Page 1 of Anamorphic vs letterbox - explanation please

Not yet got a widescreen tv, but would still appreciate an explanation of the difference between a disc marked as widescreen and one marked anamorphic.

I gather that if I had a widescreen TV that anamorphic is better but in what way?

The quick answer is:

See all that black space on the top and bottom of a widescreen image? That is called a letterbox and it wastes space that could otherwise hold picture information.

When you blow up a letterbox image on a widescreen TV you lose picture resolution because it is effectively having to zoom into the image.

Anamorphic means it uses all that black bar space for picture information as well, then leaves it up to your DVD player or TV to squash it down so it fits. Of course if you have a widescreen TV it doesn`t squash it at all, it just doesn`t have to zoom in and lose picture detail.

Hence why anamorphic is better.

At the risk of sounding like a dozy sock cooker...: On my dvd player I set it to 16:9 for my widescreen telly and with an anormorphic disc I expected the picture to `ping` out to fill the width of the screen (like on digital broadcasts) but it was squeezed up in the 4:3 shape, so I had to set the telly to `widescreen` to stretch it out. Is this right?!
Thanks

yes - sounds like you may have not got your TV set to auto format (if it does that) - must have been set to 4:3 - you setting it to widescreen made it ping out. Had it been set to autoformat, then it would have pinged out by itself.
One other thing - some films are recorded in an aspect ratio (1:2.35) that will give black bars even on a widescreen TV (which is 1:1.85) - so don`t worry if you get this.

Best explanation of Anamorphic I`ve ever seen is here.

[http://www.dvdweb.co.uk/information/anamorphic.htm]

Hey Mintguy, that was most interesting.


Can anyone answer this...

...why don`t tv manufacturers make tvs with 2:35 screens ?


FB

>...why don`t tv manufacturers make tvs with 2:35 screens ?

One reason is that (apparently) it`s technically very difficult to create a cathode ray tube in 2.35:1 ratio. (It should be possible with Plasma displays or rear projection though.)

Another, better reason is that given a 2.35:1 ratio screen, 4:3 material would look tiny and have unacceptably huge black borders either side. I don`t know about you, but I watch a lot of 4:3 ratio stuff (older films, TV series, video games) and I don`t want to be watching them in a little window. At least with a 16:9 tube you get a reasonably sized 4:3 image.

The great thing about 16:9 is that it offers the best compromise between "standard" 4:3 and extra wide formats like 2.35:1 - it bridges the "ratio gap" quite nicely.

Mike

That would be one hell of a CRT to have a 2.35:1 screen

RE: "Pinging out" - if you are going through an S-video cable and are playing an American disc, the widescreen signal isn`t carried by certain players.

However, it`s not too hard to stretch it out manually

Actually the majority of film material is recorded at 1.85:1 which is 16x9, hence why this was chosen as the standard Widescreen TV ratio.