Anamorphic DVD

Simple question, I rented a few DVD today and I noticed that Lion Gates
DVD movies seems to have a black bar (I have Samsung Widesceen HDTV with
component cable connected to a progressive scan DVD player) while others
seems to fill up the whole screen (ie no black bars).

With no black bars, is this what they call anamorphic DVD? Or is it
non-anamorphic?

 

http://www.thedigitalbits.com/articles/anamorphic/

 

Depends on the original aspect ratio - if 1:78 or 1:85
then the anamorphic picture will fill a 16x9 widerscreen,
if 2:35 then there will still be some black bars top and
bottom but nowhere near as bad as old style letterboxing.


drc

 

If you have black bars on the top and bottom, but the image goes all the
way to the sides, the video is anamorphic. Your TV is 16:9 (about 1.78:1).
Many movies are are even wider. For example, Star Wars: Attack of the
Clones, is about ~21:9 (2.35:1), so you will still have some black bars on
the top and bottom (they just won't be as big as if you had a regular 4:3
TV).

You will know when you have a non-anamorphic video. When you view a non-
anamorphic DVD on a widescreen TV, you will have black bars on the sides.
If its a non-anamorphic widescreen DVD, you'll have black bars on all 4
sides.