pan and scan
pan and scan adjective: formatted to fit within proportions of a 1.33:1 or 1.78:1 aspect ratio television screen, with sides of the original widescreen image (especially 2.35:1 aspect ratio) cropped off.
Adjective
pan and scan (not comparable)
- Formatted to fit within proportions of a 1.33:1 or 1.78:1 aspect ratio television screen, with sides of the original widescreen image (especially 2.35:1 aspect ratio) cropped off.
- Paul disdained pan and scan DVD releases, always holding out for the widescreen special editions.
Noun
pan and scan (countable and uncountable, plural pan and scans)
- The method or practice of adjusting widescreen film images, especially 2.35:1 or 2.39:1 aspect ratio, so that they can be shown within the proportions of a 1.33:1 or 1.78:1 aspect ratio television screen, by cropping off sides of the original widescreen image, as opposed to letterboxing.
- Alicia hated the person who had invented pan and scan, since the heightened panning effect aggravated her nausea when watching action movies.
- A movie recording employing this technology.
- In the discount bin by the door sat a pile of pan and scans, mostly comedies, that no one would touch.
Verb
pan and scan (third-person singular simple present pans and scans, present participle panning and scanning, simple past and past participle panned and scanned)
- To adjust widescreen film images so that they can be shown with standard television aspect ratios by cropping the original image, i.e. using pan and scan methods.
- To crop out (a character or object) when performing the pan and scan process, resulting in the deletion of a character or object.
- In the full-screen version of Star Wars Episode II, only Anakin and Obi-Wan appear in the scene because Padmé was panned and scanned out.
Forms of pan and scan
| Adjective | |
|---|---|
| alternative form | pan-and-scan |
| Noun | |
| plural | pan and scans |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | pans and scans |
| present participle | panning and scanning |
| past participle | panned and scanned |
| past | panned and scanned |
Questions about pan and scan
- What does pan and scan mean?
- Pan and scan means formatted to fit within proportions of a 1.33:1 or 1.78:1 aspect ratio television screen, with sides of the original widescreen image (especially 2.35:1 aspect ratio) cropped off.
- What part of speech is pan and scan?
- Pan and scan can be an adjective, a noun or a verb.
Words near pan and scan in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: pan and scan (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Cite this entry: “pan and scan.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/pan_and_scan. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.