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50% of HDTV Owners Don't Use HD
Ant writes "Broadband Reports and Techdirt posted The Technology Liberation Front's article that said apparently half of all High Definition Television (HDTV) owners don't actually use the HD capabilities of their set, and nearly a quarter think they are watching high definition video when they actually haven't set it up correctly. Set-top box maker, Scientific Atlanta's survey, noted that HDTV sets will be in approximately 16 million homes across the country by the end of the year."
What he says is true, but note he says more of the negative is shown, not necessarily more of the movie. When some movies are filmed, they are intended to be widescreen, but they do in fact shoot 4:3 and then trim it to widescreen for release. So, while technically there is more image in the negative, the fact remains that the widescreen version is what the director wants you to see.
When a movie shot like this gets released on DVD as fullscreen, they actually show you the whole negative (tho I don't know if that's how it's always done, some may be left and right cropped) but sometimes you'll see things you aren't supposed to, like boom mics and such, because in the proper format, widescreen, they aren't seen. This is when a full screen release is referred to as Open Matte rather than Pan and Scan.