and PC linked to the
internet browsing a web page somewhere, but I didn't, so please don't have a
pop about "it was my choice and it was me that scr***d up"!

Michael Garner wrote in message
<6t16ap$1nn$1...@nclient5-gui.server.virgin.net>...

>>2) Is this some kind of conspiracy to force the european
>>market to switch to widescreen TVs?
>

[Paul Reading]

are you sure that you have not set up your DVD palyer wrongly. You should
find that your player alows you to tell it that you have a 4:3 TV and it
will show the film in letterbox mode.

Paul v/d Berg wrote in message
<905189025.19198...@news.demon.nl>...

>>2) Is this some kind of conspiracy to force the european
>>market to switch to widescreen TVs?
>>