Non-anamorphic (letterboxed) vs. Anamorphic DVD

- Notice how the image on the left (nonanamorphic/letterboxed) is
recorded at a lower resolution... approximately 320 scanlines make up
the picture.

The image on the right is recorded at the DVD's full resolution of 480
scanlines. Net result: Anamorphic has more detail.

Lincoln Spector...

Depends on what you're watching it on. If you have a widescreen TV, a
computer, or a 4:3 TV that supports widescreen (by vertically squeezing the
image), it provides more detail. If you have a conventional TV, that extra
detail is thrown out by the DVD player.

Greg Bryant...

Martin Hart is referring to a 16:9 Widescreen TV.

I don't have one of those TV's yet, but my brother does. I took both the
non-anamorphic and anamorphic versions of The Towering Inferno over to check
it out. The difference is startling, with the anamorphic image filling
nearly all of the 16:9 screen, while the non-anamorphic looks like a
standard letterboxed image on a 4:3 TV.

The startling difference was that on the non-anamorphic, Fred Astaire looked
short and squat, while in the anamorphic, he looked his normal height.

Lincoln Spector...

This all depends on how you view it on the widescreen TV. A 4:3 image on a
widescreen TV can be column-boxed (black bars on the side, so it doesn't use
the whole screen), stretched (which fills the screen, but makes everyone
look short and squat), or zoomed and cropped (losing the top and bottom of
the frame and hurting image quality).

Stretching a 4:3 image is never a good idea. if the image is letterboxed
anyway, zooming and cropping may be acceptable, but the image quality will
suffer.

Lincoln

If Fred looked short and squat,

Greg Bryant...

I wasn't talking about a 4:3 image. I was talking about a 2.35:1 film, on a
DVD in Anamorphic Widescreen format. This means that it's formatted to
appear properly on a 16:9 screen.

A 2.35:1 film NOT in Anamorphic Widescreen will not appear properly
formatted on a 16:9 screen. Which is the problem with the Star Wars Original
Trilogy version, they are not Anamorphic (the Special Editions are
Anamorphic).

Martin Hart's website gives a good explanation of the differences between
Anamorphic and Non-Anamorphic.

Troy.Heagy...

True, but I'm thinking long-term. When the analog broadcasts stop in
two years time, all my conventional TVs (okay, just one) will be
replaced by a hi-definition tv. ----- At that point, I'll want all
480 scanlines, not the 320 letterboxed version.

Harkness...

Columbus discovers America.Film at 11.

videonovels...

.

Okay granted, this is old news to those of us who are tech-saavy, but
there are still 90% of americans (guesstimate) who have no clue what

telenovels...

.

Once upon a time ;-) I got into an argument (correction- strenuous
debate) over letterboxing vs. pan-and-scan, and why I avoid
pan-and-scan (like the recent star wars release). I tried to explain
how pan-and-scan cuts-off the left/right side of the movie's picture,
but to no avail.

The debate ended with the other guy saying, "I don't care if I lose the
picture... I want the image to fill the whole screen!"

Needless-to-say, his comment stunned me into non-vocalization. (1)
Stunned that this guy, a bright intelligent engineer, couldn't grasp
the concepts. And (2) stunned that he'd say he doesn't care if he
loses the left/right edges of the movie picture.
.

That event taught me something: Never underestimate a person's
Inability to understand a simple concept.

To you and me it might be "obvious" that black-bars will lower the
resolution from 480 to ~320 scanlines. But to my engineering pal, the
guy who insisted pan-and-scan is better, he probably wouldn't
understand the "non-anamorphic/letterbox" vs "anamorphic" distinction,
even if you drew him detailed pictures.

It's obvious to us. Non-obvious to him and many other persons.

the difference is. My message was aimed at them, to help them
understand.

moviePig...

I think Harkness meant that it's obvious that wasting half your pixels
on black-bars will lower image resolution. (And, if he didn't, he

telenovels...

Once upon a time, ;-) I got into an argument (correction- strenuous
debate) over letterboxing vs. pan-and-scan, and why I avoid
pan-and-scan (like the recent star wars release). I tried to explain
how pan-and-scan cuts-off the left/right side of the movie's picture,
but to no avail.

The debate ended with the other guy saying, "I don't care if I lose the
picture... I want the image to fill the whole screen!"

Needless-to-say, his comment stunned me into non-vocalization. (1)
Stunned that this guy, a bright intelligent engineer, couldn't grasp
the concepts. And (2) stunned that he'd say he doesn't care if he
loses the left/right edges of the movie picture.
.

That event taught me something: Never underestimate a person's
Inability to understand a simple concept.

To you and me it might be "obvious" that black-bars will lower the
resolution from 480 to ~320 scanlines. But to my engineering pal, the
guy who insisted pan-and-scan is better, he probably wouldn't
understand the "non-anamorphic/letterbox" vs "anamorphic" distinction,
even if you drew him detailed pictures.

It's obvious to us. Non-obvious to him and many other persons.

:-)

will...)

Susan Bartholomew...

Yeah, but will it be anamorphic?

John Harkness

LINK:

- People discussing why they are not happy with the
NON-anamorphic/letterboxed Star Wars Original Edition. Reason: Because
it's lo-resolution 320 scanlines, and it appears blurry/pixelated on
their large-screen tvs or projectors.

Greg Bryant...

There's another reason too - if you play the non-anamorphic version on a
16:9 screen, the image does not appear right.

Scroll down to the THIRD set of Spartacus images. That's the difference
between non-anamorphic (left image) and anamorphic (right image) on a 16:9
screen.

With the non-anamorphic version, you get letterbox bars on ALL FOUR SIDES!

Troy.Heagy...

.

That's insane.
Surely there's some way to "zoom in" and make the gray bars on the
left/right disappear?

Greg Bryant...

With any image made of pixels, the image is distorted if you enlarge it.
Pixels are just dots of color. And there are a finite number of pixels in
any image. There are also miniscule spaces between the dots. When you
enlarge the pixels, you also enlarge the spaces between them. This creates a
fuzziness and distortion in the image.

That's why the best images (photos or film) have the highest number of
pixels possible. This reduces the spaces between the pixels. This also
allows for more colors and a sharper image.

Download any picture from the net, or take a picture with your digital
camera, then upload it to your computer.

Resize the picture, making it larger.

You'll see the distortion that I'm talking about.

Same idea as "zooming" in on the Spartacus image, above.

So, I'm going to wait for the anamorphic version of the Original Trilogy -
if George ever decides to try and fleece us again (and you know he will!).

Lincoln Spector...

Hmm. I didn't realize Fred Astaire was in Star Wars. :-)

Okay, seriously, a non-anamorphic 2.35 widescreen image is a 4x3 signal with
a lot of black space. The same rules apply. The image will not appear
properly if stretched out on a 16:9 screen. It will appear properly (but too
small) if you view it in 4:3 mode. And it will appear properly (but low-res
ugly) if you zoom and crop the image (cropping will only crop part of the
black bars, not the actual image, in this case).