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EPIX, HBO, Starz, Cinemax STOP CROPPING

News flash: The general public doesn't care about the black bars on the screen when showing a 2.40:1 original aspect ratio film. If they hate them that much, they can use the zoom feature to eliminate the bars. These films, like the latest "Mission Impossible" release, look silly when cropped to 16:9. So much of the original image is missing it is hard to follow the action sometimes.. Get with the program like SHO/TMC does. We want to see the entire image. Anyone who thinks the black bars detract from the viewing experience just doesn't understand aspect ratios. These companies know better, yet insist on doing it like it was 1980. It is a good thing the default size of a display is now 16:9, a film like "Alien" cropped to fit the old 1.33:1 CRT displays was missing over 40% of the original image. RJM

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RJMacReady

No replies to this post shows what is wrong. The viewing public is so used to seeing chopped up motion pictures they don't know/care. Wake up people- you are being cheated. You are paying thousands of dollars for UHD displays, and not seeing the whole image. If you watch nothing but sitcoms and cartoons, then I guess you don't care. Ignorance is bliss. If you don't object, you will keep getting fed poor quality programming. You won't complain about that, but you'll buy a 4K UHD capable display, even though 4K native content makes up about 10% of all the available media, and is extremely expensive. Just because the salesperson says your new set can/will upgrade everything to 4K, (in theory that is correct), but HD to 4K upscaled content never looks anywhere near as good as content filmed/broadcast in 4K rez. Which are few and far between.

CRobGauth

Nothing Verizon can do about it.
This is a forum to discuss FIOS issues.

film111

The cropping of movies is a long-running nightmare for movie fans. Director Steven Soderbergh has called HBO's policy an "exercise in stupidity." For his films, he has taken it on himself to make sure thatHBO no longer crops his work (which is why the OVEANS and MAGIC MIKE movies are NOT cropped.

While it's true Verizon can't do anything about what the cable channels do, they CAN do something about the PPV OnDemand selections. Many of these are cropped as well. Other PPV providers like VuDu, CinemaNow...(heck, even Netflix!) avoid showing cropped movie when possible.

But good ole Verizon? No way. The worst part is that you don't know that they've cropped a movie until AFTER you purchase!

I try to avoid OnDemand but I recently slipped up and ordered PAN 3D. Imagine how I felt when this widescreen movie filled with ete-popping 3D visuals had 30% of the picture chopped off!! And they charged me $7.00 for this neutered version!

Yes, Verizon CAN do something about that, at least. But as has been noted, most people don't know this and some don't care. I mean, we are talking about people who watch movies on their phones!!! So they alraedy have little interest in a cinematic experience.

CRobGauth

Verizon doesn't control the content of vod. Not sure why streaming services have a different aspect ratio than Verizon, but it is the content providers that control it not the cable providers.

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