Anamorphic WS (1 Viewer)

[richard plumb]

as for 'file size', anamorphic will have a direct bearing.

For the same aspect ratio (lets take 1.78:1), there will be fewer black lines (0) on the anamorphic version than the non-anamorphic version. So the non-anamorphic version will have more 'non-changing' parts, which will compress more efficiently.

So a 10 second clip should be smaller for a non-anamorphic transfer than for an anamorphic one.

 

[Damin J Toell]

No, there is no native aspect ratio. The TV distorts the image. All 16x9 enhanced DVDs are natively 16x9 at that's the aspect ration it's supposed to be shown at. They are encoded as 720x480 which will display at any aspect ratio you want depending on the display device.

You're right, of course. I seem to have a mental block preventing me from remembering that 720x480 is 1.5:1, not 1.33:1.

DJ

 

[Keith Helms]

The beauty of anamorphosis is that less of the picture is wasted on letterbox mattes. DVD has a frame size designed for 1.33 display, so the video still has to be made to fit, but because it's only squeezed horizontally, 33% more pixels (25% of the total pixels in a video frame) are used to store active picture instead of black. Anamorphic video is best displayed on widescreen equipment, which stretches the video back out to its original width. Alternatively, many new 4:3 TV's can reduce the vertical scan area to restore the proper aspect ratio without losing resolution (an automatic trigger signal is sent to European TVs on SCART pin 8). Even though almost all computers have 4:3 monitors, they have higher resolution than TVs so they can display the full widescreen picture in a window (854x480 pixels or bigger for NTSC; 1024x576 or bigger for PAL).

I humbly beg forgiveness for my ignorance.

 

[Jack Briggs]

There's no "squeezing" going on with a 16:9-encoded DVD. It is simply authored to output its 480 lines of viewable picture information into a 16:9 window. That is all. And to view such a DVD at its full resolution requires that one either have 16:9 display or a 4:3 display with a 16:9 mode.