Anamorphic widescreen is a
videographicVideography refers to the process of capturing moving images on electronic media . The term includes methods of electronic production and post production...
technique using rectangular (wide) pixels to store a
widescreenA widescreen image is a film, computer or television image with a wider and shorter aspect ratio than the standard Academy frame developed during the classical Hollywood cinema era. Silent film was projected at a ratio of four units wide to three units tall, often expressed as 4:3 or 1.33:1...
image to standard 4:3
aspect ratioThe aspect ratio of an image is its width divided by its height.Aspect ratios are mathematically expressed as x :y and x×y . The most common aspect ratios used today in the presentation of films in movie theaters are 1.85:1 and 2.39:1...
. In its current definition as a
videoVideo is the technology of electronically capturing, recording, processing, storing, transmitting, and reconstructing a sequence of still images representing scenes in motion.-History:...
term, it was originally devised for widescreen 16:9 aspect ratio television sets.
DVDDVD-Video is a consumer video format used to store digital video on DVD discs, and is currently the dominant consumer video format in Canada, Europe and Australia. Discs using the DVD-Video specification require a DVD drive and a MPEG-2 decoder...
s using anamorphic widescreen are similar to the use of
anamorphic formatAnamorphic format is a term that can be used either for the cinematography technique of capturing a widescreen picture on standard 35 mm film, or other visual recording media, with a non-widescreen native aspect ratio, or a photographic projection format in which the original image requires an...
filmFilm encompasses individual motion pictures, the field of film as an art form, and the motion picture industry. Films are produced by recording images from the world with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects....
negatives (although technically, the two formats are very different).
Anamorphic widescreen is a
videographicVideography refers to the process of capturing moving images on electronic media . The term includes methods of electronic production and post production...
technique using rectangular (wide) pixels to store a
widescreenA widescreen image is a film, computer or television image with a wider and shorter aspect ratio than the standard Academy frame developed during the classical Hollywood cinema era. Silent film was projected at a ratio of four units wide to three units tall, often expressed as 4:3 or 1.33:1...
image to standard 4:3
aspect ratioThe aspect ratio of an image is its width divided by its height.Aspect ratios are mathematically expressed as x :y and x×y . The most common aspect ratios used today in the presentation of films in movie theaters are 1.85:1 and 2.39:1...
. In its current definition as a
videoVideo is the technology of electronically capturing, recording, processing, storing, transmitting, and reconstructing a sequence of still images representing scenes in motion.-History:...
term, it was originally devised for widescreen 16:9 aspect ratio television sets.
DVD Video
DVDDVD-Video is a consumer video format used to store digital video on DVD discs, and is currently the dominant consumer video format in Canada, Europe and Australia. Discs using the DVD-Video specification require a DVD drive and a MPEG-2 decoder...
s using anamorphic widescreen are similar to the use of
anamorphic formatAnamorphic format is a term that can be used either for the cinematography technique of capturing a widescreen picture on standard 35 mm film, or other visual recording media, with a non-widescreen native aspect ratio, or a photographic projection format in which the original image requires an...
filmFilm encompasses individual motion pictures, the field of film as an art form, and the motion picture industry. Films are produced by recording images from the world with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects....
negatives (although technically, the two formats are very different). In film the rectangular image captured by the camera lens is optically squeezed to fit the available area of standard filmstock. Anamorphic widescreen DVDs use a similar horizontal-squeezing technique. When viewed on standard 4:3 televisions, without adjustment, the anamorphic image will look horizontally squeezed, such that the
actorAn actor or actress is a person who acts in a dramatic production and who works in film, television, theatre, or radio in that capacity...
s look thin and tall, and a circle will appear as a vertically distorted oval. Changing the DVD player's menu to the "4:3
letterboxLetterboxing is the practice of transferring film shot in a widescreen aspect ratio to standard-width video formats while preserving the film's original aspect ratio. The resulting videographic image has mattes above and below it; these mattes are part of the image...
" setting will digitally insert black bars to the top/bottom of the image, thus eliminating the distortion and allowing the movie to be viewed in letterbox format. Alternatively, the viewer can replace the 4:3 television with a widescreen 16:9 television, which stretches the image back to its original rectangle shape.
