Leo Enticknap responds: > Mike Frank asks what the 'standard anti-letterboxing argument' would be. > As I understand it, it holds that if a film is photographed in order to be > shown in a certain ratio, thern showing it in any other ratio (i.e. > carrying out the technical change necessary to achieve this) fundamentally > changes the visual qualities of the image from those which were intended by > the film-maker, and thus is not advisable. I think that there is a confusion of terms here. "Letterboxing" as I understand the term usually refers to "preserving" the original wide-screen format of a film. This usually makes for a smaller image overall on the TV screen (since it is not as high as the screen--the top and bottom will be black; in some older version, there are arabesque curlicues or other designs on the top and/or bottom to fill the void.) "Anti-letterboxing" would imply that one is against this practice. I think that the original post using the term was a typo--but if there were such a thing, it might be justified on a few grounds: a) that the larger image is simply clearer on most standard TV screens and the smaller but wider image in letterboxing is too hard to see; b) that some processes (in fact, most today) take full-screen composition into account during filming, so nothing is lost from the sides when the full image is shown on TV Don Larsson ---------------------- Donald Larsson Minnesota State U, Mankato [log in to unmask] ---- Screen-L is sponsored by the Telecommunication & Film Dept., the University of Alabama: http://www.tcf.ua.edu