Your door to the world of DVD ... where we don't talk over your head.
Widescreen
Widescreen, although not as popular a TV format of watching movies in America as it is in Europe, it seems to be becoming more popular day by day. Pleasing to all, the majority of DVD discs include both Widescreen as well as Full Frame Pan & Scan formats of the movie.
Widescreen movies, even though they appear the same shape in the end, can be stored on a DVD disc in two different ways.
Letterbox is the basic way to store a widescreen format of a movie on a DVD disc. It simply involves shrinking the movie to fit on the screen with black bars on top & bottom saved as a full frame image. When displayed on a 1.78 Widescreen TV, the picture is enlarged to proper width and the black bars top & bottom dissapear off the top & bottom of the screen.
Anamorphic is the better way to store a widescreen movie on a DVD disc. In this format the movie is stored at full frame with no black bars, and the player resizes the image to fit on your desired screen size. The format results in beautifully sharp images better than ever seen before on home video.
Most DVD discs and packaging do not state which method was used in the widescreen version of the movie. However when known, it is listed with the movie here at DVD NOW.
*See Also:
Pan & Scan - Aspect Ratios of TV vs. Film
Televisions - Standard 4:3 vs. Widescreen 16:9
BACK
This page hosted byGet your own Free Home Page