Most video DVDs include
widescreen signalingIn television technology, widescreen signaling is a digital stream embedded in the TV signal describing qualities of the broadcast, in particular the intended aspect ratio of the image...
, which allows the player to automatically select whether the video should be presented with digitally-inserted black bars for 4:3 sets, or "as-is" for 16:9 sets. If the source film is wider than the 16:9 (approximately 1.78:1) aspect ratio, then narrow black bars will be recorded on the top/bottom of the DVD's video, in order to preserve the proper appearance of the film (e.g. footage using an aspect ratio of 1.85:1 or 2.35:1 or whatever the director selected).
The DVD 720×480 standard was based upon the older analog
NTSCNTSC, named for the National Television System Committee is the analog television system used in most of the Americas, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Burma, and some Pacific island nations and territories . is also the name of the U.S. standardization body that developed the broadcast standard...
and
PALPAL, short for Phase Alternating Line, is an analogue television encoding system used in broadcast television systems in large parts of the world. Other common analogue television systems are SECAM and NTSC. This page primarily discusses the colour encoding system...
standards which have a fixed 4:3 aspect ratio, but a variable horizontal resolution (approximately 200 up to 700) depending upon the quality of the received signal. The DVD specification was designed to capture this variable resolution, assuming an ideal lossless NTSC or PAL signal. Discussing the encoding of anamorphic DVD is somewhat difficult, because of the older analog formats which it depends upon.
NTSCNTSC, named for the National Television System Committee is the analog television system used in most of the Americas, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Burma, and some Pacific island nations and territories . is also the name of the U.S. standardization body that developed the broadcast standard...
has approximately 720×480 visible pixels, but they are non-square pixels (see the discussion under
pixel aspect ratioPixel aspect ratio is a mathematical ratio that describes how the width of pixels in a digital image compares to their height....
), so you cannot simply divide the horizontal resolution by the vertical resolution to get the aspect ratio. Similarly,
PALPAL, short for Phase Alternating Line, is an analogue television encoding system used in broadcast television systems in large parts of the world. Other common analogue television systems are SECAM and NTSC. This page primarily discusses the colour encoding system...
is approximately 720×576, but the pixels are again non-square (they are shaped rectangularly as well – but in a different way from NTSC pixels). By measuring the dimensions of the physical screens on which both NTSC and PAL/SECAM signals are displayed, it turns out that the aspect ratio is 4:3 (approximately 1.33) when measured properly. To return to the DVD encoding, it is incorrect to say that the "720×480" pixels indicate that the DVD data has an aspect ratio of 1.5:1, because the pixels are (just like in NTSC) non-square.
A typical non-widescreen DVD will encode a 4:3 datasource into these 720×480 pixels with the assumption that they will be displayed in NTSC fashion on a display with a physical 4:3 aspect ratio, with the DVD player set in standard 4:3 viewing mode. Alternatively, a widescreen DVD will anamorphically encode a widescreen datasource (i.e. one with a large aspect ratio such as 1.85:1 or 2.35:1) by digitally compressing the visual information so that it will reside in the same 720×480 grid, but will be adjusted by the viewer for proper widescreen display.
Packaging
DVDs with a 16:9 aspect ratio are typically labeled "Anamorphic Widescreen", "Enhanced for 16:9 televisions", "Enhanced for widescreen televisions", or similar, although currently there is no labeling standard. Otherwise, the movie will only support the standard full-frame display and will simply be letterboxed.
There has been no clear standardization for companies to follow regarding the advertisement of anamorphically enhanced widescreen DVDs. Some companies, such as Universal and
DisneyThe Walt Disney Company , often simply known as Disney, is the largest media and entertainment conglomerate in the world, known for its family-friendly products...
, include the
aspect ratioThe aspect ratio of a shape is the ratio of its longer dimension to its shorter dimension. It may be applied to two characteristic dimensions of a three-dimensional shape, such as the ratio of the longest and shortest axis, or for symmetrical objects that are described by just two measurements,...
of the movie. Below are how various companies advertise their anamorphic DVD movies on their packaging:
- Anchor Bay: Enhanced for 16:9 TVs, includes aspect ratio in most cases.
