I'll say one thing though ... i can make a glorious work of art in 16:9 or whatever, and the majority of the audience i show it to will ask, "Why doesn't it fill the screen? What's missing from the picture?" As long as the majority of viewers are watching on a 4:3 TV (which will be the case for decades to come), it seems like the majority of the audience wants the screen to be filled. Wide screen is stunning on a huge movie screen that is designed for it. It just looks small on the average home TV. Remember that art also includes the practical aspects of working with the medium you have and pleasing your audience.

Having spent my whole life shooting and producing films, I have a few comments as to why not go to the wide screen formats - they are pretty personal, but backed with years of experience and 2 features shot in widescreen.

First aesthetics:
4x3 (also known as 1.33 to 1) is a friendly size for the intimacy and small screen size of video. High res is making a major dent, but you're still looking at screens maxxing out at 60". So in video, as opposed to theatical film, the close-up is paramount.
Now there simply is no way to get a nice close-up of a (human) head in wide-screen without wasting (or, really accounting for), a huge amount of dead space. Super-tight close-ups of eyes are great, but only once in a move. A good director can set up interesting "two shots" of people looking at each other, but this is pretty stagey, and doubles the shooting time, to get two perfect performances.
For your basic industrial, home or event movie, wide-screen is unweildy to manage.
As far as insisting that Vegas jump on every new fad that comes down the pike, I say, leave an incredible edit system time to mature. Vegas is great the way it is. 99% (well maybe a little less, but most) of the viewing audience today, next week and next year are and will be viewing their video on "normal" 4x3 video sets.
I'd rather see the genius's at Vegas (not a word to be taken lightly - this is super cheap software, beating or matching super expensive systems) concentrate on refining the working interface.

And next, technology:
As far as JVC and their latest iteration of what video MIGHT be, I say, let's wait and see what the marketplace determines.
Sony and JVC both have traditionally given us proprietory formats, and within a year or two abandoned them.
Quite frankly, I worry that my grandkids will be able to decode ANYTHING I am producing today. Stills on paper are pretty reliable (although most of my photos from the '50s are totally faded... gone, that is). Everything after that is a crap shoot. I have dozens of films on 8mm and no projector. Same goes with various video formats (anyone remember AIWA 1/4"?), to say nothing of the constantly changing landscape of computer systems and software.
In art school (a hundred, jillion years ago), we learned that the greatest artists are not necessarily the most talented, but truly, the ones whose work withstood the test of time. Frescos in Pamplona are over 2000 years old. Same with the pyramids. But most art of all periods is gone... faded, deteriorated, rotted, and now, subject to the ever changing landscape of the tecnology.
I love new tech... always have. My first stills were shot with a 4x5 Graflex with B&W film I loaded into holders in a darkroom. I was a heretic when I changed to the use of 35mm cameras for professional output. Today I cut commercial video on Vegas, with the hottest computer technology to back it up. My AVID MC sits quietly on a shelf, wondering why I deserted her.
But for my money - I say, Vegas designers - you are doing great - new format accomodation... well, let's wait and see.

Remember Super8? That was the "hot" new format that was taller than the standard rather than wider. Everyone oooh'd and ahhh'd at the taller images. Now we're going the other direction. Go figger.

I should have explained further that all my all films were 16mm 2.66 x 1
and I would show them on a 4 ft. x 10 ft. screen. They have been converted
to Beta SP letterbox and I am currently processing them in V-4.
So you might say that I am pre-disposed to the widescreen format. What is really
crazy is everybody is trying to duplicate the 24p film look and I am trying
to get rid of it because of the 3x2x2x3 conversion which is fine when viewing
but try to render it in MPEG2. Even with the standard VBR settings I have
to check most of the "fast pan and Motion" sections to see what will work
best overall. Then hope those sections don't drive the codec nuts. Sometimes
it works and sometimes it doesn't. Sometmes the fast moving objects look
like they are 20 fps instead of 24. Anyway my widescreen looks awful small
when letterboxed. But I am in awe of the things V-4 can do and if they don't
change it I won't complain.

