General Forum - What`s 4:3 pan and scan? - Page 1

Pan and scan is the terminology used to describe a picture 'doctored' (some would say 'butchered') to fit a 'normal' (ie not widescreen) telly.

For example, before SkyDigital and onDigital came along, when a terrestrial channel such as BBC1 wanted to show a film that was shot by the director in a widescreen format (the vast majority then), the clever bods at Broadcasting House would manipulate the picture so that it fitted perfectly onto a 4:3 TV screen. However, by doing this you'd be losing crucial detail at either side of the screen (i.e. just getting the middle bit of the picture, if you like)

With the advent of digital TV and DVD (and thus more widescreen pictures), more and more programmes are now being broadcast in widescreen - Eastenders, Casualty, The Bill, etc, etc are now all broadcast this way, resulting in 4:3 TV owners getting black lines above and below the picture. This is essentially the same as 4:3 letterbox - you're getting all the width of the picture, so you're not missing anything, but sacrifices have to made horizontally on that type of telly.

Thus, summary : 4:3 pan and scan - sides chopped off; 4:3 letterbox, whole picture, but black lines above and below the picture.

Don't worry - widescreen TV owners don't get it all their own way. For a start Match of the Day as broadcast on BBC1 via onDigital results in fuzzy blue bars either side of the picture (as it's broadcast in 4:3), and some DVDs have an 'aspect ratio' of 2.35:1 (ie 235 foot by 100 foot in the cinema) and thus get black lines above and below the picture too !

Hope that helps !

The above is not quite accutate.

Pan and Scan actually allows as the name suggests for the visable area of the picture to be chaged so that the part of the image percived as most important to the story is seen on a 4:3 TV.

This is not necisarily the middle section of the picture.

Wether or not this moving of the image is an improvement is of course debatable.

Cheers Vic

4:3 pan and scan - picture the same shape as your ordinary telly screen.
4:3 letterbox - black bars top and bottom.

4:3 pan and scan - up to 50% of the picture the director intended is missing.
4:3 letterbox - whole picture as intended by the director but like watching the picture through your letterbox.

Movie fans despise 4:3 p&s, joe public despises letterbox.

thanks for the info guys. Think I get the differences now but When I watch widescreen dvds, I can't see a difference between the pan&scan and letterbox. Am I supposed to see a diff? When I choose widescreen then the sides get chopped off.

Oh, I have a normal tv.

Yes I think you should see a difference if the DVD disc has Pan and Scan information included.

On your "normal" ie 4:3 TV with letterbox selected you should see always see black bars at the top and bottom of picture.

If there is no pan and scan information on the disc I would expect you see the same as With Widescreen selecred ie a full screen image with the sides chopped off but TBH I am not certain?.

Cheers Vic

The setting is software dependent - it's up to the actual DVD to "recognise" the aspect ratio setting and act appropriately. Most widescreen DVDs don't support the 4:3 P&S setting, so the picture will appear as it would if 4:3 letterbox was selected.

Thank's for puttimg me stright on that point Mike.

Cheers Vic