- Artisan Entertainment
Artisan Entertainment was a privately held independent American movie studio until it was purchased by a Canadian studio, Lionsgate, in 2003. At the time of its acquisition, Artisan had a library of thousands of films developed through acquisition, original production, and production and...
: 16:9 Fullscreen Version, or Enhanced for 16:9 Television (since it became part of Lions Gate, the newer reissues include aspect-ratio information on many titles). Note that this is a misuse of the term "fullscreen", which refers to a normal 4:3 ratio.
- Buena Vista
Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment is the home video distribution division of The Walt Disney Company. Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment also operates as Buena Vista Home Entertainment...
: Enhanced for 16:9 Televisions, includes aspect ratio.
- Columbia TriStar
Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. is an American film production and distribution company. Columbia Pictures now forms part of the Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group, owned by Sony Pictures Entertainment, a subsidiary of the Japanese conglomerate Sony. It is one of the leading film companies...
: Anamorphic Video, sometimes not labeled, includes aspect ratio.
- Criterion
The Criterion Collection is a video distribution company selling "important classic and contemporary films" to cinema aficionados. In 1984, Janus Films and the Voyager Company established The Criterion Collection as a privately held company concentrating exclusively upon the North American home...
: Enhanced for Widescreen Televisions, or 16:9, always includes aspect ratio.
- DreamWorks
DreamWorks, LLC, also known as DreamWorks Pictures, DreamWorks SKG, DreamWorks Studios or DW Studios, LLC, is an American film studio which develops, produces, and distributes films, video games, and television programming. It has produced or distributed more than ten films with box-office grosses...
: Widescreen format, enhanced for 16:9 televisions since acquisition by ParamountParamount Pictures Corporation is a Worldwide American film production and distribution company, located at 5555 Melrose Avenue in Hollywood, California. Founded in 1912 and currently owned by media conglomerate Viacom, it is the world's oldest existing American film studio; it is also the last...
; aspect ratio included on formerly Universal-distributed titles.
- Image Entertainment
Image Entertainment, Inc. is a leading independent licensee, producer and distributor of home entertainment programming in North America, with approximately 3,000 exclusive DVD titles and approximately 250 exclusive CD titles in domestic release, and approximately 450 programs internationally via...
: Enhanced for 16:9 TVs, some titles include aspect ratio.
- MGM
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc., or MGM, is an American media company, involved primarily in the production and distribution of films and television programs. MGM was founded in 1924 when the entertainment entrepreneur Marcus Loew gained control of Metro Pictures, Goldwyn Pictures Corporation and Louis B...
: Enhanced for 16:9 TVs or Enhanced for Widescreen TVs, includes aspect ratio on 2001–present titles; uses Fox’s format since 2004.
- New Line Cinema
New Line Cinema, often simply known as New Line, was founded in 1967, is one of the major American film studios. In 1996, though it initially began as an independent film studio, it became a subsidiary of Time Warner and is now a division of Warner Bros...
: Enhanced for Widescreen TVs.
- Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures Corporation is a Worldwide American film production and distribution company, located at 5555 Melrose Avenue in Hollywood, California. Founded in 1912 and currently owned by media conglomerate Viacom, it is the world's oldest existing American film studio; it is also the last...
: Enhanced for 16:9.
- Trimark Pictures: Widescreen (letterboxed means non-anamorphic) Since it became part of Lions Gate, the newer reissues include aspect-ratio information on many titles.
- 20th Century Fox
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation , also known as 20th Century Fox, or simply 20th or Fox, is one of the six major American film studios...
: Enhanced for Widescreen TVs, Anamorphic Widescreen, sometimes not labeled, includes aspect ratio on newer titles.
- Universal
Universal Studios , a subsidiary of NBC Universal, is one of the six major American movie studios. Its main motion picture production/distribution arm is called Universal Pictures. Its production studios are located at 100 Universal City Plaza Drive in Universal City, California...
: Anamorphic Widescreen (widescreen means non-anamorphic) (Gives aspect ratio of film).
- Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc. Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc. Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc. (also known as Warner Bros. Pictures, or simply Warner Bros.—the shortened form of the former official, sometimes still used, formal corporate name: Warner Brothers
: Enhanced for Widescreen TVs, says scope or matted instead of giving aspect ratio.
