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Anamorphic DVD
At Last!
All right - here's where we get to the meat of anamorphic
widescreen. As most of you know, those of us here in the U.S.
have a Digital TV in our future, like it or not. The reason
for this, is because the Government has mandated a full
conversion of American television broadcasting to Digital TV
by the year 2006 (although the realities of the marketplace
will probably mean that the actual conversion will take as
much as a decade longer). Digital TV (aka DTV, as determined
by the Grand Alliance - the industry consortium which decided
upon the standard) is really some 18 different formats labeled
under one umbrella term. Some of these formats are Standard
definition (SDTV - meaning that they use the same 525 lines of
picture resolution that current analog NTSC does today) and
some are High-definition (HDTV - broadcasting at a full 1080
lines of resolution). All are fully Digital, which should
result in much better reception quality - with a DTV, you'll
either get a perfect picture, or no picture at all (gone are
the days of watching electronic snow on your TV). Some of the
DTV formats don't even deliver video at all, carrying instead
simply computer data, for such things as live stock quotes,
sports scores, Internet access and more. In fact, one of the
big controversies at the moment, is that the major TV networks
want to use the extra bandwidth that DTV provides to broadcast
MORE channels of SDTV, instead of the HDTV we all expect (you
see... by broadcasting MORE channels instead of better
channels, they can sell more advertising).
You all want to know what Digital TV has to do
with anamorphic DVD. Here's the deal: one of the cool things
about DTV is it's aspect ratio - 1.78:1 (also known as 16x9).
In other words, the future of TV is widescreen. Surely, you
can already imagine how much easier that will make it to bring
widescreen movies to home video. No longer will TV's aspect
ratio require the butchering of widescreen films.
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Ah... but it gets even better. Digital TV is "anamorphic
ready". Which means that if a widescreen movie on DVD is
recorded in the anamorphic format, a Digital TV can "unsqueeze"
the video image contained on the disc, so that it fills the
full width of the TV screen, while retaining a LOT more
vertical resolution. In other words, the video's vertical
resolution will blow a standard letterbox transfer away. The
image you'll be seeing will contain a Lot more lines of
vertical resolution (still not fully high-definition, but much
more than on a Standard TV), so the picture will be clearer
and cleaner than you've ever seen it before... and you'll
still be seeing the original widescreen aspect ratio as the
director intended you to. And all this is with the current
anamorphic DVDs that you all have in your movie libraries
today - there's no need to buy new discs.
So How Does Anamorphic Work?
Given all of the early foot-dragging by the Hollywood studios
toward anamorphic on DVD, you're probably convinced that it
must surely be an expensive and time-consuming process. You
couldn't be more wrong. All that's required from the
perspective of the Hollywood studios, is to request an
anamorphic transfer during the telecine stage. It generally costs no more than
it does to commission a standard letterbox transfer, as long
as the proper film elements are available (extra costs are
usually only incurred if the original film elements are in
need of restoration). The best possible film transfer would,
of course, be a high-definition anamorphic transfer. That will
run you several thousand dollars more... but there are
advantages to it. The most obvious of these is the higher
video quality an HD transfer will afford you. Also, you'll get
a digital master of your film that can sometimes be digitally
cleaned up and restored to better than original theatrical
quality. This master can be stored to preserve the film for
future generations in pristine condition (the data won't
degrade like film will). Better still, this master can be used
to originate the film on every home video and broadcasting
format currently available today, from VHS and Laserdisc to
DVD and HDTV.
Once the transfer is done, and you've got a digital master of
your film in hand, all that's required in the DVD authoring
stage is to tell the technician that you want the widescreen
video to be in anamorphic mode. The tech simply goes into his
authoring software, and presses a button to insert the
necessary flags onto the disc (so that the DVD player and DTV
will recognize the anamorphic signal). That's it. That's as
hard as it gets.
Okay... so your disc is anamorphic, and you've got your DVD
player and DTV ready to go. I'm sure by now you're all
wondering how anamorphic works after you pop the disc into
your player... and more importantly, how it looks. It's probably easier
if I just SHOW you. Below you'll find links to demonstrations
I've put together using actual video from a pair of films that
are available on DVD in BOTH anamorphic widescreen and
standard letterbox (non-anamorphic). I'm using two films as
examples, because I want to show you the difference between
films in Academy Flat (1.85:1) and Anamorphic Scope (2.35:1)
aspect ratios.
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Anamorphic vs.
Non-anamorphic 1.85:1
| The following is a
comparison of anamorphic and non-anamorphic
(letterboxed) widescreen DVD video, as displayed on
Standard 4x3 and Digital 16x9 TVs. For this
demonstration, we've chosen to use snapshots of actual
DVD video from the film Spawn (aspect ratio is 1.85:1). |
| Non-Anamorphic
(Letterboxed) |
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Anamorphic |
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The
video recorded on a non-anamorphic DVD. Notice the
black bars at the top and bottom of the frame. These
are actually present in the signal.
