Sony Pictures Re-issuing DVD’s without Widescreen Part II
04/29/2005
Last year, Sony’s DVD division took a huge step backwards, and began to discontinue many titles that had been previously available as wide/full flipper discs. They silently re-issued the DVDs as fullscreen only bargain basement editions. To make matters worse, the new stripped-down versions had no indication on the packaging that the product you were about to buy had been compromised. The packaging stated that both widescreen and fullscreen transfers were included. I sincerely believe that is consumer fraud. I’m just waiting for someone to sue the studio over this terrible practice.
The morons running Sony’s DVD department have apparantly made this practice a new policy. Eventually, the studio plans to release a majority of it’s catalog in stripped-down editions. I think what they are trying to do is make DVD as unattractive as VHS, so they can force people to switch to the new Hi-Def format in a few years. I really don’t think that will work out in their favor. Instead of making me want to switch to a new Hi-Def format so I can get these movies in their original aspect ratio, it just makes me want to avoid buying any Sony products, including DVDs and hardware.
There is a discussion going on at Home Theater Forum about this, that includes the following list of titles that will soon be re-released in this compromising manner.
Adventures Of Milo And Otis
Air Force One
The Best
Bite The Bullet
The Body
The Buddy Holly Story
Chances Are
The Cheap Detective
Deep End Of The Ocean
Desert Heat
Futuresport
Gattaca
Geronimo: An American Legend
Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner
Hard Times
I Dreamed Of Africa
Jackie Chan’s Who Am I?
The Juror
Knock Off
MacKenna’s Gold
Madeline
Mercy
No Way Back
Nowhere To Run
The Odessa File
The Order
Roxanne
Rudyard Kipling’s The Second Jungle Book
Screamers
Silent Rage
Starman
Stepmom
Suspect
Sweet and Lowdown
The Thirteenth Floor
Two Moon Junction
Posted by: Joshua Clinard @ 2:32 pm
Movies Used to Demonstrate OAR vs. P&S to Guests
04/05/2005
Someone at the Home Theater asked an intertesting question concerning widescreen earlier today. A member named Jeff wants to know which movies to use if he wants to demonstrate the benefits of widescreen vs. fullscreen to a guest. Be sure to check it out for ideas.
Posted by: Joshua Clinard @ 12:43 am
