Quote:
Originally Posted by Nochgo
I'm sorry if this question was asked before; I haven't thoroughly looked through the forum.
While I was watching an anime, I took a snapshot and the resulting image seemed much skinnier than what I was watching. The image had dimensions of 704 x 480, and when I checked the video properties, it said resolution: 704 x 480 (AR 853 x 480). I'm assuming I was watching at 853 x 480, and I'm guessing AR means aspect ratio (if its not, the thread title would be wrong ^^; )
So, my question is, since the video is 704 x 480 but displays as 853 x 480, is what I'm watching a stretched out version of the video? Or is 853 the norm and I'm watching it correctly? Does the fact that my computer screen resolution is 1280 x 800 matter? Also, what causes the video to display at that 853 instead of 704? I checked my player (mpc) settings, and I didn't really see anything that would do that. My output is set to VMR9 with auto-zoom 100%.
I checked other videos, and 4:3 (640 x 480, etc) and 16:9 (1024 x 576, etc) played at said dimensions. Is the player automatically zooming it to wide screen mode because 704x480 is not 4:3 or 16:9?
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The video your watching is encoded with Anamorphic Video (PAR).
An image is stored on NTSC DVDs at a resolution of 720x480. If you divide 720/480, you get 1.5, thus the aspect ratio is 1.5:1. However, if you were to actually watch the picture being displayed at this resolution, it would look distorted on your television. To fix this, DVDs are encoded with an indicator that tells the DVD player how to properly distort the video to create the proper image resolution (the way the original film or show looked), and this indicator is either 4/3 or 16/9. Anamorphic Video simply means that the video is flexible enough to adjust itself to a viewer's setup, so that if your watching the video on a standard TV set, it will morph to fit, and if your watching it on a widescreen set, it will morph to fit it too.
The resolution output for your video is 704x480, but the proper resolution (the way the image was meant to be viewed) is 853x480. The Anamorphic encoding is telling your player to distort the image into the way it was meant to be viewed. To put it simply, your watching the video correctly, and you shouldn't worry about it.