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The
video recorded on an anamorphic DVD. Notice that the
image appears "squished" horizontally, while
retaining its full vertical resolution. Notice that
there are virtually no black bars visible in the
signal. Normally, you would never see the video in
this state. The only time you would see this
"squished" picture, is if you were watching
the disc on an improperly set-up DVD player, using a
Standard 4x3 TV - the player thinks you have a Digital
16x9 TV. A quick adjustment in the player's menu would
correct this problem.
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Non-anamorphic
video as it appears on a Standard 4x3 TV. This is the
familiar letterboxed image you're used to.
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Anamorphic
video as it appears on a Standard 4x3 TV. The DVD
player performs a mathematical down conversion on the
video signal, in effect combining every 4 lines of
vertical resolution into 3 until the correct aspect
ratio is achieved. The black bars at the top and
bottom of the image are generated electronically,
completing the image. Visually, it's nearly
indistinguishable from a non-anamorphic (letterboxed)
DVD image.
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Non-anamorphic
video as it appears on a Digital 16x9 TV. The gray
bars are generated by the TV to fill in the unused
portions of the screen. Using the TV's
"zoom" mode, you can magnify the image to
fill the screen electronically, but at the cost of
degrading the image quality significantly.
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Anamorphic
video as it appears on a Digital 16x9 TV. The
"squished" image recorded on the disc (seen
at top) is sent directly to the TV, which stretches
the video signal horizontally until the correct aspect
ratio is achieved. As you can see, the image fills the
frame, while retaining its full vertical resolution.
The picture quality is stunning.
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Anamorphic vs. Non-anamorphic 2.35:1
| The following is a
comparison of anamorphic and non-anamorphic
(letterboxed) widescreen DVD video, as displayed on
Standard 4x3 and Digital 16x9 TVs. For this
demonstration, we've chosen to use snapshots of actual
DVD video from the film Blade (aspect ratio
is 2.35:1). |
| Non-Anamorphic
(Letterboxed) |
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Anamorphic |
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The
video recorded on a non-anamorphic DVD. Notice that
the black bars at the top and bottom of the frame are
somewhat thicker than in a 1.85:1 presentation. Since
the 2.35:1 aspect ratio is wider, the thicker bars are
necessary to maintain the proper composition. These
are actually present in the signal.
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The
video recorded on an anamorphic DVD. Notice that the
image appears "squished" horizontally, while
retaining nearly its full vertical resolution. In
addition, black bars are now visible at the top and
bottom of the frame. Since the 2.35:1 aspect ratio is
wider, the bars are necessary to maintain the proper
composition. These are actually present in the signal.
Normally, you would never see the video in this state.
The only time you would see this "squished"
picture, is if you were watching the disc on an
improperly set-up DVD player, using a Standard 4x3 TV
- the player thinks you have a Digital 16x9 TV. A
quick adjustment in the player's menu would correct
this problem.
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Non-anamorphic
video as it appears on a Standard 4x3 TV. This is the
familiar letterboxed image you're used to.
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Anamorphic
video as it appears on a Standard 4x3 TV. The DVD
player performs a mathematical down conversion on the
video signal, in effect combining every 4 lines of
vertical resolution into 3 until the correct aspect
ratio is achieved. Electronically-generated black bars
are added to the existing ones (to fill in the
remaining screen area), completing the image.
Visually, it's nearly indistinguishable from a
non-anamorphic (letterboxed) DVD image.
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Non-anamorphic
video as it appears on a Digital 16x9 TV. The gray
bars are generated by the TV to fill in the remaining
screen area. Using the TV's "zoom" mode, you
can magnify the image to fill the screen
electronically, but at the cost of degrading the image
quality significantly.
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Anamorphic
video as it appears on a Digital 16x9 TV. The
"squished" image recorded on the disc (seen
at top) is sent directly to the TV, which stretches
the video signal horizontally until the correct aspect
ratio is achieved. As you can see, the image fills the
frame, while retaining nearly its full vertical
resolution. Since the 2.35:1 aspect ratio is wider,
thin black bars are still necessary to maintain the
proper composition (they're in the video signal). The
picture quality is stunning.
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After checking out the two
demonstrations above, you no doubt know that the widescreen
video signal on an anamorphic DVD appears to be be
"squished". Here's an interesting side note on this
before I continue: This squished picture is why a lot of
people early on thought their DVD players were defective. Many
of the early players shipped from the manufacturers in Japan
preset for widescreen TVs, and unknowing consumers here in the
U.S. simply hadn't told their player that they had a Standard
TV instead. And it wasn't just consumers making this mistake -
you could walk into almost any Best Buy or Circuit City early
on and see the same problem right on the sales floor. Go
figure.
