Airing the Orange Bricks in 4:3. Good or bad decision?

[TheRed259]

Some recordings from Smile TV (the channel that airs DBZ in Greece and Cyprus) are finally online. This channel airs the Orange Bricks in 4:3 and not in 16:9. Is this a good or a bad decision? Do the Orange Bricks look better that way or worse?

Clip 1
Clip 2
Clip 3

[JohnnyCashKami]

Dragon Ball Z was never intended to be 16:9 AR so I see what they're trying to do. They got a shitty video source so rather than leave in 16:9 AR they've stretched it to 4:3:AR.

What a mess. It went from 4:3 AR to 16:9 AR cropped and then to 4:3 AR stretched. This can't possibly get any worse or weirder.

But was it a good decision? Sort of. 4:3 AR is the true aspect ratio but the footage cropped the top and bottom.

[Robo4900]

Bad decision.

It's taking the crappy 16:9 footage and stretching it to 4:3.

Two wrongs don't make a right, unfortunately.

[TheOverlyMadHatter]

This isn't true 4:3... they only squashed the image horizontally for the 16:9 image to be displayed in 4:3, making everything look skinnier, on top of the loss of the top and bottom from the Orange Bricks. This is actually worse than the OBs themselves, where at least all the proportions are left intact.

Now, if they were to release a genuinely uncropped versions of the OBs... well, it'd be a whole lot better than this whatever this mess is, and the OBs themselves, but you still deal with the shitty DNR. Essentially, you'd get an SD version of the 30th Anniversary Blu-ray set.

[SuperSaiyaManZ94]

Man that was really horrid judging from the look those clips, taking fake widescreen cropped versions of a show intended to be seen in standard 4:3 and just cutting it down/stretching them out horizontally doesn't make the masters look any better.

[Char Aznable]

Who the hell over there thought this was a good idea?