ZOOM BACK DVD PLAYERS - the only way to watch welles films

[jaime marzol]

right now when you watch a dvd, you don't know where the image ends. the edge of your tv is where the image ends. there is more image beyond the edge of your tv that you can't see. with a zoom back player you zoom back on the image till you can see where the image ends. this is especially important when watching a film by a director that used the whole screen to compose his shots. in any welles film it's a radical difference, if you are into framing. and what is welles about if not about framing? zooming back, like mteal said, really spices up your dvd collection.

[mteal]

With the DVD recorder's Zoom-out function, it not only spices up DVDs; it spices up TV in general. I like to watch ballgames windowboxed; in fact I just watched most of the World Series that way. Ballgame cameramen can have a good eye for composition too.

Clive,
Think of a movie as a painting- with the overscan on most TVs, it's like putting the frame down on TOP of the painting instead of around it. This of course, cuts off all four edges of the painting. With zoom-out windowboxing, the picture is shrunk just enough so that the TV itself becomes the frame...AROUND the picture, not on it.

[jbrooks]

Never having used a zoom-back player, I have a question for those who are so enthused about them. I have a TV that allows me to pull back the overscan a bit or even increase it a bit (basically three settings -1, normal, and 1). I do prefer to watch everything in the -1 (less overscan setting), but I would not describe the difference as dramatic. Would a DVD player with zoom out allow me to zoom out further for a more dramatic change? Or is this a fairly subtle thing?

[Store Hadji]

The zoom out gives you black bars top, bottom and both sides - there is no overlay and no portion of the image has been lost. I find it no subtle thing to see the complete frame compositions as there were originally composed (or at least matted for DVD.) It just improves the film for me - I can see more in the shot, I can see how things are arranged - there's nothing hiding off screen where I can't see it.

If your -1 setting pulls back the overlay a bit, but not completely, you should try most any Welles film on a DVD player which can zoom back and watch it window boxed. Watch Kane or The Trial once windowboxed - then watch it again fullscreen with overlay and see if you don't notice a difference.

[Store Hadji]

You have 1400 posts, Jaime?

That's far too many! :blues:

[jaime marzol]

yeah, i was looking at the the other day. but i've been coming here since the board first opened, i think in 2001.
365 days a year, for 5 years, that is less than 1 post a day. however, as soon as the 'nude endora' site opens, i won't be coming by here so much any more. i'll see you there instead.