What does "original aspect ratio" mean in bluray.com reviews?

[danielrg]

I've searched the forums and bluray.com for 15 minutes and could find an answer to this. Perhaps I'm looking in the wrong place? So I'm posting.

I'll look at bluray.com title information often. Even after reading many many of them, I still don't understand one thing about the terms on this website:

So this information is always at the top of a review:

Video
Codec: MPEG-4 AVC (23.00 Mbps)
Resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 2.38:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.20:1

---
The above is from the My Fair Lady: https://www.blu-ray.com/movies/My-Fa...Blu-ray/28103/

So which is it? Is My Fair Lady in 2.38:1, or 2.20:1? I downloaded one of the screenshots, cropped off the black bars, and divided the width by the height in pixels. This gave me 2.38:1.

So I guess My Fair Lady is 2.38:1 on Blu-Ray. So where does this "original aspect ratio" stuff come in? For most titles they are the same (aspect ratio & original aspect ratio) and for some different, and I haven't figured it out.

Is the "original aspect ratio" ALWAYS referring to how the movie was originally shot? Does that mean for My Fair Lady that they have cropped some of the image off the top and bottom to make it 2.38:1 for BluRay? Or does it mean something else?

Any clarification would be great. Thanks!

[wormraper]

Originally Posted by danielrg

I've searched the forums and bluray.com for 15 minutes and could find an answer to this. Perhaps I'm looking in the wrong place? So I'm posting.

I'll look at bluray.com title information often. Even after reading many many of them, I still don't understand one thing about the terms on this website:

So this information is always at the top of a review:

Video
Codec: MPEG-4 AVC (23.00 Mbps)
Resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 2.38:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.20:1

---
The above is from the My Fair Lady: https://www.blu-ray.com/movies/My-Fa...Blu-ray/28103/

So which is it? Is My Fair Lady in 2.38:1, or 2.20:1? I downloaded one of the screenshots, cropped off the black bars, and divided the width by the height in pixels. This gave me 2.38:1.

So I guess My Fair Lady is 2.38:1 on Blu-Ray. So where does this "original aspect ratio" stuff come in? For most titles they are the same (aspect ratio & original aspect ratio) and for some different, and I haven't figured it out.

Is the "original aspect ratio" ALWAYS referring to how the movie was originally shot? Does that mean for My Fair Lady that they have cropped some of the image off the top and bottom to make it 2.38:1 for BluRay? Or does it mean something else?

Any clarification would be great. Thanks!

original aspect ratio is referring to the theatrical aspect ratio. many times on home video it's slightly re-framed... usually minimally, and it's got a new one.

[Icemouth]

Yes the original aspect ratio always refers to....the original aspect ratio

[Scarface32]

Think of it like when movies used to display "Modified to fit your TV" the aspect ratio for that particular movie (be it on VHS or on cable) was cropped to 1.33:1

So it would display on this site as

Movie whatever
aspect ratio 1.33:1
original aspect ratio 2.40:1 (or whatever the OAR is for that particular movie)