[78-L] Video Formatting issues on the Feinstein DVD - Standard TV owners take notice

[Steve Ramm]

Because some of you - but probably not most - have old standard screen TVs - not wide screen - you might find this info useful.
 
I received my copy of the Feinstein PBS DVD and went to play it last night. The episodes on Disc one filled the screen and the left and right sides were cut off - including the titles of songs. I tried Disc 2 - the supplemental 2 hour disc and it played fine as it was letter-boxed.
 
I thought I had a defective Disc One and wrote to my PR contact. This is the first time I've had this experience. She passed it on to the series producer who wrote me a detailed explanation.  I thought I'd share the reply with the group. You tekkies might understand it better, but that is not the issue (and let's not get into a tekkie discussion here, please <g>).
 
But if you have a standard screen TV over 10 years old, you might want to be aware of the possible problems with this DVD.
 
The reply is below my name.
 
Steve Ramm (who has been in LA for the last week so missed any 78-L discussioon during that time)
 

I'm the series producer/director of the Feinstein series and was forwarded your email about letterboxing on the DVD.  Without burdening you with Too Much Information about technical specs and how the DVDs were manufactured, I thought I'd try to explain the formatting situation.
 
The series was shot and broadcast in widescreen High Definition, and as PBS no longer requires programs to be formatted for standard 4:3 television sets, the entire series was created as a widescreen program. Ideally it should have been made into a Blu-Ray, to take full advantage of being high definition. But that proved unaffordable in terms of licensing and manufacturing costs.
 
So, to make a Standard Definition widescreen DVD, we had to compress our HD video into SD video, and also had to use a dual layer DVD to get three one-hour episodes on one disk.  In order to have the least amount of compression, so that the DVD would look great on a big, wide screen, we did not letterbox it, since that would have required anybody with a screen larger than 32 " to have to "ZOOM" or blow it up to entirely fill the screen, and that image would be more pixilated. 
 
Our manufacturer confirmed our choice, pointing out that most people who invest in the purchase of a DVD tend to be people who also have invested in a newer wide-screen television set (often with Surround-Sound, etc.) 
 
 If you play the DVDs on a computer (at least any of the current models we tested it on) it will play properly in widescreen, and it was also tested on a range of different television sets made in the last 10 years. Perhaps you can find a friend with a more recent model.  
 
But certainly in your review you should mention that it is a widescreen program, so that there will be no disappointment from your readers who haven't made the 16 x 9 transition.