DVD aspect ratios. What is anamorphic DVD? What is 16:9, 4:3 Letterbox & 4:3 Pan&Scan? What is anamorphic DVD? 16:9 = Wide screen 4:3 = Full Screen, Standard TV size 4:3 Letterbox = wide screen picture on a 4:3 TV with black bars on top and bottom of picture 4:3 P&S = Wide screen getting scanned and panned left and right give a full screen picture 2.35:1 = Wider wide screen format. A narrow picture on 4:3 TV. If watched on a wide screen TV, you will still get letterbox picture 1.85:1 = Wide screen (16:9) For 4:3 TV, set your DVD player to 4:3. On a DVD player, there are two 4:3 settings, letter box and pan and scan. Certain DVDs have auto pan and scan information on them. The DVD automatically zooms in on part of the picture to fill a 4:3 screen if your DVD player is set to 4:3 P&S. Otherwise it'll display the widescreen if its set to 4:3LB or 16:9. Anamorphic DVDs are specially encoded to include more visual information than standard DVDs. In Anamorphic DVD: the source aspect ratio matches exactly destination aspect ratio (16:9). In Non-Anamorphic DVD: source aspect ratio of movie doesn't match desired aspect ratio, so video size must be changed while quality will be lost. When an anamorphic DVD is played on a standard 4:3 TV, every fourth line of this extra resolution is ignored. (Keep in mind that your DVD player needs to be set for a 4:3 TV.) You still get a superb picture and you probably would not be able to tell the difference between anamorphic and non-anamorphic DVDs. When an anamorphic DVD is played on a regular TV and your DVD player is set for a 16:9 TV, that extra information is restored; however, because that image is meant to be stretched by a 16:9 TV, the result will be that people look thin and anorexic and circles look like tall ovals. Now you can see where these DVDs get the term "anamorphic DVDs". When an anamorphic DVD is played on a widescreen TV and your DVD player is set for 16:9 TVs, that extra information is restored giving you a picture that properly fits the width of the screen but without having to increase the size of the pixels. This gives you a much sharper image than non-anamorphic DVDs. Viewing an anamorphic ("16:9 Enhanced") DVD on a widescreen TV results in a clearer image because the image only needs to be expanded horizontally. Because DVDs already have an exceptionally high resolution horizontally, you can see very little difference in quality due to the horizontal expansion or stretching. When viewing a non-anamorphic DVD on a widescreen TV, the image needs to be expanded horizontally and vertically. Because TVs have a smaller number of vertical lines than they do horizontal lines, zooming in on the image will produce a very grainy result compared to the horizontal-only stretching of anamorphic DVDs.  See Also:  Definition and comparison of DVD video formats