DVD Rom and Anamorphic Enhancement (1 Viewer)

[John Berggren]

I have 2 DVD Rom capable machines in my house now - a desktop and a laptop, and I wonder if they are capable of displaying anamorphic video. I assume they can since the screen resolution on each can go well beyond 1280x1024.

It's not good to assume though...

I tried "V: The Beginning" which seemed to display it's widescreen image well, but when I used "The Mummy Returns" or "Sleepy Hollow" in full screen mode (using the full laptop screen) it stretched the image rather than keeping it squeezed.

Can anyone advise on whether I'm right in my assumptions? Also, if the laptop and desktop can perform 16x9 squeeze, which DVD viewing software is best for this? I've tried DVDExpress and the package that installed with "The Mummy Returns".

Thanks.

 

[Vince Maskeeper]

The software player should have a setting for "maintain aspect ratio" in the menu somewhere-- this makes it see anamorphic discs and will format them correctly (in a 16x9 rectangle)- and take advatage of the full picture resolution.
The drive gets the data raw as pixels- and it's just a metter of reading the flags to make it a certain shape.
I use Power DVD- it does this just fine. Check the settings in the player for some sort of maintain aspect ratio setting.

-Vince

 

[Marc Rochkind]

Here's an answer based on my understanding, and if someone with a more authoritative answer jumps in, so much the better.

DVD frames are (for typical movies, anyway) 480x704 or 480x720 (including overscan). There are neither anamorphic nor non-anamorphic. Rather, the pixels, which are non-square, are interpreted one way for anamorphic (fatter) and a different way for non-anamorphic (skinnier). The drive just puts out the pixels. How they map to the screen, which these days normally has square pixels, is up to the software that goes with the drive.

So, if anamorphic DVDs aren't playing right, you need to either change some software options, or get software more compatible with your drive and screen.

Hope this helps. If I'm wrong about any of this, I apologize in advance.