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231 points frogulis | 9 comments | | HN request time: 0.399s | source | bottom
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somenameforme ◴[] No.44567805[source]
Fun fact: movie sales, in terms of tickets sold, peaked in 2002. [1] All the 'box office records' since then are the result of charging way more to a continually plummeting audience size.

And this is highly relevant for things like this. People often argue that if movies were so bad then people would stop watching them, unaware that people actually have stopped watching them!

Even for individual movies. For all the men-in-spandex movies, the best selling movie (by tickets sold) in modern times is Titanic, 27 years ago.

[1] - https://www.the-numbers.com/market/

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zamadatix ◴[] No.44571608[source]
In 2002, watching a movie at home for most people meant flinging a low quality VHS or DVD onto a ~27" tube TV (with a resolution so worthless it might as well be labeled "new years") using a 4:3 aspect ratio pan & scan of the actual movie. Getting anything recent meant going out to the Blockbuster anyways. In 2022, watching a movie meant streaming something on your 50+" 16:9 4k smart TV by pressing a button from your couch.

Box office ticket sales say people go to the theatre less often, not that people watch movies less often. Unless you specifically want "the movie theater experience" or you absolutely have to see a certain movie at launch you're not going to the theatre to watch a movie. The number of movie views per person may well be down (or up), but box office ticket sale counts don't really answer that question.

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1. rightbyte ◴[] No.44572738[source]
Why do you bring up 4:3 as a bad property? Honestly I find watching 4:3 easier on the eyes and mind since you know where to look.
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2. Cpoll ◴[] No.44572837[source]
You might be an outlier. Our FOV is wide, so it's a better match. Furthermore, the 4:3 version of a movie is almost always a crop from the intended ratio, so information and intent is lost.
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3. zamadatix ◴[] No.44573155[source]
It's less about whether one considers option A better than option B and more about whether the movie was shot for one option or "edited down" (pan and scan) to TV. If cinemas of the 90s had been 4:3 and TVs of the time 16:9, requiring crops to fill the screen properly, I'd have made the opposite statement.
4. ogurechny ◴[] No.44573853[source]
> almost always

Well, you've just revealed which kind of “content” you watch (by revealing which kind you don't). A lot of well known films were shot on full frame, and never had any other variant.

Frankly, seeing them in theatres “as intended” would require inventing a time machine, or not missing some special film screening event, as they were made quite some time ago.

Also, back then, when they still had to make film prints for distribution, and had to deal with wide screen theatres and regular screen theatres (you couldn't just ignore the other half, and lose a potentially significant share of income), both filming and editing took that into account. Shots in one aspect ratio were usually composed to look god when cut to the other, and professional cameramen (working with both types) constantly kept that in mind anyway. Same for possible TV screening versions later.

Now compare that to the modern nameless editors working for giant corporations which pretend that it's an impossible task that has never been done, and either crop automatically, or let the “smart computer” toss a coin to shift responsibility.

Edit: By “theatres” I've meant types of film projectors installed in their halls. Some had multiple, switchable lenses, etc., some had only one. Keep in mind that to show a multi-reel movie without pauses you need at least two projectors (or a special feeding system for spliced together film if the number of screenings is worth the work), and a third one is often added for redundancy and required maintenance work, so there's a lot of investment to make already.

5. phire ◴[] No.44573875[source]
The TV might have been 4:3, but most DVD movie releases were widescreen by 2002. So you lost upto 40% of that 27" CRT to letterboxing.

The pan-and-scan DVDs seemed to die out long before everyone had 16:9 TVs. Consumers seemed to decide they preferred letterboxing over cropping.

6. petters ◴[] No.44574322[source]
> Our FOV is wide, so it's a better match.

It's pretty big vertically as well. IMAX is close to 4:3

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7. dylan604 ◴[] No.44575178{3}[source]
I've wondered why they haven't done an anamorphic IMAX to use the full screen instead of cutting back and forth from wide to square.
8. rightbyte ◴[] No.44575247[source]
Ye I think my FOV is fine I did tests for my driving license. I feel it has more to do with me being distracted by things in the peripherals.

And ye cropped is bad. Think STNG.

9. Cpoll ◴[] No.44587858{3}[source]
I though IMAX was almost 4:2, but it looks like there are two ratios, 1.43:1 and 1.90:1. So 4:2.8 and 4:2.1.