DVDs and aspect ratios

DVDs are typically designed to play at either a 4:3 (1.33:1) aspect ratio, or a 16:9 (1.78:1) aspect ratio – at least that is the case for region 1 DVDs. 16:9 is, of course, the hot new aspect ratio for projectors and HDTVs. However, most feature films are not filmed in that aspect ratio. The most common aspect ratios are 2.35:1, 1.85:1, and 1.66:1. In the first two cases, you will get letterbox black bars at the top and bottom of your screen with the video content between them. For the last case, you will get the black bars at the side of the screen. 

This isn’t the full story, however. There are a number of other aspect ratios also used. For an interesting list of DVDs and the aspect ratios of the content they contain, IMDb has a page providing this information on several thousand discs. You can see it here. 

The upcoming enhanced DVD support for SSP will let you clip the letterbox black bars from the video stream that is displayed to the screen. This will be useful if you would like to play DVD content over a non-black background, such as another motion background or image.

(BE77)

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