In The Cinema and Home Video
In NTSC areas of the world, videocassettes often contained only pan-and-scan versions (notable VHS releases in letterboxed format include Manhattan, A Bug's Life, Last Tango in Paris, Ghostbusters II (which was released in the incorrect aspect ratio on its initial home video release), The Terminator, The Color Purple, Lady and the Tramp, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, and Basic Instinct: The Original Director's Cut), but DVD releases tend to be offered in both versions. In PAL areas, which do not suffer so much from low vertical resolution with letterboxed images, letterboxing was more common on videocassettes and is almost ubiquitous on DVDs, with very few films being offered in pan-and-scan releases today.
Movies such as The Graduate and Woodstock that made use of the full width of the movie screen often have the sides cut off and look completely different in non-letterboxed copies from the original theatrical release. This is more apparent in pan-and-scanned movies that remain entirely on the center area of the film image.
The term "SmileBox" is a registered trademark used to describe a type of letterboxing for Cinerama films, such as on the Blu-ray release of How the West Was Won. The image is produced with 3D mapping technology to approximate a curved screen.
Read more about this topic: Letterboxing (filming)
Famous quotes containing the words cinema, home and/or video:
“For me, the cinema is not a slice of life, but a piece of cake.”
—Alfred Hitchcock (1899–1980)
“It ain’t home t’ ye, though it be the palace of a king,
Until somehow yer soul is sort o’ wrapped round everything.”
—Edgar Albert Guest (1881–1959)
“We attempt to remember our collective American childhood, the way it was, but what we often remember is a combination of real past, pieces reshaped by bitterness and love, and, of course, the video past—the portrayals of family life on such television programs as “Leave it to Beaver” and “Father Knows Best” and all the rest.”
—Richard Louv (20th century)