anamorphic or not anamorphic?

Now that I have my widescreen TV, I'm having a penchant on seeing how my DVDs look on it.

Some of them didn't look very good at first because I had my DVD player still set up to 4:3 and when the TV zoomed the picture it wasn't very clear. Now that I have set it to 16:9, they look better (if not really good).

I have a few that are non-anamorphic that don't look that great when zoomed (or in "full" mode), so I actually prefer watching some of these unzoomed.

I don't know if this applies to every single DVD, but so far the way I figure out if a DVD is anamorphic, is that the picture looks squished vertically (black bars on sides) when Wide Mode is Normal. When I switch Wide Mode to Full, then the picture uncompresses and the black bars on the sides disappear. The height of the picture remains the same.

If the DVD is non-anamorphic (or full screen), the picture looks in proportion in Normal setting.

I have a few DVDs that even though they're anamorphic, the picture looks a little too blurry in full mode and I actually like to watch these with the picture a little smaller with the borders all around. (Or maybe it's just my eyes.)

With an non-anamorphic DVD, you do this by just watching in Normal mode. With an anamorphic DVD, you can do it by setting the DVD player to 4:3 with the TV in Normal mode.

I assume none of this rigmarole is needed with a Blu-Ray disc.

***

So far I have found the following DVDs are non-anamorphic:

Wing Chun (Tai Seng, HK Legends version is anamorphic, come on Dragon Dynasty?, wow selling used for $59.85 on amazon.)

Mortal Kombat (which also looks really dark, Blu-Ray release 8/31/10 in Canada)

Armageddon (Criterion edition) but looks pretty decent from a distance

WarGames (the 25th Anniversary edition is anamorphic)<!-8/26/10-->

Fist of Legend (Dimension) / Dragon Dynasty version is anamorphic <!- 8/26/10 -->

Enemy of the State / there's a newer special edition that is anamorphic / I was watching it because it was on FX earlier that day. I noticed the actress that played Will Smith's wife, Regina King, looks like Michelle Obama (or vice-versa) especially with the similar hair-do. Also in the movie, Scott Caan now of Hawaii Five-O fame. I see he was also in the Ocean's Eleven, etc. films. I never noticed. I also notice that this came out the same year (all the way back in 1998) as another Bruckheimer production, Armageddon (see above) <!- 11/5/10 -->

[4/10/11] My latest non-anamorphic DVD, Die Hard 2. Picked this up from Blockbuster Salt Lake which is going out of business. Well, I guess it's viewable assuming you don't mind watching it as a smaller picture on 4:3. Or zooming it with the bottom half of the subtitles off the screen. Good thing it was only 90 cents. Checked my copy of Die Hard. It's anamorphic, so it's the later version.  [swapped it on swapadvd]

[9/5/11] Since Army of Darkness happened to be on Spike-TV, I dug out my Army of Darkness DVDs. The old Universal version is wide-screen, non-anamorphic. The old Anchor Bay version has both full-screen and wide-screen presentations and is anamorphic. The Anchor Bay bootleg edition is wide-screen only and is anamorphic.

The advantage of Universal version (the one with the chainsaw cover) is that it has sub-titles. I think that's why I bought it. The advantage of the old Anchor Bay version (the one with skeletons on the cover) is that it contains a behind-the-scenes featurette). The advantage of the "Official Bootleg Edition" (the cover looks like a paper bag) is that it has commentary from Bruce Campbell and Sam & Ivan Raimi) and includes footage that was later edited out. The Anchor Bay versions also include the original ending (I think as an extra in the old version).

Looking at AOD DVD fanatic webpage, I have the first, third, and fifth DVD's mentioned. The latest DVD version mentioned was from early 2003. So no mention of the Blu-Ray version. The Blu-Ray "Screwhead Edition" would evidently give the best picture available along with the sub-titles. Maybe that'll be my next purchase (or swap).

***

[9/1/10] Hooked up my Toshiba DVD-Recorder to the Sony TV via HDMI (the first time I've ever used the HDMI cable, since I never had an HDMI display device before). The DVDs seemed to looked even sharper (from a distance, looks pretty block up close) and seemingly less strain on my sensitive eyes.

Tried a non-anamorphic DVD and couldn't it get in the right proportion - looks too fat. Discovered that I have to change the resolution to 480p on DVD player. Any signal 720 or higher and the Sony interprets it as a 16:9 signal and stretches the signal. Either that or the DVD player is stretching it to 16:9. Same thing for full frame DVDs too.

... Found the solution. Need to set the HDMI mode on the DVD player to 480p [press the HDMI button on the remote and the setting changes on the little DVD player display]. The TV then interprets it as a 4:3 signal.

So I tried that with my non-anamorphic Armageddon Criterion edition. The picture had borders all around, so I had the TV zoom it. Looked pretty decent while sitting far away. Not that good when looking close. But that's pretty much true of all standard-def DVDs on a big screen TV. [2/28/11 - trying it now on my Panasonic plasma. The picture actually looks pretty decent. I think this TV does a better job upscaling SD pictures.]

***

[9/20/10] Here's a problem I noted when playing back my Three Stooges volume 6 DVD on my Toshiba DVD-Recorder on my new Panasonic 42" Plasma. When I play it via the HDMI interface, the picture plays back on full mode with the edges of the screen stretched to the edge of the screen. So the picture is out of proportion. However when I change the TV format to 4:3 the picture just cuts off the edges to 4:3 so the picture is still out of proportion, just cut off. Oddly when I play it back via the composite interface on 4:3, the picture shrinks to the proper proportion rather than cut off. Well I suppose any 4:3 picture would be non-anamorphic and not hi-def anyway. And they assume that anything played through the HDMI wouldn't be 4:3. Which very simply is just plain wrong.

I'm wondering though if it's a problem with my DVD recorder or the TV.

The four screen format modes are explained here. But no mention of the cut-off problem.

Wait, I just read what I wrote in the previous entry (on 9/1/10). OK, try setting 480p on the DVD player. (So it looks like a "problem" with the DVD player, not the TV.)