Film
Many commercial cinematic presentations (especially epics – usually with 2.35:1 aspect ratio) are recorded onto standard 35 mm ~4:3 aspect ratio film (accounting for the standard 1932 Academy ratioThe Academy ratio of 1.375:1 is an aspect ratio of a frame of 35mm film when used with 4-perf pulldown. It was standardized by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences as the standard film aspect ratio in 1932, although similar-sized ratios were used as early as 1928.The Academy ratio is...
the true aspect ratio of the image data is actually 1.375 but this is close enough to 4:3 that the difference is often glossed over), using an anamorphic lens to horizontally compress all footage into a ~4:3 frame. Another anamorphic lens on the movie theatre projector ultimately corrects (optically decompresses) the picture. See anamorphic formatAnamorphic format is a term that can be used either for the cinematography technique of capturing a widescreen picture on standard 35 mm film, or other visual recording media, with a non-widescreen native aspect ratio, or a photographic projection format in which the original image requires an...
for details. Other movies (often with aspect ratios of 1.85:1 in the USA or 1.66:1 in Europe) are made using the simpler matteMattes are used in photography and special effects filmmaking to combine two or more image elements into a single, final image. Usually, mattes are used to combine a foreground image with a background image . In this case, the matte is the background painting...
technique, which involves both filming and projecting without any expensive special lenses. The movie is produced in 1.375 format, and then the resulting image is simply cropped in post-production (or perhaps in the theater's projector) to fit the desired aspect ratio of 1.85:1 or 1.66:1 or whatever is desired. Besides costing less, the main advantage to the matte technique is that it leaves the studio with "real" footage (the areas that are cropped for the theatrical release) which can be used in preference to pan-and-scan when producing 4:3 DVD releases, for example.
The anamorphic encoding onto DVD is related to the anamorphic filming technique (aka CinemascopeCinemaScope was an anamorphic lens series used from 1953 to 1967 for shooting widescreen movies created by the president of 20th Century Fox from 1953, and marked the beginning of the modern anamorphic format in both principal photography and movie projection...
) only by name. For instance, Star WarsStar Wars is an epic space opera franchise initially conceived by George Lucas. The first film in the franchise was originally released on May 25, 1977, by 20th Century Fox, and became a worldwide pop culture phenomenon, spawning two immediate sequels, released at three-year intervals...
(1977) was filmed in 2.35:1 ratio using an anamorphic camera lens, and shown in theaters using the corresponding projector lens. Since it is a widescreen film, when encoded to a widescreen-format DVD the studio would almost certainly use the anamorphic encoding process. Monty Python and the Holy GrailMonty Python and the Holy Grail is a 1975 comedy film written and performed by the comedy group Monty Python , and directed by Gilliam and Jones...
was filmed in 1.85:1 ratio without using an anamorphic lens on the camera, and similarly was shown in theaters without the need for the decompression lens. However, since it is also a widescreen film, when encoded to a widescreen-format DVD the studio would probably use the anamorphic encoding process.
It doesn't matter whether the filming was done using the anamorphic lens technique: as long as the source footage is intended to be widescreen, the digital anamorphic encoding procedure is appropriate for the DVD release. As a sidenote, if a purely-non-widescreen version of the analog-anamorphic Star Wars was to be released on DVD, the only options would be pan-and-scan or hardcoded 4:3 letterboxing (with the black letterboxes actually encoded as part of the DVD data). If you were to release a purely-non-widescreen version of Monty Python, you would have those options, as well as the additional option of an "open-matte" release, where the film footage that was never visible in theaters (due to use of the matte technique in post-production or in the theatrical projectors) is "restored" to the purely non-widescreen DVD release.
Television
Major digital televisionDigital television is the sending and receiving of moving images and sound by discrete signals, in contrast to the analog signals used by analog TV.-Timeline:...
channels in EuropeEurope is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally divided from Asia to its east by the water divide of the Ural Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian Sea, the Caucasus Mountains , and the Black Sea to the southeast...
