Take a look over at scifi.dead-donkey.com , there's unconfirmed accounts that MGM have fraudulently being labelling DVDs as widescreen:
http://scifi.dead-donkey.com/viewtopic. ... c&start=20

There's a bit of a debate over this but there is one fact associated with the whole thing, a class action law suit has been filed against MGM for fraud and false advertising, and as a result, you can phone up a number and register your ownership of one of the DVDs incorrectly labelled as widescreen and if the case is one, then you will get a free dvd or a refund of $7.50.

Thought I'd post since its spilled over to a couple of threads here, and I don't want people to think 'huh?'

See what you miss if you don't visit scifi

LOL....what a shameless plug
I guess I should check in there for my monthly visit.

lol, no it is of vital importance that it be viewed, immediately, by everyone...

See what happens when you turn your head from sci-fi? MGM crops your DVD, wham*! Next thing you know your up a clock tower taking pot shots...




*Not the band Wham!, although they are bad enough to make you think about developing a brain tumour and going up the nearest clock tower with a rifle.

make you wonder on all MGM releases like the last house on the left

Yeah,or in George Michaels case a glory hole
I guess from a releasing standpoint I am going to have to research every movie I do up as far as this sort of thing goes.At least in MGM's case...although I don't do many of them.
So should a movie done this way be put in LQ?Just wanting it to be clear for all to understand.It wouldn't bother me any.

Well not just MGM, it makes me think about why the hell director's don't give a crap?

I don't know about you guys, and okay its not applicable to this genre given the low budget nature, but I always try to think about movies as the highest form of art, and I just hate to see it get such shoddy treatment these days.

I mean what garauntees do we get that we are seeing the correct AR/matting? Do the director's even care? What about prints of old films? I know for a fact nosferatu is 'messed up' and not much like it was over half a century ago.

I mean you wouldn't expect someone to hang a picasso in a frame that covers half the picture, so why do it to Candyman 2?

Panic over, the DVDs are fine!

I've been doing some Googling and it seems that the lawsuit was over the packaging (which claimed the widescreen version shows more picture than the fullscreen) rather than the actual discs. Some people got miffed at being "lied to" seeing as how both editions showed just as much horizontal picture information and decided to sue.

Info at Slashdot.

MGM went for an out of court settlement.

So this begs the question, what have people been getting in return? Presumably the exact same DVD, just with packaging that doesn't claim the widescreen version is wider than the fullscreen!

thank fuck for that! Now to go and shout at the editorial people who have been saying its double cropped

edit:
err sorry but that's another negatory on confirmation from what I read, a guy just posted a comment about an odd few 'flipper' discs and then links to a general description of open matter and how its cropped.

We already know all this, what we still don't know is that MGM has released as open matter or pan scan for all those titles listed. If it was open matte released previously on VHS/DVDs in other regions, all was hunky dorey, since this is correct, but its known to be not the case for a lot of them, and speculated for many others, and as such, this means they've cropped PAN/SCAN.

So unfortunately, that info doesn't prove or disprove anything

btw. MGM haven't gone for an out of court settlement, they're still at trial. It says in the last comment this too, so I guess that's that then.

Also shows that slashdot are full of shit. They didn't know what they were talking about with the original article, and then they jumped on a guess in one of their comments, and still even then got it wrong. That's just sloppy 'journalism' and obviously means its been done by a geek, rather than as a proper news site.

Shame the accuser doesn't have a website, else I'd go and post and ask what's really going on. As it stands, by MGM and the accuser not coming out and saying exactly why they are wrong/right, they're both doing wrong. As MGM are loosing face on this, an immediate statement with photographic wouldn't be hard to do at all, and the fact they haven't is suspicious to me. That would put a stop to it once and for all.