I am sooooooo confused. (hands to wobbling head)

I am replacing my VHS movies with DVDs. Suddenly, I am noticing things like Anamorphic Widescreen--Aspect ratio: 2.35:1 or 2.55:1), Full Frame--preserving the aspect ratio of the original theatrical exhibition, Letterbox--which I though I understood. I am sure that stuff was on the VHS box. I just never noticed it until I started ordering my DVDs.

Can someone please tell me what all that stuff means? I tried to find out on Amazon.com, but I still did not get it.

You forgot to throw in the Blu-Ray and HD-DVD options to further confuse you.

Sorry, I had to do it!

Thanks a bunch! (Now I need a sarcastic Graemlin!)

I don't really know all the terms, I just know that you can video in different ratios. My husband teaches a multi-media class at the high school. Our daughter was graduating last year and my husband was chosen as their commencement speaker so he wasn't available to work with much of the filming. He had a couple of kids set up with cameras and then combined films with another dad who has a side business doing videos. They were both filmed using different ratios. My husband used one that looks normal on a regular television but the other guy used a ratio that works on all these widescreen tvs. So the video he shot makes everyone look tall and skinny on our tv and the one my husband's kids did is normal. Now it would be the other way around for people with widescreen tvs. The other guys video would look normal and my husbands kids would look short and fat. That's about all I know about the apect ratio part of it.

I personally always get widescreen. They used to call that letterbox, but the term had died down a bit.

The difference is in the shape of your TV compared to the shape of a movie screen. Movie screens are much wider then your TV, which is where they get the different aspect ratios. Different directors will select different aspect ratios either because of artistic preference or camera limitations.

Widescreen preserves the aspect ratio that the director uses. On full screen, the image is cut off slightly on the sides, and extended very slight length-wise, in order to fit a typical TV. Most will not notice that much of a difference, but it does change what the director intended. In certain movies, the director will want two characters to look like they are not very close to each other, however in full screen because of the streching of the film they do appear a little closer then inteded (Raging Bull is the best example).

Another example is in the original Star Wars after Luke meets Obi-Wan - they point out one of the sandpeople, and there is a cut to the desert. In widescreen, you see the guy on the edge of the screen. In full screen, the guy has been cut out.

Here's a link to a detailed explantion of aspect ratio and what it is and how it impacts your viewing pleasure -- Aspect Ratio.

Like Skunkboy, I prefer widescreen versions of movies so I can see everything the director intended me to see. If you get widescreen versions the aspect ratio doesn't really matter all that much unless you're really into all that stuff. It simply means the black bands at the top and bottom might be a little wider or narrower from widescreen aspect ratio to aspect ratio.

Of course, if you have HDTV (high-definition television) you might not see any black bands at all.