is Titanic 16:9 or 4:3 ?

[defense]

I'm trying to backup "Titanic" and I've encountered something I have not seen before, although that is nothing new. Anyway, I am using DVD2DVDR and I know sometimes that program will display movies which are definitely 16:9 widescreen/anamorphic as 4:3. I let DVD2DVDR read the disk and I picked the main PGC, but when I DVD2DVDR showed me that the movie was 4:3. I wasn't sold that it was 4:3 so I opened IFOEdit and looked at the main VOB set .IFO file, and sure enough it showed 4:3 in two places. What is even more odd is the fact that when I play the movie, it plays as 16:9 or Widescreen, and not 4:3 or fullscreen. Unless I am missing something, I always thought 4:3 was full screen, and 16:9 was widescreen or anamorphic. Can someone please tell me which setting is correct for this movie? It would seem that 16:9 would be since the movie plays on my DVD ROM and Standalone as widescreen, but the .IFO file says 4:3. Any help would be appreciated.

[DivXExpert]

It could be that the movie was recorded at 4:3 with the bars. like doing a vcd the bars are there but the aspect ration of the VCD is 4:3 not 16:9. When you watch the movie it looks like 16:9 cause of the black bars, but may very well be recorded at 4:3.

[herbapou]

Its pretty simple, it seems this movie is letterbox instead of anamorphic.

Straith from amazon.com:

Aspect Ratio(s):
Widescreen letterbox - 2.35:1


That means the movie is a rectangle inside the 720x480 resolution (NTSC) and yes that means there is black bars.

On the other hand, anamorphic movies used the full resolution (720x480 for NTSC). That means the movie is all distord up inside. By flagging a movie 16:9 in the ifo file, your telling the dvd player to reconstruc the image back to its original size.

Bottom line, anamorphic movies have NO black bars in the video file.

BTW always match the original DVD aspect ratio with the copied dvd aspect ratio.

[defense]

thanks for your info and help you two. That is interesting. I will use DVD2DVDR and leave the aspect ratio at 4:3. Thanks

[dwisniski]

Actually, if a movie is presented in 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen aspect ratio, the movie still has black bars on top and on the bottom, they are actually encoded in the movie. I have a 16:9 widescreen TV, and all anamorphic 2.35:1 movies still have black bars, but not as extreme as viewed on a 4:3 television. It is only with movies that have an aspect ratio of 1.85:1 or lower that you do not see any black bars. Check out the anamorphic widescreen guide at thedigitalbits.com

[poonaner]

Dwisniski

I have to disagree with you there....

The DVD Player is what actually puts the black bars in. Even 2.35:1 video is completely anamorphic.

It all depends on what your DVD player is set to.

If it is set to 16:9 then it will resize the video will smaller black bars.

What im trying to say is that Anamorphic is Anamorphic, the DVD player detects it and resizes the video to fit your TV screen wether it is set to 16:9 or 4:3.

-poop

[ktnwin]

poonaner is absolutely correct. I have video taped with the digital 8 Sony camcorder in the 16:9 format and the movie on tape is anamorphic. I means the picture fill up the 720x480 per frame on the tape but when I play it to a 4:3 TV, the camcorder simply plays with everyone thin and tall (i.e. compressed horizontally, this proves that all the 720x480 area contain pictures). However on the widescreen TV, it's a perfect match, no black bar at all. The TV expands horizontally to show proper ratio. (Camcorder compress, TV expands -> perfect ratio)
When I transfer this tape to DVD (using Panasonic DVD recorder), I got the exact same results.
When I encode this tape to SVCD, I have to say I want 16:9 format and it generated a letter boxed SVCD (i.e. black bars encoded IN the MPEG file !!!). This SVCD played fine on 4:3 TV but on 19:6 TV I must change screen size to see the movie with correct aspect ratio.
I could have encode this tape as 4:3 to make my SVCD and it will play like the original tape.
These things are quite complicate.

[VidGuy]

Anamorphic is anamorphic, but unless the original movie was 1.85:1 or lower, Anamorphic video on DVDs still have black bars on the top and bottom as dwisniski said.

Go get a movie in 2.35:1 format that's anamorphic and look at the video - there are still black bars on it. I've NEVER seen a 2.35:1 movie on a DVD that didn't have the black bars.

While it's true that "anamorphic" video shouldn't have black bars (kind of by the definition of anamorphic), today's accepted usage for "anamorphic" when applied to a DVD simply means that the video has been "squashed" into a 720 x 480 pixel such that it will play back "properly" on a
16:9 widescreen display (by stretching it by 33%)

If you did not display a "letterbox" when doing this, the 2.35 movie would have the wrong aspect ratio.

See this link (and many others - search for anamorphic DVD)..
http://www.gregl.net/videophile/anamorphic.htm

The bottom line is that DVD players can't be "told" how much to stretch the image, so they always stretch 33%, which is exactly the right amount to show a 720x480 DVD on a 16:9 widescreen.

[herbapou]

I have look at some video streams with DVD2AVI and found this:

1:85:1 anamorphic use the complete 720x480 resolution. (no backbars)
1:85:1 letterbox have has expected, black bars.

2.35:1 anamorphic have small back bars in the 720x480 resolution.
2.35:1 letterbox have has expected, black bars. (bigger)

So its pretty obvious that when a movie is flag anamorphic, the amount of streching done by the player is fixed (someone mention 33%), this is why you still have black bars inside the 720x480 resolution for 2.35:1 anamorphic movies.

With letterbox movies, the player just throw the 720x480 to the TV because the backbars are in the encode video stream with the right proportions

[dwisniski]

Sorry if I might have given any misinformation there, I believe that I did read it somewhere on the web that 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen DVD's are encoded with black bars in the video, but I am certainly not an expert on the subject. I only know I still see black bars on my TV with that aspect ratio





John 8:31,32

[ktnwin]

One more question:
most commercial DVDs are wide screen anamorphic. I learned that these disc contains a flag somewhere to say it's widescreen (1.8:1 to 2.35:1 ratio). On the wide screen TV (by setting the DVD player as such) , these disc play with very thin black bars on top/bottom). On the 4:3 screen (by setting the DVD player as such) then we have larger black bars at top/bottom.

If you copy these DVD to DVD-R, will the DVD-R play on both TVs as described above?