Technical question Video Format

[Jimmy]

About the Red Dragon DVD (025192273629)

According to the cover and the back cover it is fullscreen, but... I just start watching it now and it doesn't look fullscreen to me at all

If you check the capture I did the film isn't in a square wich is the way it always is when you minimize the PowerDVD window for a FS movie but a rectangle...

When I check the PowerDVD informations for the video attributes I got this

Video Attributes:
  Video compression mode: MPEG-2
  TV system: 525/60 (NTSC)
  Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  Display Mode: Only Letterbox
  Source picture resolution: 720x480 (525/60)
  Frame Rate: 30.00
  Source picture letterboxed: Not letterboxed
  Bitrate: 4.90Mbps

So is it really a Fullscreen presentation?

[Achim]

Could it be non-anamorphic widescreen? And maybe PowerDVD recogiyes the black stripes and therefore removesd them for you, creating the recangle?

The video atributes look like it should be fullscreen indeed.

[Jimmy]

You're probably right. It's the first time I felt on something like this, PowerDVD convert the image as a widescreen one itself. The fact it said 16:9 in the aspect ratio kind of confused me as this is anamorphic widescreen (fullscreen would be 4:3).

[DJ Doena]

The lower screenshot is misleading because the entire image has a ratio of 3:2. I guess the screenshot tool had problems with the video material.

When you properly stretch it to 16:9 and then cut off the black bars, you'll get a picture-only aspect ratio of 2.342:1 -> 2.35:1

[Jimmy]

When you properly stretch it to 16:9 and then cut off the black bars, you'll get a picture-only aspect ratio of 2.342:1 -> 2.35:1

So it would be correct to say it's a widescreen presentation and not fullscreen since the FS ratio is 1:33

[Achim]

The lower screenshot is misleading because the entire image has a ratio of 3:2. I guess the screenshot tool had problems with the video material.

This is actually represented in the information Jimmy posted, the "Source picture resolution: 720x480", which is same to 3:2. Could be confidence (I mean seriously, I am not 100% myself...)

When you properly stretch it to 16:9 and then cut off the black bars, you'll get a picture-only aspect ratio of 2.342:1 -> 2.35:1

So it would be correct to say it's a widescreen presentation and not fullscreen since the FS ratio is 1:33

I guess in this case the full screen only refers to image ratio sent to the TV (incl the black bars), not the actual film material.