Question About Anamorphic DVDs

[ulTRAX]

I think I understand anamorphic widescreen. Since DVDs use a standard D1 video signal... they are limited to a 720x480 pixel signal. A 16:9 anamorphic widescreen DVD is no exception... expect that the DVD player does either of two things...

1: On 16:9 widescreen monitors... the picture is stretched to fill the entire screen with the 720 horizontal pixels being stretched across the entire screen.

2: On a standard 4:3 screen which is limited to 480 visible lines, the player removes one of 4 lines and adds the matting on the top and bottom.

The above would not be the case in letterbox widescreen because much of the video D1 signal is wasted on the matting.

My question is about 2.35:1 movies which when displayed on a 16:9 screen still have matting/letterboxing. I assume when displayed on a widescreen TV these 2.35:1 DVDs would be either 480i or 480p mode.

So is the player doing to widescreen TVs what it does to standard TVs when a 1.85:1 movie is played... ie removing visual data?

Is some of the signal wasted on matting as is the case in letterbox widescreen?

Or... is there a higher resolution input mode that can preserve the 480 lines of vertical data?

[blutach]

You get bigger mattes on the 2.35 pix. More black space. Sorry

Also, the better players don't discard 1 line out of 4, they use 75% weighted averages of 4 lines to make 3.

None of the vid is wasted on making the mattes - it is just a flag in an IFO telling the player that this is automatic letterbox and to make mattes. (I actually came across a movie the other day with hard mattes - A Bronx Tale R4, shot in 4:3 with hard mattes to make 1:85, but this was before anamorphic was invented).

See here for a real good intro with lots of good links on anamorphic.

This is about the easiest guide to understanding anamorphic widescreen I know.

Regards

[ulTRAX]

Originally posted by blutach
[B][color=blue]You get bigger mattes on the 2.35 pix. More black space. Sorry

Thanks for responding.

I know that in displaying an anamorohic 2.35 DVD... standard and 16:9 monitors will add matting.

But my question is whether these 2.35 anamorphic DVDs fully utilize the available 720x480 format of DVDs.... or is some of that wasted on letterboxing?

One of your sources http://gregl.net/videophile/anamorphic.htm seems to indicate there's wasted space: "Even on anamorphic discs, some space is still wasted on black bars."

[blutach]

If you are asking "can it be panned & scanned?" (yecch! - a blot on video, IMHO), the answer is yes.

But if you want the whole width, the only logical thing is that you get taller mattes. However, the whole of the video is used - it isn't chopped off at top and bottom to accommodate the real width of your TV. The only thing is that the mattes are, by necessity, larger.

Regards

[ulTRAX]

Originally posted by blutach
If you are asking "can it be panned & scanned?" (yecch! - a blot on video, IMHO), the answer is yes.

But if you want the whole width, the only logical thing is that you get taller mattes. However, the whole of the video is used - it isn't chopped off at top and bottom to accommodate the real width of your TV. The only thing is that the mattes are, by necessity, larger.

Regards

Maybe I should rephrase my questrion: Do these 2.35 anamorphic DVDs fully utilize the available 720x480 format of DVDs.... or is some of that wasted on letterboxing matting as do 16x9 letterbox movies do?

The reason I ask is because I don't know how widescreen TVs display 2.35 movies. If they are on 480i or 480p... then the only option seems to be do take out/combine some lines of video to add the matting... such as 3x4 screens do to show 16x9 anamorphic widescreen.

But since widescreen TVs are not limited to NTSC and its 480 visible lines, perhaps it can display a 2.35 movie at a higher resolution mode such as 800x600.... and therefore display all 480 lines of visual data... letting the matting take up the rest of the lines.