I recently bought a widescreen TV and I am getting disappointed as I am going through my DVDs. I'm noticing that a lot are not in the anamorphic widescreen format. I understand anamorphic as that the DVD picture will format to my widescreen TV rather than looking stretched as a widescreen movie set up to be displayed in 4:3., right? I do know that I will still have the black bars at the top and bottom, but the picture shouldn't be stretched. Anyway, I posted a few weeks ago that my old Lethal Weapon Collection had widescreen formats but they were widescreen for a 4:3 TV, and then tonight I wanted to watch Armageddon and it looked the same way (stretched widescreen format). So, to my point, is there a list of what DVDs are available in anamorphic format (because that is what I want, right?). Most of my DVDs are in the anamorphic format and look great on the TV, but my older ones like Armageddon look not so good. Sorry if I come off as such a newb, I'm just trying to learn this stuff and get my collection in good shape by replacing these old formats that I have. Thanks a lot.

I've seen this list, but it seems somewhat out of date. Any others?

Auke, while I understand your problem, the sheer number of anamorphic DVDs makes such a list as the one you suggest both impossible and impractical. You're much better off just checking to make sure that they're anamorphic before you buy them.

DVDs that are anamorphic will 99% of the time state the fact. If you want to find out if any of your DVDs that aren't labeled "anamorphic", "16:9" or "enhanced" are indeed anamorphic, best to look up the titles individually on review sites such as this forum or dvdfile.com, both of which have reviews that detail the specifications of a DVDs audio and video.

Thanks DonnachaOne, that is what I have been finding out. I'm trying to go through my old DVDs and weed out the non-anamorphic ones and replace them. I think I'm just gonna have to sit down and go through them all and separate them out. From searching on the Internet, it looks like the Armageddon DVD doesn't have a re-release in anamorphic format, so that stinks. Hopefully not too many of my DVDs will be like this, I just hope I can replace most of them. Thanks for the reply.

If it is easier to type out your list of dvds and post them here I'm sure the community could quickly point out which ones are not anamorphic.

I have a link in my sig to my DVD collection, if someone would like to help weed out some non-anamorphic ones, I'd appreciate it. I went through what I could find on the Internet and this is what I found out of my collection that were non-anamorphic or are not formatted correctly for my TV:

Armageddon - no replacement
Lethal Weapon 2 - replace with Director's Cut
Lethal Weapon 3 - replace with Director's Cut
Con Air - no replacement
Scarface - replace with Anniversary Edition
Carlito's Way - replace with Collector's Edition
Cop Land - replace with Collector's Edition
Die Hard Collection - replace with Ultimate Collection
Field of Dreams - replace with Anniversary Edition
Goodfellas - replace with Special Edition
Gremlins - ??? if so, replace with Special Edition
Halloween II - replace with Universal DVD
Halloween H20 - ???
Happy Gilmore - no replacement
Midnight Run - replace with new release
Christmas Vacation - replace with widescreen edition
Patriot Games - replace with Special Edition
Robin Hood - Prince of Thieves - replace with Special Edition
Sleepless in Seattle - make sure I have Special Edition
Speed - replace with 5-star Edition
Stir of Echoes - full screen???
The Terminator - replace with Special Edition
Twister - ???, if not get Special Edition

If anyone sees any errors, or others from my collection that I need to replace, I'd appreciate some feedback. Thanks a lot.

While You Were Sleeping isn't anamorphic but that is the only version available currently.

I had to go through the same process when I bought my widescreen tv. It is worth it because the difference is amazing. It will also lead you to checking out movies you usually wouldn't because of the enhanced widescreen feature. I only have a few left in my collection that are not enhanced and those do not have replacements yet (Con Air, Armageddon, 10 Things, Great Expectations, Dusk Dawn, Ace Ventura, Kindergarten Cop, and Ben Hur).

I have a regular 27-inch TV. Does a DVD not coming in anamorphic format even matter in my situation?

In a word, no.

It's very disapointing when you learn you'll need to replace certain DVDs you thought you'd have for a long time. I still have about 40 movies that have not been released in anamorphic. When I started buying, I had no concept of anamorphic vs non. I had bought a lot of stuff used, and I thought, as long as it's widescreen then that's what I want. You really have to do your homework to make sure the edition you're about to buy is 16x9 enhanced, especially since so many have been reissued. (and the back of the box doesn't always say it is)

Here is a list of titles that are non-anamorphic. Not complete, but it's a good start.

http://www.gamestay.com/dvdlist/

If you get a region-free player, alot of those titles are availiable in anamorphic widescreen in other countries.

