what res do dvd's playback at?

[SiXXGuNNZ]

PAL and NTSC anamorphic and non-anamorphic

from power dvd I assume it is 960x536 NTSC ana/16:9, 720x536 NTSC non-ana/4:3

I put in "A Fistful of Dynamite" R2 PAL, and it played at 768x432 PAL ana/16:9

I then played a PAL non-ana/4:3, it played back at 720x576

I am just wondering if power dvd is not displaying the correct resize, I searched google and found no info on what they pictures actually resize to during playback.

anybody got a link with the info or know the answers?

[Dimmer]

Actual picture for NTSC for example is always stored on DVD at 720x480.

When played on a computer, fullscreen video is displayed at 720x540.
720:540 = 4:3

Widescreen DVD is played at 960x540.
960:540 = 16:9

Vertical stretching from 480 to 540 is being done to compensate the fact that TV screen pixels are rectangular while computer monitors have square pixels. Horizontal stretching from 720 to 960 is triggered by anamorphic flag on DVD.

In PowerDVD, there are two options. Keep Aspect Ratio preserves the anamorphic flag, and if turned off removes horizontal stretching so the anamorphic video plays back at 720x540 and looks squeezed. In screen capture settings, you can set Captured Aspect Ratio to Original video source (720x480) or to Current screen size (720/960x540). This only affects the resolution of the screenshots.

Similar rules apply to PAL.

[SiXXGuNNZ]

thanks dimmer, I appreciate your help :)