Yes, HBO, you still need to letterbox
Just a tip to the fine folks at HBO – just because HD signals are in a widescreen 16:9 aspect ratio doesn’t let you off the hook from using letterbox if the movie was, in fact, shot in a wider aspect ratio than that.
I just caught the last bit of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, and while it looks lovely in HD, I see that now that the credits are rolling and all that’s to see is white text on a black background, they’ve chosen to letterbox. So, for the entire movie I’ve been missing some fraction of the movie as HBO decided to crop the movie to conform to my television.
HBO, trust me, your HD-buying customers probably are the same sort that want to see the movie in the same aspect ratio as it was shot and shown in theaters and on DVD, not cropped.
Some googling shows that I’m not the only one who feels this way. That home theater blog link also includes some illustrative screen caps.
Some might point out that the standard-def HBO channels don’t bother to letterbox either. One reason I’d say these “premium” stations are kind of weak. Even AMC and SciFi and plenty of other stations have the sense to show movies in letterbox now and then.
For the record, I have HBO (and Showtime) because of some Comcastic promotion for a year – soon they’ll either cost me an arm and a leg or I’ll have to drop them.
