Widescreen films do not easily fit onto standard 4:3 screens, so the film industry developed a technique to scan the film and select the most important part of the frame for transfer to video. Because the important part of the frame is not always in the center, a technician must "pan" back and forth in the frame to follow the action. Effectively, each frame is cropped to the 4:3 aspect ratio and image falling outside that field is discarded.
Aspect ratio down conversion with full vertical screen occupation and on-line control of horizontal centering. Synonyms: PanScan
(aka Full Screen) - A process by which significant action in film is determined on a shot-by-shot basis, and less significant parts are eliminated to fit onto a television-sized screen. A way of compensating for television's narrow aspect ratio when transferring film to video. Contrast with Letterboxing.
a 4:3 (see Aspect Ratio) movie that has been "converted" from a widescreen source. A 4:3 (almost square) area on the widescreen picture is taken (with the sides of the picture not visible), and this "square" pans from left depending on where the most important part of the image is. You often miss out on 1/3 to 1/2 of the picture with pan and scan movies.
When a movie is sometimes cropped from its original theatrical aspect ratio to fit your TV. Also called standard format on some DVD packaging.
A technique used in which the right and/or left edges of widescreen material is chopped off in order to fit the picture into a narrower aspect ratio, for example the NTSC standard of 4:3 or 1.33:1. Pepople who do this select the best part of the image to scan, and then if the whole image needs to be seen, scans across the rest of the frame.
A technique for converting wide-screen films to the 4:3 video aspect ratio. The technique uses the full height of the film image but selectively locates (pans) the available scanning width to include that portion of the film frame subjectively judged to be most essential. The remaining portion of the film's frame is excluded.
A procedure where a 4:3 image is taken from a widescreen source by clipping the edges. (More)
A method of converting widescreen programs and movies for viewing on a standard 4:3 aspect ratio television. It involves rerecording the program while panning and scanning (sweeping left and right) with a camera, selecting the portion of the picture to be shown in the reduced size. Obviously, the result is not the same movie that the director created, but it fills the entire TV screen. Letterboxing is the alternative. See: Letterbox, widescreen, aspect ratio.
dynamic cropping technique used to translate between materials with different aspect ratios. "Pan and Scan" is often used to translate movies shot on wide screen film formats to 4:3 television display. In the pan and scan process, the image is cropped to the new aspect ratio, and the transfer operator pans within the wider original image to include important details which are near the edge. (These details would be lost by a simple cropping technique.) Movies which have been "pan and scanned" don't have any black bars (letterboxing) and completely fill the television screen.
A technique for changing the field of view of a motion picture or down converted HDTV images that has been transferred to a smaller viewing format.
A method of editing a movie to be shown on a 4:3 display. Essentially, it crops all far left and far right information out of the scene.
The technique used to crop a widescreen picture to conventional 4:3 television ratio, while panning the original image to follow the on-screen action.
The technique of chopping off strips from one or both sides of a picture so it will be properly displayed on a TV screen.
A program or movie originally formatted for theatre viewing on a 16 by 9 screen is displayed on a 4 by 3 television screen. The picture that contains the action is centered on the television screen so that all the action in the film is captured on the 4 by 3 display. This view is different from a "letterbox" (widescreen) movie which is shown in the original theatre screen dimensions without picture format edits.
Pan and scan means the thinner TV "window" is panned and zoomed across the wider movie picture, chopping off the sides. Letterbox viewing mode will prevent the sides from being cut off. Most movies that you see on TV use pan and scan.
A method of transferring wide-screen films to smaller-ratio TV screens, whereby the full image is not shown at all times. For example, an original wide-screen shot might show two people talking to each other; in a pan-and-scan version, each person might be shown individually, with the camera moving (panning) between them as they speak. See also Letterboxing.
A version that fills the screen of traditional 4:3 television sets with an entire picture, much like watching network movies.
Converts widescreen content into 4:3 content by selectively zooming and cropping portions of the widescreen picture. Whilst completely filling a 4:3 aspect ratio screen, 25% to 40% of the widescreen content is lost.
AKA: Panned and Scanned As the aspect ratio of movies are rarely the same as the aspect ratio of a television screen, when showing movies on TV it is necessary to make sacrifices. "Pan and Scan" refers to the technique of chopping off strips from one or both sides of the picture when displaying. The areas chopped off are typically changed on a shot-by-shot basis, depending on scene composition. The main advantage of this technique is that it allows detail to be seen, the disadvantage is that shot composition is sometimes destroyed. Contrast with letterboxing.
Pan and scan is a method of adjusting widescreen film images so that they can be shown within the proportions of an ordinary television screen, often cropping off the sides of the original widescreen image to focus on the composition's most important aspects. Some film directors and film enthusiasts disagree with pan and scan cropping, because it can remove up to 45% (on 2.35:1 films) of the original image, changing the director's original vision and intentions. The vertical equivalent is known as "tilt and scan" or "reverse pan and scan."