DVD movies come either pan and scan (4:3) or letterbox (widescreen) (16:9). Although pan and scan movies fill the entire TV screen, you're actually missing some of the picture. This is because pan and scan presentations are "cropped", meaning either side is cut out in order to fill the screen. Whenever you watch a videotape or TV movie that says "this film has been edited to fit your television", that's a nice way of saying they've chopped off the sides of the picture. Widescreen films, on the other hand, show the entire picture with nothing cropped. Doing so requires black bars at the top and bottom of the film. Some viewers find these black bars too distracting, but they mean you're seeing the whole film as it was originally shown in movie theatres. Thanks to the capacity of the DVD, many discs contain BOTH pan and scan and letterbox versions, so you can choose which format you prefer. With most television manufacturers producing widescreen 16:9 sets, some DVDs are being released in anamorphic widescreen. This format provides the full frame without any black bars, insuring all available lines of resolution are used on the picture. However, you must have a 16:9 set to take advantage of this. If you have a standard 4:3 screen and you want to play an anamorphic disc, you'll need to be sure your DVD player's menu is set to 4:3, otherwise, the picture won't look right.