Hmmm does anyone know why 16:9 got the new format for screens of the future instead of 16:10? Is this due to the physical eye twinkle of humans?
From a broadcasting engineer’s list:
Anyhow, between the EC-35 and the Panacam 30 years ago and the current crop
of “just like film” cameras, SMPTE tried to wring order from chaos. They
created a working group on high-definition electronic production, and the group
first tackled that most basic of issues, where to meet. After that, they tackled
the second most basic of issues, the shape of the pictures.
This much they knew: Cinematographers sometimes shoot for a 4:3 TV screen.
They sometimes shoot for a roughly 2.4:1 CinemaScope-shaped theatrical screen
(at the time it was called 2.35:1). They sometimes shoot for shapes in between.
Only in extraordinary circumstances do they shoot for any wider or narrower
shapes.
The E of SMPTE stands for engineers. So the engineers tackled an engineering
problem. What is the shape that will have minimum area loss for any shape
between 4:3 and 2.35:1? The answer is roughly 1.77:1, pretty close to 16:9.
Like it so far? There’s more. 16:9 is close to the linear (1.76:1) and
geometric (1.75:1) means of the world’s most popular theatrical projection aspect
ratios (1.66:1 and 1.85:1). It’s close to a Motion Picture Association-proposed
1.5x anamorphic projection system (1.76:1). It nicely matches a
three-perforation length frame of 35mm film. It’s close to an old 1.75:1 projection
standard. It allows a large 4:3 image to be displayed with three smaller ones stacked
next to it. It works with digital component sampling rates and color
sub-sampling. It allows square-sampled HDTV with 1920 active pixels per line to fit in
common memory sizes. It allows dual-aspect-ratio memory readouts at 4fsc and
3fsc sampling rates. It’s 4:3 x 4/3 (and another 4/3 factor brings it up to
CinemaScope).
Hmmm, i’ll have to test some things but just from watching at the format i think i prefer 16:10 more. Thanks for your explanations.
DocSWAP – thank you, very educational.
I hadn’t known that story either – a classic example of trying to create a new standard with some modicum of backward compatibility plus forward features. Very, very hard, especially in the TV world, where NTSC has been derided as “Never The Same Color”