06-11-2016, 07:18 PM
Cinema certainly influenced the use of 16:9 for HDTV. Cinema also used a wide range of aspect ratios from 1.33:1 to rather more than 2:1. Easy enough in a theatre with curtains to define the screen width. Cinema wide screen wasn't always anamorphic. Some methods used fewer perforations per frame, especially on 65mm/70mm film. "5 perf" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_film_formats Makes the pot pourri of TV formats look simple and modest!
Displaying material shot for one aspect ratio on another is always a problem. There isn't a good solution and probably never will be. Letterboxing, pillarboxing, pan/scan, non linear stretching all have their merits and problems.
Producing TV material that works on any device from a 4.5" smartphone to a 105" home theatre is another problem. Again no satisfactory solution.
Computer displays are a separate problem. Big desktop displays are nice to use but sometimes we don't have the space/money or we're using a phone/tablet. I use a pair of 1920x1080 24" monitors which works well enough for me. The few systems that have projected directly into the eye have not been successful. These could overcome the problem of a big display in a small space. Are you a "glasshole"?
I once heard Mike Leigh, the film director, give a wonderfully funny and totally spurious argument to "prove" that the optimum aspect ratio is 1:1.
The other day I saw a BBC demo of 4K UHD with extended dynamic range and colour gamut. The material was a short sequence of shots from the new David Attenborough series that had been re-edited for the new format. The pictures were glorious on a 60" (?) Samsung 4K TV. In a few years it's likely that this sort of quality will be routine. Mind you, it took the best part of 20 years for HDTV to go from lab to commonplace.
Displaying material shot for one aspect ratio on another is always a problem. There isn't a good solution and probably never will be. Letterboxing, pillarboxing, pan/scan, non linear stretching all have their merits and problems.
Producing TV material that works on any device from a 4.5" smartphone to a 105" home theatre is another problem. Again no satisfactory solution.
Computer displays are a separate problem. Big desktop displays are nice to use but sometimes we don't have the space/money or we're using a phone/tablet. I use a pair of 1920x1080 24" monitors which works well enough for me. The few systems that have projected directly into the eye have not been successful. These could overcome the problem of a big display in a small space. Are you a "glasshole"?
I once heard Mike Leigh, the film director, give a wonderfully funny and totally spurious argument to "prove" that the optimum aspect ratio is 1:1.
The other day I saw a BBC demo of 4K UHD with extended dynamic range and colour gamut. The material was a short sequence of shots from the new David Attenborough series that had been re-edited for the new format. The pictures were glorious on a 60" (?) Samsung 4K TV. In a few years it's likely that this sort of quality will be routine. Mind you, it took the best part of 20 years for HDTV to go from lab to commonplace.
www.borinsky.co.uk Jeffrey Borinsky www.becg.tv
