No real reason, this guy seems so annoyed by widescreen found it funny.

http://www.tv.com/television-hardware/whos-tired-of-widescreen/topic/112-234588/msgs.html

Those people have way too much time on their hands. Perhaps they're not "content creators" and feel helpless in a marketplace dictated by things they can't control, like resolution and aspect ratio. The whole history of the theatrical exhibition of films is one of warring screen formats.

But I have to agree with the guy on one thing: some subjects are proabably better without a widescreen: intimate biographies, claustrophobic documentaries about people, etc.

And don't forget documentaries about skyscrapers!

It just cracks me up because this guy serious describes widescreen as some gimmick best buy invented because its cool, little does he know 4:3 is on its way out.

er, dang whipper snappers with thier blastid wide screen

some subjects are proabably better without a widescreen: intimate biographies, claustrophobic documentaries about people, etc.

Well, plenty of intimate, claustrophobic documentary/biography films are 16:9 and beyond - no problem there. ;)

There's a vision-perception theory that we can 'fall into' a movie if the horizontal field of view is 100 degrees or wider. This was confirmed by folks at NASA whilst researching VR goggle systems. Flight and driving simulators (professional ones) did the same thing (some people got airsick just watching the one I saw at SGI).

In the UK, we've committed to 16:9 - if you're shooting for TV, 16:9 is mandatory. However, most broadcast/satellite transmission is still 4:3 for compatibility, so all 16:9 material has to conform to a '14:9 safe area', so 16:9 stuff is shown somewhere between letterbox and full-screen on a 4:3 set, with top and bottom areas being cropped on a 16:9 set. Or something.

So it's a bit of a mess, but there's no 4:3 sets for sale above the cheap 12" sets destined for children's bedrooms. I believe that once the full switch to digital TV takes place (2012?), broadcast will be 100% 16:9 FHA, with the decoder circuits handling the letterboxing for legacy 4:3 sets and ARCs making 4:3 into 14:9.

I can remember reading in a video forum people debating the need for 16:9 against 4:3 not more than about 4 years ago. Seriously these were supposed pro's who were arguing that 16:9 was more of a gimick than anything else. Interestingly these same people have gone amazingly quiet!

Regards to all


Roland

Yeah, it doesn't make sense that they will force us to go HD but yet they keep selling SD tv's.... I like the way the UK is doing things.

Im not gonna lie, Im a bitter videographer! I love the fact that not everyone has HD, gives me a leg up on everyone else. But then if everything 1080i I wouldnt have to down converted or crop my work.

Im not gonna lie, Im a bitter videographer! I love the fact that not everyone has HD, gives me a leg up on everyone else. But then if everything 1080i I wouldnt have to down converted or crop my work.

I was speaking strickly from a "the FCC is designed to protect the people" standpoint.

Larry's problem is that he has No peripheral vision and no one ever told him. Consider this: He sees the world like he has a brown paper bag over his head with a small pencil hold punched in it. In that case, yes, a 50 inch widescreen tv would mean he would have to look all over the place to put the full image together.

either that or Larry is just really -well somethings really wrong with his brain.

How about Narrow Screen.

I had a book about the CN Tower in Toronto.

It was 4 inches wide and 20 inches high, a TV to show this would need to be ultra narrow screen.

why not just turn your wide screen on end, make it 9 x 16, then you could show skyscrappers and such.

Guys,
I bought my dvx100 recently, and have never thought of shooting anything other than 4:3 for my family events. Haven't seen any success with wide (or "panoramic") photo cameras, my dSLR is 4:3 too (and they won't change). My screens are all 4:3 too, both for PC and HT.

I am not against 16:9, but the vertical size has to be high enough, otherwise the eye is left wanting the rest of the image. So 16:9 is fine for cinema, but for the small screens at home, 16:9 is inappropriate.

Ideally, the image would be almost round, like a lens or our eyes... why view life through a 16:9 band?

It's rather unfortunate that the mass market has adopted 16:9 for the wrong reasons (to be more compatible with large screen cinema), and ignored the right reasons (4:3 is more comfortable on domestic small screens).

It's rather unfortunate that the mass market has adopted 16:9 for the wrong reasons (to be more compatible with large screen cinema), and ignored the right reasons (4:3 is more comfortable on domestic small screens).

Widescreen viewing looks fine to me, and I look forward to the day that most acquisition, delivery and new TV sets are in this aspect ratio. What's really unfortunate is that we currently have a mix of aspect ratios on US broadcast TV, sometimes within the same program!

If you have customers with widescreen TVs it's time to start thinking about producing in widescreen format, since they paid a lot of money for those TV sets. 4:3 acquisition is obsolete.

anyone seen: "Steven Segal's Widescreen 2000" skit on madtv?

I have never laughed so hard.

It's basically about 4 inches high and the full width of your set.

He runs from room to room (you see them all in a static shot) kickin butt.
The entire area looks almost the length of a warehouse.

funny stuff.

I remember when widescreen was still very new back in the 80's (or at least to me it was). My grandmother (and my mother i think) use to say "I don't liek it, it cuts off the top of the picture", which i guess made sense at the time. After all, acdemy standered was 4:3 up untill tv came out, so thats what...50 or so years of film.