Okay, so we were getting off-topic in the other thread so I am bringing this here. For those who weren't a part of the discussion, it was basically asked why anamorphic transfers for DVDs are so important (especially for Widescreen TV owners). Here's a link to the thread: https://www.sideshowcollectors.com/forums/showpost.php?p=203485&postcount=51
This was precipitated by discussion over the word that the Unaltered Original Trilogy on the upcoming DVDs will be culled from the Non-Anamorphic transfers used for the 1993 laserdisc release. Naturally, this has upset many people. Here is a visual tutorial as to why.
Using EPISODE III as a reference, I created the following to visually illustrate why Anamorphic transfers are so important for Widescreen films to DVD:
Here is what the raw ROTS transfer looks like (it's a widescreen image anamorphically "squeezed" into a 4:3 ratio):
And here is how that is displayed on a Widescreen (1.78:1 ratio) Television:
Essentially, your DVD player and TV work together to display the anamorphic image in the correct, "unsqueezed" ratio... resulting in a widescreen image with very little (if any) loss of image quality. The functions the same way on regular 4:3 TVs as well (when set correctly through your DVD player), though you naturally have larger letterbox bars on the top and bottom of the screen.
Now, here is what the raw Non-Anamorphic transfer image looks like:
It's a pure 4:3 image and thus would be displayed like this on Widescreen TVs:
(Yes, those gray bars would appear on the sides).
Now, there is a way to get rid of the side bars and essentially "zoom" the image digitally in order to fill up as much of the Widescreen image as possible. But that results in a terrible loss of image quality, as recreated here:
So, in closing...
A true Anamorphic Widescreen transfer would look like this on your Widescreen TV:
And this is basically what you get with Non-Anamorphic:
This was precipitated by discussion over the word that the Unaltered Original Trilogy on the upcoming DVDs will be culled from the Non-Anamorphic transfers used for the 1993 laserdisc release. Naturally, this has upset many people. Here is a visual tutorial as to why.
Using EPISODE III as a reference, I created the following to visually illustrate why Anamorphic transfers are so important for Widescreen films to DVD:
Here is what the raw ROTS transfer looks like (it's a widescreen image anamorphically "squeezed" into a 4:3 ratio):
And here is how that is displayed on a Widescreen (1.78:1 ratio) Television:
Essentially, your DVD player and TV work together to display the anamorphic image in the correct, "unsqueezed" ratio... resulting in a widescreen image with very little (if any) loss of image quality. The functions the same way on regular 4:3 TVs as well (when set correctly through your DVD player), though you naturally have larger letterbox bars on the top and bottom of the screen.
Now, here is what the raw Non-Anamorphic transfer image looks like:
It's a pure 4:3 image and thus would be displayed like this on Widescreen TVs:
(Yes, those gray bars would appear on the sides).
Now, there is a way to get rid of the side bars and essentially "zoom" the image digitally in order to fill up as much of the Widescreen image as possible. But that results in a terrible loss of image quality, as recreated here:
So, in closing...
A true Anamorphic Widescreen transfer would look like this on your Widescreen TV:
And this is basically what you get with Non-Anamorphic:
.
