Are there variations of widescreen DVD?

[Fire Me Boy!]

Originally Posted by Frosty

You're just now noticing this?





I've got one DVD that the picture is a 1.85:1 but it insists on playing with black bars all around, like it's shrunk down. Pisses me off.

That's because it's an older DVD and doesn't use the anamorphic widescreen process. Basically, the DVD was produced before 16:9 televisions were the norm, so it was formatted for a 4:3 TV.