How to Tell Anamorphic, Letterbox etc?

[manthing]

is there a piece of software that will tell me the details of a movie?
like whether it is anamorphic or letterboxed and other details.

[konfusion]

here u got this should help perfectly

http://www.thedigitalbits.com/articl...ic185demo.html

[manthing]

ta for that konfusion, but that is not quite what i'm looking for.

is there an application that will look at the movie / vob and give me info like the aspect ratio?

and the sound - ie is it 2.0 mono or 2.0 surround etc.

anyone know such software?

[konfusion]

simple. if its 4:3 its letterbox if its 16:9 then its anamorphic

or use gspot

http://www.headbands.com/gspot/v26x/index.htm

all u do is download it open it up and drag and drop any vob file onto it. near the bottom right it will say what it is. like if its anamorphic it will say
dar 1.778 (16:9)
if its not it will say
1.333 (4:3)

even if its letterbox it will still read as 4:3 since its like fake widescreen they count the black bars on top and bottom.

[manthing]

good man. will run with gspot. ta

[manthing]

ok, so lets look at an example of gspot info.

this is from a vob file from pal version of dirty dozen.



the package states the film is 5.1 dolby sound and 2.20 widescreen aspect ratio.

so gspot shows the audio as 6 channels, 3/2.1.
ok, this is easy enough to know it is 5.1 surround sound.

now lets look at the video.
SAR - storage aspect ratio
PAR - pixel aspect ratio
DAR - display aspect ratio, measured in cms/inches not in pixels. DAR is SAR * PAR.

we can see that the picture is stated as 16:9 and the DAR is 1.778:1.

so which is the true aspect ratio figure?
the 2.20:1 as stated on the cover?
or 1.778:1 as stated by gspot?

or are they both right, as they are using two different measurements?

any ideas good people?

[konfusion]

i think it would actually say as they are two different aspect ratio

yours is supposed to be Super Panavision

[lordsmurf]

Everything has to be black matted to fit 4:3 or 16:9. You can have other picture ratios, but the display is always 4:3 or 16:9 for DVD. A lot of action movies -- Conan, for example -- are wider than 16:9, and the space is filled with black matte to make it 16:9 for DVD.

[manthing]

err boyos, i'm still unsure of what is what.

do i follow gspot's analysis, religiously (ie without question)?
or what?

is there a guide that spells out what gspot is reporting and what it really means?