I'm not exactly sure of the point of this article, but it's interesting, and true. Why are studios using like 16:3 aspect ratios? It's rediculous. I'm watching my movies on a 42" 1080p plasma, I can't imagine watching the same ultra-ultra-wide movie on a 4:3 CRT, YEESH!

I hate the fact that now when I watch my movies on my 50" LCD I still get black bars on the top and bottom for the movies that use wider ratios than 16:9.

Why don't movie companies just use 16:9? It's what all the HD resolutions are and it looks a lot better to use an entire screen than just a portion of it. NO ONE own anything but a 4:3 or 16:9 TV (or 16:10 Monitor) yet they release movies that are, i believe it is, 2.35:1 all the time.

It's really starting to annoying me

I don't even notice the black bars and I kind of liked them since if they were smart making a dvd, the subtitles and closed captioning would be nicely in the bottom black bar.

The point about 16:9 not needing to scale is a bit misleading. You don't need to scale 16:10 either. It's just a matter of positioning. Having a 16:10 display (1920x1200) gives you some screen space for controls, subtitles, or whatever.

And yes, I don't care for the ultra-wide movies either. 4:3 or 16:9 are reasonable approximations for a human's field of vision. 2.35:1 isn't. It's been a marketing gimmick since movies first went wide to compete against TV. Time to return to reality and start making movies in a standard, human, aspect ratio.

I agree 100% Garydale.........I wish they would adopt a standard and just go with it.
Does any one know what the conversion is 2.35.1 would be what exactly?
And when is going to for sale?i keep holding off getting a very expensive tv for the fact im not made out of money and it will have to do me for a very long time.
As far as i know tvs in the next couple of years will be like 300 lines instead of the meager 1080.......so it would make what we have now look like junk.

Sorry thats 3000....Not 300.

agree with maxor...

xsamitt:

it would be equivalent to 21.15:9 or 16:6.8

I am a bit confused by this math:

"If a user was using say, a 21-inch 4:3 screen but wanted to upgrade to a 16:9 display, they would have to purchase a 23-inch or 24-inch screen to give a similar working area."

To equal the same area as a 21-inch 4:3, one would need a 22.257-inch 16:9 display. So saying one would have to purchase a 24-inch is wrong.

The 2.35:1 aspect ratio = 16:6.81 since someone asked I did the REALLY simple math.

Garydale and xsamitt:

Aspect ratio is primarily an artistic choice, depending on the scope of the movie.

Intimate euro dramas can be 1.66, most movies are 1.85 and epics are often 2.35. Kubrick liked 1.37.

The movie isn't designed to look good on an LCD, it's designed to look good projected, first and foremost, where black bars are not a problem.

Filmmakers will standardize on an aspect ratio at the same time as painters standardize on canvas dimensions...

Bruce

As long as games support that format I'm fine but pretty soon our desktop real estate is going to be in short supply if monitor keep getting wider.

if you upgrade from 17 inch 4:3 to 22 inch 19:9 you would gain 1 inch on top of the screen and 5 inches side (wider) also you gain ~75sqare inches of work space.

going from 22 4:3 screen to 22 16:9 your would actually loose ~30sqare inches of work space and thats what they talk about in article above i believe.

I agree with the idea of not trying to limit artists, but an artist should not completely ignore technology, and aspect ratios.

If I was going to make any kind of digital artwork, the screen resolution my work is viewed is something considered. I would want to make sure that the art is viewed in a manner that I feel best represents the work... Most artists have these sorts of limitations... you don't see digital work for magazines done in just RGB, they must also consider CMYK, and know what the art will look like in a printed form.

The same should be applied in film. As artists, they should be thinking of these things, since inevitably it will effect the way people view their hard work.

Resolution determines workspace too. Also I roo think these aspect ratios are stupid. You can't concentrate on details that far out of your centre of vision, so you end up looking from side to side

I'm actually quite annoyed with the whole concept. I don't use my computer or laptop for watching movies. I use it to work. Work which usually prefers a format more like 9.5 x 11. (A standard sheet of paper) I need a taller display not a wider one. Unless the movie industry plans on getting the rest of the world to start printing all their paperwork landscape and making web sites scroll horizontally and not vertically, the whole concept is useless to me as far as computers are concerned.

A 20-21" 4:3 display (like the Samsung 214T or 204B) can display a sheet of paper if rotated vertically 1:1 (or greater). Since a 24" 16:10 monitor (like the Samsung 245T) has the same number of horizontal lines (1200) it too can be rotated vertically to display a whole sheet of paper 1:1. Many monitor manufacturers make their stands so the display can be rotated for this very reason.

