– Process of transferring a movie or other source material to videocassette, DVD, or broadcast so that it fits the 4:3 aspect ratio of most current TVs. This results in a significant amount of lost picture information, particularly in the width of the image, and sometimes involves panning unnaturally across the frame. At the beginning of a movie, there is often a disclaimer about the movie having been “…formatted to fit your TV.” That means it’s been converted to pan-and-scan. See also anamorphic.