I think I understand now. I had thought that "Anamorphic" meant that the TV/DVD player was automatically resizing the image for you, to make the most of whatever screen resolution you had. Does what you are saying mean, though, that if in the future, widescreen televisions change from being 16:9 to 2.35:1, "Anamorphic" would start becoming as outdated as "letterboxing" currently is for 16:9 TVs -- as in, the anamorphic discs would essentially be "letterboxed" for a 16:9 screen, therefore putting black bars on not only the top and bottom, but also the left and right of a 2.35:1 screen?

I feel like TVs/DVD players are (or at least should be) smarter than this by now -- if I can take a video file and play it through a DivX Player on my 15" (fullscreen) laptop screen, and then take the same file and play it on my friend's computer, through the DivX player on his machine, which is displaying it on his 15.4" widescreen laptop screen, and the aspect ratio remains untouched (i.e. the video file is not distorted in any way, the computer just automatically adjusts how much of the screen it takes up, and automatically adds the necessary black bars), then why can't TVs and DVD players do the same thing? A video iPod, when hooked up to different televisions, also does the same thing -- on a widescreen television, it plays the video with the appropriate aspect ratio, and does the same for a fullscreen television.

If that's the case, then shouldn't "anamorphic" video really "morph" and adapt to whatever screen it is being displayed on?

Take care,
Sojourn