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I Don't Have A
Digital TV - Why Should I Care?
So you don't have a Digital TV yet - you're not alone. Some of
you may be wondering why you should give a rip about
anamorphic if you plan on keeping that Standard TV for quite a
while to come. That's a question that gets asked a lot, not just from
consumers, but from the studios as well. You'd be
amazed how many studios execs use that as an excuse not to go
anamorphic.
The bottom line is this - doing a new anamorphic transfer is
almost always going to result in better quality, even if you
still only have a Standard TV. The reason for this, is that
today's telecine processes are fully digital. The
state-of-the-art in film transfer technology is much better
today that it was even a few years ago, especially with
high-definition transfers being done more and more. When a
studio simply re-uses an "off the shelf" laserdisc
master (done even just a few years ago), you're going to see
unnecessary edge-enhancement and all kinds of other NTSC and
analog artifacts in the video. A new digital transfer will be
clean and crisp, with vibrant and correctly timed color. It
may even have been digitally cleaned, with little spots of
print damage, hair and dust actually having been digitally
erased from the image altogether.
And remember how much money you're all spending now to replace
your VHS collection of movies on DVD? Do you really want to
have to re-purchase all your films again when you get that new
Digital TV? Of course not. Making sure to buy anamorphic
widescreen DVDs now, means that your money is well spent. You
can rest easy, knowing that your current DVD library is at least
a little future proof - your discs look great now, and
they'll look even better on that new widescreen TV you buy in
a few years.
So doing anamorphic on DVD is a win-win situation for
everyone, right? Sure. But there was a time, early on in the
history of the format, where the studios were reluctant. In
many cases, they simply didn't understand the anamorphic
feature of DVD. And
some were concerned that all that electronic "squishing
and unsquishing" of the video signal would degrade the
picture quality on current TVs. To be fair, some early players
weren't so good at the process. But that problem has long
since been resolved. Current DVD players almost universally
render amazing widescreen images from anamorphic DVDs.
All said, it took a couple of years for some studios to
finally make the move to anamorphic widescreen on DVD. Buena
Vista and Fox have only recently started doing anamorphic
transfers for their discs (Tarzan is anamorphic, for
example, as will be Fox's upcoming Fight Club disc).
But some studios have been doing right by DVD straight out of
the gate, like Columbia TriStar, Warner Bros., New Line and
DreamWorks (once they finally hopped on the DVD bandwagon).
Others, like Paramount, MGM and Universal, soon adopted the
feature on at least some of their releases. The bottom line,
is that for many of the studios, anamorphic widescreen has
become the rule for DVD, instead of the exception. And every
major studio has now released at least a few anamorphic discs.
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How Do I Know A DVD Is Anamorphic?
Few studios seem to label the anamorphic widescreen feature on
their DVD packaging in exactly the same way, and some don't
label it at all. But the following are some words to look for
in general.
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20th Century
Fox: Enhanced for
Widescreen TVs, sometimes not labeled
Anchor Bay: Enhanced for 16x9 TVs
Artisan: 16:9 Fullscreen Version, or Enhanced for 16:9
Television
Buena Vista: Enhanced for 16x9 Televisions
Columbia TriStar: Anamorphic Video (recently), often
not labeled
Criterion: Enhanced for Widescreen Televisions, or
simply "16:9"
DreamWorks: Anamorphic Widescreen
Image: Enhanced for 16x9 TVs
MGM: Enhanced for 16x9 TVs
New Line: Enhanced for Widescreen TVs
Paramount: Enhanced for 16x9
Trimark: Widescreen (if it says
"Letterboxed", that's non-anamorphic)
Universal: Anamorphic Widescreen
USA: Widescreen 16x9
Warner Bros: Enhanced for Widescreen TVs |
But what if you've got a widescreen DVD and you can't find any
markings about anamorphic on the packaging? Many of Columbia
TriStar's widescreen DVDs are anamorphic (but not labeled as
such). How do you tell? Well... remember that problem we
mentioned a few minutes ago, where people were seeing
"squished" pictures on their Standard TV? You can
use that to find out - simply go into your DVD player's setup
menu and tell it that you have a widescreen TV (it may be
labeled simply "16x9"). On your Standard TV, if a
disc is anamorphic, it will look squished. If it looks the
same, it's non-anamorphic. Don't forget to switch your DVD
player's setup back to Standard "4x3" TV mode when
you're done!
I would like to thank Bill Hunt at The
Digital Bits for supplying the information on Anamorphic
16x9
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