Firefly Fights FOX on No Letterbox Decision

POSTED BY: NewsAdmin
UPDATED: Sunday, July 28, 2002 19:46
VIEWED: 4779
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NEWSADMIN

Friday, July 26, 2002 2:25 PM

According to an email sent by Jose Molina to Ain't It Cool News, FOX is apparently not too interested in airing Firefly in letterbox format. "Not only are the pilot and "Train Job" in the can in letterbox format, I'm sure you can tell from the 2-hour that this show is an ideal candidate for widescreen," said Molina. "But I guess Fox thinks that America will be turned off by letterboxing. We're all scratching our heads about that." Molina said they're still fighting FOX on the matter.

Let's hope FOX budges. This is, after all, the 21st century.

TLSMITH1963

Friday, July 26, 2002 4:24 PM

Sci-Fi Channel airs Babylon 5 & the new season of Farscape in widescreen, & people aren't bothered by it. I even think NBC has a widescreen series, but I can't remember if it's ER, the West Wing, or something else. FOX needs to realize that widescreen is more common now.

Tammy

HJERMSTED

Friday, July 26, 2002 5:44 PM

Could help the cause to create a little letter writing campaign re: wide screen presentation.

Anyone have an address for FOX handy?
And to whose attention shall we bring it?

mattro

HAKEN

Saturday, July 27, 2002 2:09 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by tlsmith1963:
I even think NBC has a widescreen series, but I can't remember if it's ER, the West Wing, or something else.

It's ER, and it looks great. Didn't hurt the series one bit in terms of rating. In fact, I think it's a better series visually.

MOJOECA

Saturday, July 27, 2002 7:42 PM

THE WEST WING is also presented in widescreen.

--- Joe

TIEKA

Sunday, July 28, 2002 1:43 AM

They are worried that Americans might not like it? This coming from a network that has shows like "When Goldfish Attack" and "Bimbos in Alaska"?

Well, look at the bright side. If the episodes are all filmed in widescreen, then we can expect the DVD to have the options for letterbox format. Of course, the 4:3 version of the DVD will be released 3 months before the widescreen.

to everybody that loves widescreen

Once you've been in Serenity, you never leave. You just learn to live there. --Firefly script

ZICSOFT

Sunday, July 28, 2002 2:47 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Tieka:

Well, look at the bright side. If the episodes are all filmed in widescreen, then we can expect the DVD to have the options for letterbox format.

One of these days I will have to get a DVD player, so I can watch all the movies that were never meant to be shown on a 4:3 screen. Not expensive, but I'll also have to get a TV that displays wide formats properly. And what I really want to do is find a way around the limitations on transferring raw data out of a DVD player (put there to make piracy harder) so the picture quality is something to justify all this expensive hardware.

TINYTIMM

Sunday, July 28, 2002 5:42 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Tieka:
to everybody that loves widescreen

Hummm. Shall we try an end around by tell all the mfgrs of Widescreen TVs that Fox action is telling us NOT TO BUY Widescreen TVs? After all with no widescreen content, why should I spend that kind of money when my 19" Stereo TV is just as good as it was when I bought it fifteen years ago....

Jeff
Who knows the way to a networks pocketbook is via it's own self interest.

ZICSOFT

Sunday, July 28, 2002 6:51 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by TinyTimm:

Hummm. Shall we try an end around by tell all the mfgrs of Widescreen TVs that Fox action is telling us NOT TO BUY Widescreen TVs? After all with no widescreen content, why should I spend that kind of money when my 19" Stereo TV is just as good as it was when I bought it fifteen years ago....

Yeah, well, even if your old TV were on its last legs, I'd tell you to think twice before replacing it with something state-of-the-art. The whole HDTV thing is turning into a disaster -- broadcasters are not handling the changeover well, and nobody seems to have even thought about how they're going to make HDTV content available to cable users. Plus, even though you get a digital TV and you can access content in digital format, like DVD, you can't set up digital connection between your components, because of industry paranoia about piracy. So DVDs don't actually look that much better on digital sets than on old fashioned analog sets.

So even if you're starting from scratch, it doesn't make sense to spend a couple K on a digital setup rather than a couple hundred on an "obsolete" setup. Instead you should wait until things settle down, and you have some hope of getting some value for your investment. Meaning you should buy another analog set and live with the risk of having to junk it -- said risk probably being pretty small.

TINYTIMM

Sunday, July 28, 2002 7:46 PM

Hey Zicsoft,

Stop by the Firefly chat!

Jeff Timm
Who is there with a newby.