What does "Anamorphic" mean?
The short explanation is that DVD is the first video format (apart from a few Japanese laserdiscs) to take full advantage of 16x9 (widescreen) TV's capabilities.
A 4x3 TV set picture is made up of approximately 480 horizontal lines of resolution from the top of the screen to the bottom. A laserdisc or video tape letterboxed at 2.35:1 uses only around 270 of those lines of resolution to display the picture; the other 210 lines make up the black bars you see at the top and bottom of the screen.
On an Anamorphic DVD disc, that same 2.35:1 letterboxed image is stretched vertically to use all 480 lines of resolution. (If you were to look at that image without any further processing, all of the actors would appear unnaturally tall and thin.) Then, the special circuitry in the 16x9 TV set squeezes those 480 lines of picture back down to the proper size. In effect, a picture that would be made up of 270 lines of resolution on a regular 4x3 TV set is made up of a full 480 tightly-spaced lines on a 16x9 set, resulting in finer detail than regular TVs can display.
What is "regional coding"?
Motion picture studios require that DVDs include codes preventing playback of certain discs in certain geographical regions. Players sold in each region include a built-in code. Thus, discs bought in one country may not play on players bought in another country. Regional codes are optional. Discs without codes will play on any player in any country.
Players and discs are identified by their region number:
- 1: Canada, U.S., U.S. Territories
- 2: Japan, Europe, South Africa, Middle East (including Egypt)
- 3: Southeast Asia, East Asia (including Hong Kong)
- 4: Australia, New Zealand, Pacific Islands, Central America, South America, Caribbean
- 5: Russia, Indian Subcontinent, Africa (also North Korea, Mongolia)
- 6: China
Why are there six regions?
Hollywood movies are released on DVD at different times around the world, typically America and Canada first, Australia and Japan 6 months later, and Europe 12 months after US release. (This is similar to the worldwide release pattern of major U.S.-made motion pictures.) In some instances, DVD movies are available for purchase in America and Canada before they are released in European cinemas. Due to the high quality of DVD and the movie release system used by Hollywood, 6 regions were established to prevent people from watching Region 1 movies before they were released on Regions 2-6.
You can determine the region number of your disc or player by looking for a small, standardized globe icon with the region number superimposed on it. If a disc plays in more than one region it will have more than one number on the globe. If a disc does not have any regional coding it will say "ALL" or "0" for all regions.
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