What is the difference between a wide screen and full screen DVD?

I was about to buy a movie DVD and noticed that they offered 2 that were the same in all aspects except one was WIDE SCREEN and the other FULL SCREEN

The difference between widescreen and fullscreen is the aspect ratio. Depending on how old the movie is, it may have been filmed by either a square ( 4x3 or 1.33:1) or widescreen ( 16x9 or 1.78:1) camera lens. Most newer movies are shot with widescreen cameras. As a result, if you watch the movie in its original aspect ratio ( 16x9 ) on a square tv, you will see black bars at the top and bottom of your screen. This may be annoying but you are seeing the entire film that the director shot. Fullscreen versions of widescreen filmed movies remove part of the movie in one of two ways. They either crop the movie by cutting off the sides or pan and scan back and forth between action on both sides of the filmstrip. Many fullscreen editions use both methods. Even widescreen tvs sometimes display black bars if the movie was shot with a wider lens than the 16x9 ratio. The back of a dvd will tell you the ratio. Here's what they mean. 1.33:1 is square fullscreen. 1.78:1 is perfect 16x9 widescreen. 1.85:1 is theatrically released film that will display a very small letterbox at the top and bottom of even a widescreen tv. 2.40:1 is "super" widescreen and will show normal black bars on widescreen tvs and double thick bars on square tvs. Many newer dramas and epics use this 2.40:1 ratio. Widescreen is the whole movie and many tvs have a zoom mode to remove the bars. Fullscreen just isn't the whole movie you would have seen at the theater. Full screen fills a regular TV screen, wide screen leaves bands on top and at the bottom. It is the wider picture (like Cinemascope). With wide screen you can see everything better Fullscreen covers the entire TV screen (4:3 ratio image). It will crop off the sides of the film, however, as originally shot. The widescreen is shown how the film is shot...in letterbox format (16:1 ratio). This will show the entire film, not cutting off any edges, but it will also show black bands at the top and bottom of the TV screen. If you have a Plasma or LCD TV, chances are the screen format is letterbox or 16:1, so the widescreen is the best format to get. oyu should not worry because thay r mostly alike but thay r a diffrent kind of view Wide-screen is the movie shown in the same format or aspect ratio as shown in your local movie theater.

Full screen is the movie that has been cut or cropped to fit inside your television screen, it is not the same format or aspect ratio as your movie theater. It will fill your television screen, but on wide angle shots you you miss some action or portion of what the director intended you to see.

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