What is an Aspect Ratio? Why is it important?
Aspect ratio refers to the ratio of width to height of a television set. Traditional television sets have a 4:3 aspect ratio. Widescreen television sets have a 16:9 aspect ratio. Traditional television sets are almost square in appearance; widescreen displays are more rectangular. The DVD defines the capability to display movies in 3 different ways: • Widescreen, which provides a special “anamorphic video” signal that, when processed by a widescreen television set, fills the entire screen and delivers optimum picture quality. • Pan and Scan, a version that fills the screen of traditional 4:3 television sets with an entire picture, much like watching network movies. • Letterbox mode, which provides horizontal bands at the top and bottom to, in essence, create a widescreen picture in a traditional television set. Each of the 3 display modes, if provided by the Hollywood producer, may be selected for viewing if the viewing device (player or DVD-ROM playback sub-system) is so equipped.