Here's my (rather short) list of non-anamorphic titles that need immediate anamorphic replacements:

Titanic
True Lies
The Abyss NOTE: These are all James Cameron movies!!

Armageddon
Short Circuit
Romancing the Stone

Star Trek: Generations (Anamorphic replacement disc announced but not available until September.)

Also, with the original five movie Planet of the Apes series, only the first movie is currently available with anamorphic enhancement.

NOTE: Some DVD players, notably the current crop of Panasonics, include a "4:3 LBX Shrink and variable zoom" function which will make your 16:9 monitor *think* that the above transfers are anamorphic. The resulting presentation is still nowhere near as good as a true anamorphic transfer would be; but the function does often provide a picture that's at least marginally better than utilizing the "zoom" on the monitor.

That's a good list, thanks.

Yeah, now I make sure that they alway say anamorphic and enhanced for 16:9 TVs. Thanks for the help guys.

*cough* Raising Arizona *cough*tear*

Stir Of Echoes is labeled wrong, there's an anamorphic transfer on that one... There's also a SE on the way, IIRC.

I'm pretty sure Twister has always been anamorphic. However, the first release had very poor digital compression quality and looked blocky and pixelated anytime there was a lot of motion in the shot (like, you know, whenever there was a tornado). The DTS "Special Edition" re-release was better.

I assume that when you say "regular", you mean non-Flatscreen or better right? If so, then yes. A non-anamorphic DVD on a regular 4:3 TV won't make any difference.

However, if you have a Flatscreen TV or better, you should have what is commonly referred to as "Anamorphic squeeze" mode, or "16:9 Enhanced" mode. What this does is to allow you to set your DVD player to 16:9 mode and then manually or automatically set your TV to 16:9 enhanced or cinematic mode (depending on the model) which will allow you to view an anamorphic DVD in full anamorphic mode.

We have 4:3 32" and 36" Sony WEGA Flatscreens w/ 16:9 Enhanced Mode and I can tell you that the difference between 16:9 Anamorphic and 4:3 LTBX is overwhelming. There's only one problem though. The 16:9 Enhanced Mode automatically squeezes to 1.85:1 instead of 1.78. (I think, although I could be wrong because known 1.78 transfers are 'taller' in regular 4:3 LTRBX mode...could just be the TV itself.)

Gremlins SE IS anamorphic

Happy Gilmore will be anamorphic in the Billy Madison/Happy Gilmore 2-pack in August

This is correct. However, I would say this: the OP didn't have a 16:9 TV when he started buying DVDs. Now he does and finds himself in the position of replacing DVDs for Anamorphic enhancement. Even if I had a 4:3 TV, I would make sure that I got 16:9 enhanced DVD so that when I do upgrade my set, I am not left with obsolete DVDs to replace. Think of it as an investment in the future.

Except that in some cases, a non-anamorphic transfer was recycled from an old laserdisc transfer. An anamorphic transfer will be a new transfer and should look better than a non-anamorphic transfer that is old. The remastered 2001 for example will look better than the old one even if you can't take advantage of the extra resolution.

Stir of Echoes is actually fullscreen - for a 16x9 TV. It is in the proper aspect ratio.

The original Gremlins was anamorphic, and so was the original Twister (although make sure you don't watch the fullscreen side). Getting the SE's can't hurt though.

DonnachaOne is right- you'd be better off compiling a list of titles that aren't anamorphic.

cool, thanks.

Take a look at http://www.hometheaterinfo.com/dvdlist.htm for a complet excel list. This file is updated weekly and is about 3+MB zipped and 11+MB extracted. I have a few movies that are labeled "enhanced" or "16:9" etc.. but the list shows just letterbox format. (the movie Cobb, for example.). I read awhile back that there was a way to tell whether or not the DVD/DVD packacking was labled properly. Maybe somebody can shed some light to verifify whether the packacking or DVD is labled incorrectlt (letterbox vs 16:9)

Yeah, I have the first release of this, I might pick up the SE then.



It was easier compiling a list of mine that are not anamorphic. Looks like it won't be too bad to replace them, maybe 15 or so.