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January 28, 2005

MGM DVD Settlement

Own an MGM DVD? It's at least likely you have one in your collection.

Well, were you aware that MGM did fake "widescreen" on their DVD releases, using the pan&scan and just cropping off the bottom and top to make it look like it was in the 16:9 aspect ratio?

You are now. And you can claim recompense or a new DVD, hopefully in the proper aspect ratio. There is a PDF file with all the affected DVDs, and I have seen two with a quick glance at the first and last pages that we have at home.

Too bad I've not managed to get Readerware up and running at home yet.

Courtesy of Slashdot.

Posted by Julia at January 28, 2005 09:32 AM

Comments

Do note, however, that the widescreen purists are questioning this... Many insist that it was, in fact, the Pan-and-Scan versions that were mis-made, being the raw film with the mattes removed (thus likely to show dangling boom mic, etc.) and the WS versions were, in fact, the intended picture.

The case was about mis-advertizing the content, not necessarily about the actual content.

I own around 20 of these DVDs and none of them seemed to be dramatically mis-framed, as they would be if the raw accusation was strictly true.

Posted by: Ghoul at January 28, 2005 11:26 AM

I just started reading the comments, and yeah, I've noticed that.

I think I will have to do some more investigation.

Posted by: Julia [TypeKey Profile Page] at January 28, 2005 02:35 PM

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