Flippin' Ratio!

Whenever there is a discretion or amendment to a membership, we record it for future purposes. Today I served a gentleman with a complaint and looking at his history I could see that this wasn't the first. This amused me.

Years ago before DVD came along, there was a prominent switch in the aspect ratio of films. With the popularity of wide screen televisions, videos were being distributed in a letter boxed format, as opposed to the old pan & scan that most of us grew up with. At first this pissed a lot of people off but with a simple explanation and education about fim presentation, most people embraced it... haha, look at us now!

And so this particular gentleman had rented The Insider starring Russell Crowe. I can recall this being one of the very first letterbox rentals and it did cause a lot of frustration for customers. The man in question returned it one afternoon with the familiar (at the time) complaint that the movie had been "chopped off" at the top and bottom of the screen. His theory, according to my records, was that the black lines at the top and bottom of his television were obscuring the image. Knowing me I would have given him a friendly crash-course on aspect ratio.

Cut to today... this member has been fairly regular over the years and of course his loyalty has not been taken for granted. Amusingly he returned a weekly movie this afternoon with the complaint that "the black lines have obscured the film". Given that I haven't had this type of complaint for years I wasn't sure I understood the problem and so I put the dvd into my player. Low and behold, the film was a title from the 80s presented in a 4:3 ratio... meaning that the black bars were now to the side of the screen. 

Geeze, this guy can't get a break! 

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