Letterbox vs Widescreen

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Level 1

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Letterbox vs Widescreen

Hey all,

Can somebody explain the difference between letterbox and true widescreen?

It is my understanding that standard NTSC images, in full screen 4:3, are 720x480.

What are the dimensions of a widescreen 16:9 video?
What are the dimensions of a letterbox video?

Any light you can shed on this will be most helpful.

Thanks,
Dan

Dual 1.8GHz PowerPC G5, 2.5GB DDR SDRAM

Posted on Oct 27, 2007 4:38 PM

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Answer 1

javabob

Level 3

670 points

Oct 27, 2007 6:24 PM in response to djsavlon

letterbox just has a black mask at the top and bottom, so it's still 720x480

widescreen is anamorphic which "stretches" the image horizontally, the idea is to use those pixels at the top and bottom which would be masked. So it, strangely enough is 720x480 too, but it uses more pixels for a higher resolution image. but if you look at it without the anamorphic flag, it's "squished".

Google "anamorphic video"

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