Agree 100%
I have actually made my parents return movies if they are the "full screen" version and I know there is a widescreen version available. Even though it is full screen (4:3, that is), it is not the full frame of the film.
I think people like shooting in 16:9 because it looks more like a movie, and because it actually does give you more field of view (true widescreen, that is. Not the black bars cropping off the image.) I have a DVC30 that has sudo-widescreen. It squeezes the image to be 16:9, but doesn't have a true 16:9 CCD. Resolution is lost, but it looks so much more like a movie than 4:3 mode.

What drives me nuts is seeing distorted images - either stretched with short fat figures or squashed with impossibly tall actors. In stores like Comet in the UK there can be dozens of screens showing the same images off air or on demo disc and sometimes few if any are correct. The staff seem to think that filling the screen is all that matters. To me its like playing music out of tune. I can't believe that so few people seem to notice the incorrect aspect ratios.

Okay, so I have a Sharp Aquos 20" TV and my DVD's that I shot 4:3 take up the whole screen. I popped in some professional DVD's I had at my fingertips. the first one, a documentary called Power Trip, took up the whole screen, to all corners. The next one I grabbed, was a concert video ("Cyndi Lauper Live... At Last") and the menu took up the full screen but the concert footage had black on top and bottom. I guess we don't have the right kind of TV. I know that usually TV broadcasting takes up my whole screen, but some movies have bars and the IFC channel always seems to have letterboxing! LOL

So, I'm a student and I have had opportunities to shoot HD but my school was having problems with capturing so the times I borrowed the HD cam, I just shot the higher res SD at 4:3 which was familiar to me. Mostly now I know I will only be borrowing SD cams to use (PD 150 or 170) in the near future, so should I shoot 16:9 from now on?

Your TV is doing it's job. It's adjusting the aspect ratio to fit on your TV. If it wasn't doing it's job, it would be displaying a "stretched" image of the 16:9 which would fill up the screen corner to corner, but it would look, well...like crap.

a 4:3 image on a 4:3 tv looks great, a 16:9 image stretched on a 4:3 tv looks bad. Trust me, you would prefer the black bars on top and bottom.

Funny, I thought it was a widescreen TV when we bought (albeit a smallish one). It's definitely wider than our old TV, proportionately.

Well it shouldn't be any wider unless it actually is widescreen. The 4:3 aspect is a standard of NTSC TV. Maybe speakers on the side make it appear to be wider? Either it's 16:9 or it's 4:3, I haven't seen any TVs with Stanley Kubrick ratios (2001: A Space Odyssey anyone?)

Sharp makes an EDTV, SD and HDTV Aquos TV. If you got the HDTV one, then you're 16:9, if you got the EDTV(Enhanced Definition) or the SD, then you're still 4:3

The EDTV just means it's capable of progressive digital over-the-air programming.

Yeah, I just looked it up and it's EDTV. I didn't think it had to be HD to be widescreen. I guess it was the side speakers and the flatness that made me think it was wider than our old, gigantic regular TV. I promised my husband we'll get an HDTV next time.

So, in preparation for when I shoot again (I just use mini-DV), I guess I'll go 16:9 from now on... ?

Thanks everyone, this has been insightful.

EDTV's can be 16:9, I have one.

IMHO 4:3 is horrible. I only have one 4:3 TV left in my house and everytime it's on, I shudder. It feels like the picture is missing something, well it IS, the sides hah ahaahha...Our eyes are meant to see so much more periphery and I'm elated that 16:9 displays are finally starting to take over.

Digital b'casts will not be the end of 4x3 viewing. 4x3 is part of the ATSC spec and there is a ton (about 60-70yrs worth) of 4x3 TV programing that isn't just going to be trashed.

You do if you watch a movie that's intended aspect ratio was 4x3 (which was most of them before filmmakers switched to widescreen because they felt threatened by TV penetration). Also, many (most?) movies are shot full frame and matted later to block off the top and bottom of the image.


-A

It sounds like your general issue is that you have to watch a smaller image when using a 4:3 display. A true 16:9 display won't have the problem.

Presumably, you prefer the widescreen appearance at the cinema?

I was just referring to the Sharp Aquos Line of 20" EDTVs. I don't know of a 20" 16:9 EDTV, but I might be wrong. But you're right, I should have been more specific.

In a movie theater, the screen is large enough where I don't notice what the ratio is. Of course, the bigger the better - that's why I love the Ziegfeld in NYC. But in a dark theater, all I see is the image on the screen, so I guess I don't think about it. But at home, I can see how the image is letterboxed. I have IFC on right now (they're showing 'Solaris' from 1972 - which I wouldn't think would be letterboxed this way), and the picture is like a narrow band from left to right with LOTS of black, on top and bottom (mostly on the bottom). If I added up the black space, it takes up almost as much room on the TV as the picture. In fact, I'll take a tape measure right now...

My flat screen is 16 7/8" wide and 11 3/4" high. The picture of this movie goes the width of the screen but is only 7" high. So you can imagine how small the images appear. It looks like they did mask top and bottom because subtitles are coming up over the black, below the picture. Generally, it's about 1 3/4 to 2" of black on top and bottom when letterboxed.

Some movies are 2.35:1 (almost 21:9) so when the bars are added so that you can see the full width, it looks very small on a 4:3 display.

I once meant to patent an idea: anamorphic glasses! They would stretch everything horizontally to make 4:3 displays appear 16:9. But 16:9 screens are finally (in the US - been available in Europe for years) becoming the standard. Plus, I've put my idea in the public domain now!

I don't know the exact magic that makes the TV decide what format to display your source in. I do know that broadcasters (including cable TV providers) do not always implement the magic properly.

For example, our local PBS station will generally make my TV display properly. On some shows, I'll get double bars: I'll get the top and bottom (letterbox) PLUS the left and right. In such a case, I'll manually use the WIDE and PICTURE buttons on the TV remote to get something close to correct.

Also, 4:3 (aka 1.33) and 16:9 (aka 1.78) are not the only aspect ratios! Heck, 1.78 isn't a real (film) aspect ratio! Someone mentioned 2001, that was supposed to be shown in 2.20 which is.... not 16:9.