Browse in Movies
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- Notstraight offers a selection of DVDs that are the best for your home entertainment system.
- DVDs are formatted to the standard used in the country of it's origin.
- In Canada and USA, the NTSC [National Television Standards Committee] format is used.
- All DVDs that we sell are NTSC formatted and cannot be played in DVD players formatted to the PAL [Phase Alternating Line] or SECAM [Sequential Color with Memory] formats.
- International customers can only view our DVDs if their DVD player is NTSC compatible.
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- Regional coding is a way to limit a disc from playing in some DVD players of certain regions of the world. This means that all DVDs manufactured in Canada and USA are formatted to play in Region 1.
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A disc that is coded in region 1 (North America) cannot be played by a DVD player that is coded in region 2-6. This is done so that many films aren't brought out in DVD before they are brought out in theaters, since in many countries, the release date in theaters of a movie can sometimes actually come after the release date of the DVD.
- If you live outside North America, you will want to make sure your DVD player is Region 1 compatible or the DVD you're purchasing is a Region 0, also known as "No Region" or "Region All" .
Region 0: Zone free
Region 1: Canada, United States, U.S. Territories
Region 2: Japan, Europe, South Africa and the Middle East
Region 3: Southeast Asia and East Asia
Region 4: Australia, New Zealand, Pacific Islands, Mexico, Central America, the Caribbean and South America
Region 5: Eastern Europe, Indian subcontinent, Africa [excluding South Africa], North Korea and Mongolia
Region 6: China |
- The movie ratings system is a voluntary system operated by the MPAA [Motion Picture Association of America] and NATO [the National Association of Theater Owners].
- Ratings for movies are intended to provide a guide line for the viewer when choosing the content areas considered in the decision-making process.
Movie Rating:
[G] General Audience - Suitable for all ages.
[PG] Parental Guidance Suggested - Some material may not be suitable for children
[PG-13] Parents Strongly Cautioned - Some material may not be suitable for children under age 13
[R] Restricted - Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian
[NC-17] - No one 17 and under admitted
[Unrated] Not Rated - Movie was not submitted to MPAA for rating
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- Aspect Ratio
Aspect Ratio is used to describe the viewable area of most standard televisions and monitors. The aspect ratio is the viewable width divided by its height, the height always being 1.
You may find that certain letterboxed movies deviate from these formats,
as there are many in use, but you can be certain that no matter what aspect
ratio is being used, if you are viewing a letterboxed edition, you are
seeing what the filmmakers intend for you to see.
- Widescreen or Letterbox:
We like to think of the movie theatre as the "big screen", but really it is the "wide screen". Since 1952, almost every motion picture released worldwide has been produced in one of many widescreen formats. As a result, a compromise must be reached when transferring widescreen images to the square confines of your television set.
Widescreen or Letterbox format videotapes, DVDs and laserdiscs present the entire filmed image as it was originally presented theatrically. Black bars are present on the screen, which is necessary to preserve the wide image in between. Some people find these black bars annoying, however over time you will likely get used to them, and they will no longer prove to be a distraction. The term "letterbox" itself derives from the British term for the mail slot in your door, which resembles in width the look of extreme widescreen movies (a long thin rectangle).
- Full Screen or Pan & Scan:
Non-widescreen videos, known as Full Screen or Pan & Scan usually crops off picture information from the sides to conform the image to the television screen. As a rule, if you want to see what the director intended, you choose the letterbox version, and make do with the reduction in overall image size. If a movie on our site is not listed as widescreen, then it can be assumed that the movie has been formatted in the Pan & Scan or full-frame manner. However if the film was produced prior to 1952, then you can safely assume that it was originally photographed in the same screen shape as your television, and therefore you are seeing what was originally intended. In the movie search, look under the format column to see if the movie you want is available in widescreen.
- Anamorphic Widescreen:
Most DVDs include both full-frame
and widescreen versions for the viewer to choose from. Now that widescreen
televisions are becoming more prevalent, the flexibility of DVD's digital
technology is being used to produce widescreen versions which are not
letterboxed but rather specially formatted to fit widescreen televisions,
thereby producing an image 33% sharper than standard DVD.
Widescreen
televisions are 33% wider than regular televisions.
The term "anamorphic" is used to describe the fact that an image
wider than a square has been squeezed into a square frame (a television
screen, for example). This term is applied to films made
in extreme widescreen formats. However, anamorphic as it applies to DVD
is not related in any way to how a movie is originally photographed. Any
film which has been made in an aspect ratio of 1.78 or wider can be anamorphically
mastered to DVD, because this is the aspect ratio of widescreen televisions.
Not all DVDs which are mastered in this format will mention it on the
box, but those that do refer to this as "16X9 enhanced" or "enhanced
for widescreen televisions".
When you letterbox a movie, you waste valuable screen space by taking
up part of the screen with those black bars. But, if you could squeeze
the sides of the picture in, you wouldn't have to letterbox the picture
if there was a way to unsqueeze the picture later. You can do this with
widescreen televisions.
An anamorphic DVD squeezes the picture in on the sides, making it look
tall and squished. When this is done to movies wider than 1.78, small
black bars still appear above and below the image, but this is necessary
and because DVD is a fully digital format, you still get all the benefits
of anamorphic even with wider movies. If you have a widescreen television,
you can unsqueeze this image to make it look normal on your screen. Because
little or none of the picture is taken up by black bars, more of the screen
is being used to display the image and as a result the sharpness and detail
increases by approximately 33%. If you don't have a widescreen television,
your DVD player will automatically convert the image into a letterboxed
picture, but in this case the black bars will be generated by the DVD
player itself, meaning that all the available resolution will be used
to display the movie image and not the black bars.
Therefore, no matter what kind of television you have, you can view both
anamorphic and non-anamorphic DVDs with ease.
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LGBT Films
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