(for example, the five major UK terrestrial TV channels) carry anamorphic widescreen programming in standard definition. In almost all cases, 4:3 programming is also transmitted on the same channel. The SCARTSCART is a French-originated standard and associated 21-pin connector for connecting audio-visual equipment together...
switching signal can be used by a set-top-box to inform the television which kind of programming (4:3 or anamorphic) is currently being received, so that the television can change modes appropriately. The user can often elect to display widescreen programming in a 4:3 letterbox format instead of pan and scanPan and scan is one method of adjusting widescreen film images so that they can be shown within the proportions of a standard definition 4:3 aspect ratio television screen, often cropping off the sides of the original widescreen image to focus on the composition's most important aspects...
if they do not have a widescreen television.
TV stations and TV networks can also include Active Format DescriptionIn television technology, Active Format Description is a standard set of codes that can be sent in the MPEG video stream or in the baseband SDI video signal that carries information about their aspect ratio and active picture characteristics...
(AFD) just as DVDs can. Many ATSC tunerAn ATSC tuner, often called an ATSC receiver or HDTV tuner, allows reception of ATSC digital television signals broadcast over-the-air by TV stations in North America, South Korea, and Taiwan...
s (integrated or set-top boxA set-top box or set-top unit is a device that connects to a television and an external source of signal, turning the signal into content which is then displayed on the television screen.- History :...
) can be set to respond to this, or to apply a user setting. This can sometimes be set on a per-channel basis, and often on a per-input basis, and usually easily with a button on the remote controlA remote control is a component of an electronics device, most commonly a television set, used for operating the device wirelessly from a short line-of-sight distance....
. Unfortunately, tuners often fail to allow this on SDTV (480i480i is the shorthand name for a video mode, namely the US NTSC television system or digital television systems with the same characteristics. The i, which is sometimes uppercase, stands for interlaced, the 480 for a vertical frame resolution of 480 lines containing picture information; while NTSC...
-mode) channels, so that viewers are forced to view a small picture instead of cropping the unnecessary sides (which are outside of the safe areaSafe area is a term used in television production to describe the areas of the television picture that can be seen on television screens.Older televisions can display less of the space outside of the safe area than ones made more recently...
anyhow), or zooming to eliminate the windowboxing that may be causing a very tiny picture, or stretching/compressingStretch-o-Vision is a neologism used to describe the practice of upconverting video in the 4:3 aspect ratio to the widescreen aspect ratio such as 16:9 in various ways, causing a distorted picture...
to eliminate other format-conversion errors. The shrunken pictures are especially troublesome for smaller TV sets.
Many modern HDTV sets have the capability to detect black areas in any video signal, and to smoothly re-scale the picture independently in both directions (horizontal and vertical) so that it fills the screen. However, some sets are 16:10 (1.6:1) like a computer monitor, and will not crop the left and right edges of the picture, meaning that all programming looks slightly (though usually imperceptibly) tall and thin.
ATSC allows two anamorphic widescreen SDTV formats (interlaced and progressive scanProgressive or noninterlaced scanning is a method for displaying, storing or transmitting moving images in which all the lines of each frame are drawn in sequence...
) which are 704×480 (10% wider than 640×480), though it is unclear why this does not match the 720×480 of DVD. The format can also be used for fullscreen programming, and in this case it is anamorphic with pixels slightly taller (10:11, or 0.91:1) than their width.
See also
- Anamorphosis
Anamorphosis or anamorphism may refer to any of the following:*Anamorphosis, in art, the representation of an object as seen, for instance, altered by reflection in a mirror...
- Aspect ratio
The aspect ratio of an image is its width divided by its height.Aspect ratios are mathematically expressed as x :y and x×y . The most common aspect ratios used today in the presentation of films in movie theaters are 1.85:1 and 2.39:1...
- Letterbox
Letterboxing is the practice of transferring film shot in a widescreen aspect ratio to standard-width video formats while preserving the film's original aspect ratio. The resulting videographic image has mattes above and below it; these mattes are part of the image...
- Pan and scan
Pan and scan is one method of adjusting widescreen film images so that they can be shown within the proportions of a standard definition 4:3 aspect ratio television screen, often cropping off the sides of the original widescreen image to focus on the composition's most important aspects...
- Shoot and protect
Shoot and protect is a technique used in video and film production, in which the material is shot in such a way that the areas of interest within a frame lie within a rectangular "protected area" within the frame, with margins at top and bottom and both sides...
External links