Director furious at HDTV widescreen butchery

[The News Bot]

Even in today’s world of 16:9 TV viewing, an old practice of cropping widescreen movies is still being used by broadcasters.* And director Steven Soderbergh is finally speaking out against the practice which he claims is butchering his vision.* His stance certainly goes against claims that directors are more aware of the TV shapes these [...]

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[David Mackenzie]

I had no idea that SKY Movies cropped films. How patently ridiculous.

Good for him for standing up to this nonsense - the arrogance of people who seem to think they know better than the filmmakers and can just slice parts of the picture away astound me. If people don't want to take in the visual language of the film and only want to see the actors moving around and talking to each other, they should do it on Standard Def or with their TV's own Zoom control.

[Phil Hinton]

Originally Posted by David Mackenzie

I had no idea that SKY Movies cropped films. How patently ridiculous.

Good for him for standing up to this nonsense - the arrogance of people who seem to think they know better than the filmmakers and can just slice parts of the picture away astound me. If people don't want to take in the visual language of the film and only want to see the actors moving around and talking to each other, they should do it on Standard Def or with their TV's own Zoom control.

Has to be said, they are not as bad as the US HDTV providers at doing so. It seems to be down to the source they have for transmission. About 90% of 2.40:1 films are shown correctly by Sky HD, with the odd crop here and there. As for BBC HD showing scope...

It is refreshing that some directors are now speaking out against having their material changed to suit those who don't understand why they have black bars, or why films are composed and shot in scope, and its not to keep TV viewers (who want no bars) happy...

[Pecker]

This is one of the reasons I cancelled my Sky Movies subscription.

Steve W