I know that 16:9 is for wide screen. But I can never tell any difference with either of these. I have a 40" HDTV. And on both of these aspect ratios, there's always words cut off on the top and/or bottom of my tv screen when I watch my burned DVDs. I have to put my tv on normal screen size (where the left and right of screen is black) in order to view my burned DVDs with nothing cut off. I just can't figure out what changing the aspect ratio does?