I went out & got "Bruce Almighty" & it says widescreen right on the disc but it's a fullscreen movie, why is this

My wife got "Clueless" & it say's anamorphic widescreen but it is also fullscreen? am I missing something?

(1) why do these movies say widescreen but are fullscreen on my tv & computer?

(2) is there a difference between anamophic widescreen & regular widescreen?

Do not mistaken widescreen for anamorphic
The DVD can be fullscreen but anamorphic (ie its A/R is 1.77 with no border and you MUST apply a anamorphic transform on it to restore the correct A/R else you have "coneheads").

Widescreen is a word used to determiinate the shape of the screen of a TV (square for 4:3, widescreen for 16:9).
The picture on the DVD is called "anamorphic" or letterboxed. The first ones are designed to be displayed on widescreen tv, the later are for 4:3 screens.

still doesnt explain why i got 2 movies sitting here, 1 saying widscreen version & the other saying anamorphic widescreen ...
but when i play'em on the computer or my stand alone dvd player they are both full screen.
no black borders at all on top or bottom of screen

Are they cone-headed on the PC or not ?
If yes THEN they both are 1.77 anamorphic. That's all
(I guess they are not on your TV because it is a widescreen if I understood well).

The only error is to use "widescreen" to describe the first DVD as normally the official term should be "anamorphic 16:9". To tell "anamorphic widescreen" is a little bit more correct.

"anamorphic" is a geometrical transfomation that allow to put a 1.77 image (16:9) into a 1.33 one (4:3).
That is normal then to have it fullscreen on both screens. But on the 4:3 one, the image is distorted.

I'm alittle confused, 1 says (1.85:1 Anamorphic widescreen) but is fullscreen on my 4:3 tv & on my computer.

second 1 says
(Brought to you in widescreen format. The black bars at the top & bottom of screen are normal)

But it does'nt have any black bars on my 4:3 tv or the computer.

Do these movies play in 4:3 on regular tv's & then automaticly turn into widescreen when played on a widescreen tv ?

I've played other widescreen movies on my tv & they have the black bars on top & bottom, why dont these?

My dvd player is set to "Auto detect screen frmat"

If really 1.85, you should have a very little border (16px) on the PC but not on the TV as they is often an automatic zoom that remove that border.
Now, it arrives that the 1.85 (cinema A/R) is not really respected on the DVD and they are in fact already "zoomed" to 1.77, making that little border disapear.

But as I said, on your PC the picture should be fullscreen BUT cone-headed.

Yes, these are the little 16px border I'm speaking just above. But a lot of TV won't display them, as explained above also

You have a 4:3 tv or a 16:9 one ? The border can be eaten by the overscan. But on the PC you should see it. But with which player are you watching the DVD on your PC ?

And please, answer to this : ARE THE PICTURE CONE-HEADED OR NOT ?

Not, except is you set you standalone one "4:3 PS". But then that is the standalone that turn it (badly) in 4:3 by cutting the right/left sides!

Other movies were also 1.85 or 2.35 ? On 2.35 border is 72px and not 16 ! It's difficult to remove it without distort all the picture and that is probably the diff

NEVER do that !

For now I have a 4:3 tv (getting widescreen soon)
I use power DVD 4.0 on the computer (keep aspect ratio is unchecked)
But no I dont see any coneheadedness tho

They are difficult to see in case of 1.77 picture. You can notice it mainly on the opening logo of the studio is there is something supposed to be a circle there! You will see an elipse.

The best to do is to read the DVD with DVDPatcher. It will tell you if your vobs are anamorphic (it will displays "16:9") or not (displayed as "4:3").