JJK

I think we're in the 'tween stage now from 4X3 to 16X9. Watch TV and see how many commercials switch in and out of simulated widescreen. For my family movies I prefer 16X9 for events that are taking place outdoors involving crowds, a lot of people, or great scenery. For indoor stuff that is more intimate and involves more closeups I like 4X3. In the last days of my brother's visit to Paris he switched to 16X9 and it worked really well as he filmed the sights and sounds of Paris (crowds, long department stores, the Seine, etc). I think this is a good time to shoot in 4X3 and then simulate 16X9 or something greater if portions of the movie warrant it. (Recently shot a 4X3 of my sister's visit at the Mall of America. 5 minutes of it is the kids interviewing each other. I simulated widescreen with the interviews so that the focus was on the two kids sitting across the table from each other as they passed the microphone back and forth, then switched back to 4X3 when the interviews were over).

Marc,

I like the idea of higher picture quality and a widescreen format, but I think HD is still a little more than slightly ahead of its time for nearly all of us. Never mind that we can't afford HD camcorders, and that there are very few of them, or that Vegas doesn't support HD yet. Even if our computers could handle the huge space requirements of HD, we don't have a viable delivery mode for HD (unless you count the HD channel on cable).

Today we can burn DVDs for DV format movies, but we wouldn't be able to get much HD video on a DVD disc. Even the upcoming new blue laser optical discs have less capacity than would be ideal for HD. But we need affordable HD discs and disc burners before HD will come into its own. As I recall, we could rent movies on DVDs for several years before we found ourselves in a position to author them. I think it is significant that we can't rent HD discs yet.

-- Seeker --

In the early 70's I don't believe that there were any "cassettes" as such. We were recording on 2" reel to reel tape. It took 4 guys (and machines) to edit the tape.
The director or head tech would say, "Stand by... roll tape... 3,2,1". The three tape techs would all punch their respective record button on "1". Now you had three synchronized tape decks whirring away, one record deck, and two source decks. Now the director would say to the switcher. Wipe one to two, Wipe back, Cut 1, dissolve...", and so he'd go, to the end of the show. If you screwed up, you started all over again at the top. It had to be completed in one pass, because you couldn't "punch in"... everything was "assemble edit", and when you stopped the tape you lost time code. Often we'd splice the tapes together, using a sort of special white scotch tape, but the engineers hated this, because it would sometimes bleed onto the high speed spinning heads of the recorder. In the late 70's we switched from 2" to 1" tape, and the technology took a giant step ahead in the quality of the image. But you still had to book an hour or two ahead of any edit for "setup" - which you paid full rate for. This was to phase and color correct the various decks you'd use. When BetaSP came into existance in the mid to late 80's it was a miracle. Combined with the first Quantel computer assisted editing switchers, editing changed forever. The AVID was one of the first totally computer assisted editing systems, and started to appear in the early 90's. I didn't deliver anything that you could really use, but it did generate a list that you could then import or read to the editor, who would then assemble everything on tape, by hand. In 1991, I bought one of the first of these AVID's for $23,000. I loved it. What had taken me a week to produce on my Abacus based BetaSP system, now took only a day. The future had begun for real.

HD is a great idea, but, at 29GB per hour?

16:9 is fine for panorama, 4:3 for people.

When it all comes together, you will know it. The 13" TVs have a certain height. The equivent in 16:9 is about 15" diagonal. When you start seeing ALL 15" TVs coming in ONLY 16:9, then you will know that 16:9 is of age. I have been shopping for one of them. They just don't exist.

Since there is so little worth the money to watch, and they want so MUCH for one of the new HD 16:9s, I have just decided to do without. It is amazing how much family life I have picked up in the bargain.

Hi again,

I hope not to waste peoples time. I suppose I am a film snob. Watching too
much Sergio Leone maybe. Don't get me wrong, I know that Vegas is the most
amazing software out there. It is just that I am so sick of seeing Avid, Premiere,
and F****** Final Cut Pro taking the stage. Look at PixelMonger.com! Scott
Billops may be the guru of all things digital, but he never mentions Vegas.
But he is out there in L.A.! It is just that when it comes to the purchase of
a very expensive camera--say $3000--one wonders what to do. I just want the max
in resolution. I am looking at the little spoken of Sony PDX 10, for it's
16:9 chips. I know, I know, it does not correspond to any actual FILM aspect
ratio. I just want the resolution and the XLR sound. And now JVC throw down the
gauntlet! What will Sony et al do with it? Film is so simple! I am lost in a
miasma of logarithms, here in DV. I am appalled at the idea of applying "film
effects". So I am left to ponder interlace vs. progressive, 24p, and the whole
issue of gamma. All to avoid "jaggies". It's a hard life... perhaps I will stick
with my one chip, it feels like Super 8! <M>