I don't like 16:10 monitors. Sure, they are good for movies, but they don't have enough vertical resolution for work. I'm a programmer and therefore work mostly with text, so I turn my monitors 90 degrees into a portrait orientation. With 20" 4:3 monitor, I therefore get a 1200x1600 resolution. 1200 pixels is wide enough for most lines of text, and 1600 pixels displays a nice number of lines.
A 20" 16:10 monitor, on the on the other hand, gives me 1680x1050 pixels. 1050 pixels vertically is too few lines of text, and at least in my experience, being able to display many lines (many of which are very short horizontally) is paramount. If I turn a wide-screen monitor into portrait orientation, then I only have 1050 pixels horizontally, which is a bit narrow for some lines of code.
In general, I just feel that the 16:10 format is somewhat unfortunate. I was much happier with 4:3 monitors, but they are almost becoming hard to find nowadays.

Movies are filmed for their theatrical release not the home market, by using wider aspect ratios the films maintain an advantage for theatrical releases where the majority of the films revenue comes from. It's also used by directors to provide a more epic artistic feel to their films. 16X9 was chosen as a happy median to accomedate all aspect ratios

"
Why don't movie companies just use 16:9? It's what all the HD resolutions are and it looks a lot better to use an entire screen than just a portion of it. NO ONE own anything but a 4:3 or 16:9 TV (or 16:10 Monitor) yet they release movies that are, i believe it is, 2.35:1 all the time.

"
its a compromise. and theres no reason to nerf all artistic decisions in film just to fit your tv set. super wide screen is appropriate for epic film. shorter screens are for comedies and such. a longer screen than 16:9 would leave side bars for much material which is more annoying than horizontal bars. movies are first made for the freakin theater. think about it.

"A 20" 16:10 monitor, on the on the other hand, gives me 1680x1050 pixels. 1050 pixels vertically is too few lines of text, and at least in my experience, being able to display many lines (many of which are "

well thats why they make bigger wide screen lcds. 30" gets you massive resolution.

they should make 16:9 a law for movie making

If I buy a 50 inch tv, I want a 50 inch picture, not a 34 inch picture

make 16:9 a law

"A 20" 16:10 monitor, on the on the other hand, gives me 1680x1050 pixels. 1050 pixels vertically is too few lines of text, and at least in my experience, being able to display many lines (many of which are "

well thats why they make bigger wide screen lcds. 30" gets you massive resolution.


+__+_+_+_++++_+

wide screen displays make up for their lack of vertical space by adding more horizontal space

example

http://img300.imageshack.us/img300 [...] rd5bt5.jpg

on my wide screen display the text fits the width of the screen

Many websites only take up 800 pixels of width in the centre of the screen, so you have wasted space on either side. We need that to change before we have monitors as wide as the desk.

thats a simple fix, use a extension for firefox called stylish then just write up your own CSS script to make the width of the page dynamic so I don't really have to worry about a website not filling my screen

Does that ever mess up the layout?

nope, here is an example of it being used

http://forums.g4tv.com/thread.jspa [...] 7&tstart=0

thats a post I made showing a script i did for the g4 forums

the video shows many elements of the page missing, thats because of adblock, the g4 forums load really slow so to make pages load extremely fast, i block all of the ads and some of the ui mainly the title bar area which uses an inhuman amount of bandwidth hogging effects

the key to using a css editor it to make a script that makes key parts of the website dynamic in their size, some scripts may work on many sites and others may need to be custom made for each site, (i do custom scripts for sites i go on a lot )

when I get better with java script, I will make some greasemonkey scripts for adding extra content and features for some web pages, (mainly g4 forums because the idiots who made jive decided to add navigation to the top of the page but not the bottom like in most other forum software, the navigation is on the top and bottom so people don't have to scroll to the top to navigate to other parts of the forum

That's awesome, I'm give it a go when I have some more free time (supposed to be studying for university exams ). For your troubles:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/roble [...] et-773976/

2.35:1 aspect ratios predate the 16:9 HDTV spec by a few decades. Even 1.85:1 aspect (which most movies are filmed in) isn't 16:9; many DVD players zoom the image slightly to cover the difference.

"A 20-21" 4:3 display (like the Samsung 214T or 204B) can display a sheet of paper if rotated vertically 1:1 (or greater). Since a 24" 16:10 monitor (like the Samsung 245T) has the same number of horizontal lines (1200) it too can be rotated vertically to display a whole sheet of paper 1:1. Many monitor manufacturers make their stands so the display can be rotated for this very reason."
Unfortunately if you try doing this on laptops you would have the problem of the keyboard not fitting. Tablet PCs resolves the problem by using a stylus for input.

I've just bought an Iiyama 24" widescreen tft E2403 WS-B1 for my wife who was using a 17" laptop. The increase in real estate and screen resolution makes for a much clearer display and much more flexiblility.
1440 x 900 on the 17" to 1920 x 1200 on the new screen.
What has been said before was that on 4:3 screen like I use, a Compaq p1220 a 22" CRT which I use at 1600 x 1200 you would need a 24" wide screen to keep the height at 1200 pixels.
Or you could just get 2 smaller displays ie 20" and rotate then 90 degrees and put them side by side, 2880 x 1800