WHY WIDESCREEN?

I'm sorry you had that experience with the film's format. I'm not really sure why that is.
The film itself was made in 'widescreen', and I guess they didnt change its format.
These days nearly all TV's are being built as 'widescreen' (16:9) as cinema is, and the format of photos are. But this doesn't explain why the video comes out as being 'chopped' in places. At worst there should be 'black bars' at top and bottom. Maybe have a look at the the TV's settings, there may be a 16:9 version.
There is a longer version somewhere, but as far as deletions are concerned... we may have to wait for another era before that'll happen...!

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Apparently you haven't been to a theater very often. Movies are filmed in widescreen format. When you watch a theatrical film formatted to full screen for t.v. you are losing much of the film on the left and right side. Therefore widescreen is the actual complete film and full screen, or pan and scan, is where a good portion of the film is unviewable or lost.

Anyone who appreciates great cinema understands that. I just can't imagine watching a full screen version of a great classic like HOW THE WEST WAS WON. That would be castration of a great film. Besides, why do you think that the old pan and scan tv's are being phased out and all new tv's are widescreen?

If, as you say, head are "chopped off", they will still be chopped off in a "full-screen" format. Full screen pans across a widescreen image to the area of most significance. It's called Pan & Scan. With P&S you are actually cropping off the sides of the image, so you don't see the entire picture. In widescreen, you see the image as it was shot. It's like looking out of a window. In P&S you have to peer around the corners. In widescreen, the wall holding the window isn't there to worry about! It's pretty complicated, but you need to look at what ratio a film was made in. If it's in 2.35:1 or 16:9 (1.85:1 or 1.78:1), it was made in widescreen and then adapted for full screen (4:3), your "full-screen" TV is losing around 20% of the picture. Viewed on a widescreen TV you see the lot. On 4:3 TV you need the black lines at the top and bottom, or the sides of the picture won't appear at all.

The only exception to this is what is called matte format, in which lines are used to frame or mask an image. Not many films use it, so don't worry about that one. Always try and buy a dvd in the same ratio as it was made. Then you lose nothing of the picture.

Black lines on a conventional TV means the film was made in 16:9 or 2.35:1. No black lines and it's either P&S, or shot in 4:3, which is the ratio of the TV.
If the TV is 16:9; a "widescreen" TV, anything shot in 16:9 or 1.85:1/1.78:1 won't have any black lines. 2.35:1 films (often described as full widescreen), do retain black lines in order to fit the entire image on screen, as the picture is wider than the TV, so effectively has to be shrunk, or we are back to losing the sides. If you've been to a cinema where the screen opens out a little wider, that's 2.35:1 kicking in from 1.85:1, which is what most trailers are shown in.

All of this is a really oversimplified way of explaining it, without being overly technical, but hopefully it should clear things up. :)

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