Personally I'd wait until it's released and check out the reviews before buying.

As a hardcore Kim Wilde fan, especially of her first 4 albums I want these releases for the previously unreleased tracks and new Extended versions and Art Work.

The DVD is sooooo exciting though and I am afraid I am going to be VERY disappointed with their altering of 4.3 to a box or 16.9, ughhhhh.

But a guy Tom Parker has done this package and he is usually very good. On the Bananarama re-issues the picture was in 4.3 but in NTSC.

Kylie's re-issues were AMAZING! All in 4.3 and in PAL.

From my dealings with Tom, he has said that he always tries to get PAL releases for DVDs, but it's ultimately a record company decision, so out of his hands.

As the Kim Wilde DVDs are on Cherry Red, I'd say there is more likelihood of them being PAL, given that the Samantha Fox one was too. The Bananarama re-issues were through Demon, not Cherry Red, and Demon also stupidly released the Transvision Vamp DVD (as part of their imaginatively-titled 'I Want Your Love' set released on CD/DVD last year) in NTSC, when they had almost no North American success.

But, Jason, I reckon the Kim DVDs are going to be 16:9, just like the Sam Fox DVD was. I agree that it shouldn't be like this, but if you view it on a widescreen TV or monitor, it will look normal. It's only when you view such things on 4:3 TVs that they look postage-stamped with black borders all around the picture. The worst would be for the DVDs to be NTSC AND 16:9, like the Transvision Vamp one.

Yep, that's what I'm doing. Well, waiting to see what format the DVDs are on the discogs.com pages before buying. If they're NTSC, they can forget it.

How exactly is an original 4:3 clip reformatted to 16:9? Personally I'm not a fan of reformatting old TV shows or videos into wide screen. Watching old Star Trek episodes in 16:9 would feel wrong

What it means is that the black pillarbox bars left and right of the 4:3 picture (as you'd see when e.g. viewing a 4:3 aspect ratio clip on a 16:9 TV/screen) are actually a *part* of the picture on the DVD. So you can't get rid of them (unless you edit and re-encode the source files), and when viewing the DVD on a 4:3 TV, the picture will appear windowboxed/like a postage stamp, unless you have a function that allows you to zoom in on the picture until it is the right size to fill the screen without the pillarbox bars being visible.

This graphic might explain things a little more clearly:

Thanks Nathan very informative

Teh Cyndi lauper current DVD which I was SOOOO excited to get is 4.3 = letterbox with the box around the picture. It's just S H I T !

You mean the image of the videos is 4:3. But the way they have been encoded to disc is in 16:9, with the black pillarbox bars left and right part of the actual picture (and not fill-in bars, as when viewing a 4:3 disc on a 16:9 TV).

Because the whole picture (including the bars added) is 16:9, when you view it on a 4:3 TV, it is letterboxed. It then appears windowboxed (black bars left, right, top, bottom), because of the left & right bars being a part of the picture encoded onto the disc.

It looked like 4.3 with a box around it. Anyhow, the Cyndi Lauper DVD is ruined. I shouldn't have bought it.

Assuming it's a best of Cyndi Lauper DVD, i'd stick with the rage special from August 2004. I have it in 4:3 and amazing sound!

I have "Select" and "Catch As Catch Can" and the videos are 4:3, even " View From A Bridge" is 4:3 letterbox.

Sorry, to correct my post, it looks like the Kim Wilde music video's have been stretched or zoomed in from 1.33:1 ( 4:3) to 1.66:1 ( A widescreen TV is 1.77:1)