Talk:Widescreen

===This information is not in the article so it can be verified first===

I don't know about continental Europe, but in the UK, analogue television is broadcast in the 14:9 format. All programmes are now filmed in 16:9, and as a compromise the image is shrunk in the 16:9 aspect by 10%. The excess at either side is then cropped to fit on a 4:3 screen, producing the PAN SCAN image described in this article. This is better than letterbox, because there is more vertical height to the image, however some of the image is lost at the sides.

Due to this, you'll find on a widescreen television reception (which requires a digital receiver and suitable television) that station logos and text appear to float near the middle of the screen, and not at the edge. This is so they are still visible when cropped to 14:9.

One drawback of this method, which I have noticed on my television recently, is burn in. As there are black bars permenantly at the top and bottom of the display (even for advertisments!) the phosphor on the screen is not used here, so when a programme is broadcast in 4:3, it has small bands top and bottom of the screen where the image is brighter. So you can blame the television companies for damaging your television! (In particular, the BBC, as they've been doing this the longest.)

All digital broadcasts in the UK are widescreen now, horizontally squeezed into the 4:3 format for broadcasting just as a DVD is squeezed. The television then stretches this image to fill the 16:9 ratio, which makes the image look normal.

Unfortunately, we still have yet to gain the benefits of HDTV. I know Sky are planning to start limited HDTV broadcasting either later this year or next year, and the BBC have been experimenting with HDTV programming for years. I even saw a mobile BBC broadcasting van with 'High Definition' written on the side near the London Colleseum a few months ago. However, to recieve these programmes you need a HDTV compatible television, of which none are sold on the UK market. Does anyone know why HDTV hasn't been adopted in Europe yet?

Anamorphic

The information in this article differs from that in anamorphic. I suppose whether an image is compressed horizontally or expanded vertically could be considered a matter of perspective, but certainly whether the quality is increased or decreased by the process should be straightforward.

35mm film stock vs. Projected widescreen

This article switches from referring to widescreen as a function of the film stock to that of the projected image (in the Methodologies section). These are two quite different ways of talking about widescreen and the distinction should be made clear. My suggestion would be to stick with widescreen as it is projected throughout the article. --Jeremy Butler 11:51, 29 August 2005 (UTC)

General Clean-Up

I did my best to clean up this article, but there are still problems with it. I think the "Comparison of Flat, Anamorphic, Super 35, and Six-perf. 35 systems" section is way too technical (without explaining a lot of its terms) and should be eliminated entirely. --Jeremy Butler 13:13, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Neutral point of view

Please keep in mind that this article must maintain a neutral point of view. That is, arguments for or against widescreen should not be made here. --Jeremy Butler 13:06, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

NPOV means that pros and cons are both objectively presented.--Patrick 18:52, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

Right. And some folks editing this article have not objectively presented pros/cons. Rather, they've argued persuasively for or against widescreen. --Jeremy Butler 19:02, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

IMO the "criticism" part of the article feels a bit misleading. It talks as if all that matters is maximizing screen area (with regard to diagonal inches). While it may be true that some widescreen advocates erroneously claim that "widescreen gives more area" (for your money or for your diagonal inches or whatever), that's not really the point of widescreen. The point in widescreen is compositionality.

The maximal area for a certain diagonal length would be got with a square. However, from an image compositional point of view a square is almost the worst possible shape. You very seldom see eg. any paintings or photographs which are square (this has probably something to do with golden ratios and other psychological things). A widescreen image, however, gives a much more pleasing composition to most images, especially to such images as outdoor landscapes, but also indoor scenes benefit from it. This is because most things in our world are distributed horizontally, seldom vertically (an exception of a vertically-distributed thing would be a skyscraper, but usually you don't make a movie where 90% of the time you just show one single skyscraper...).

So looking too much at screen area is missing the point. Perhaps that criticism part could be reworded somehow so that it would not be as misleading (and also counter-arguments regarding compositionality vs. screen area could be added).

-- Juha Nieminen

I agree with Juha and I've reworded the criticism section to better reflect a NPOV. I also reinstated a diagram that shows why widescreen is wider. I hope Juha or someone else will feel free to further edit the criticism section to add some aesthetic perspective on the issue of screen real estate. --Jeremy Butler 13:33, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

The "Criticism of Widescreen" part of the article has no place at all in here in my opinion. It doesn't help the reader understand what widescreen is in the slightest. It also makes vague and inaccurate assertions about what the indefinable category of "critics of widescreen" may or may not believe. But the very worst thing about it is that the one critical "fact" it claims about widescreen (that human vision is 190x135 in terms of degrees) is quite simply incorrect. Average human vision is more like 9:5. Don't believe me? check Wikipedia: Visual field -Brian Fisher 3:46, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

History of widescreen film

This article needs material on the chronology of widescreen in the cinema (Abel Gance, The Robe, etc.) with dates and stuff. I don't have the info to hand myself but maybe someone else does? The Singing Badger 19:49, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

70mm?

Is it worth discussing 70mm films here? Am I mistaken, or does the size of the film effect it's aspect ratio, and thus it's widescreen apperance? Perhaps a listting of pros and cons in the section with flat, anamorphic, and super 35?

External links

The link to the Pub Widescreen Campaign seems to be constantly removed by a certain individual without explanation. The campaign page appears to be full of information, and seems no different to the Widescreen Advocacy page in terms of (N)POV. The question ought to be asked now: Why?

External links should be kept to a minimum, and should add something to the subject which other links haven't already. Wikipedia is not a collection of links, and a widescreen article does not automatically give license to link to a page written for pub owners, even if it is complaining about their poor widescreen skills. Girolamo Savonarola 11:56, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

no widescreen in japan, of all places?

I noticed the new nintendo wii console does not support hd input or dolby support sound. I was also shocked to see that 16:9 support is added for american and european markets. Surely in japan, the home of technology they would have lots of widescreen tvs? Does japan prefer 4:3 over 16:9 or is something else going on?

This might be a better question for the Nintendo Wii talk page. Girolamo Savonarola 12:01, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

I used the Wii purely as an example of one of the many occurances

What's up with the laptops these days?

Nowadays, when I look at the websites of computer companies, the only models they sell are all widescreen! What's up with that? Why must they assume every laptop user has to use the laptop to watch films?

My cousin bought the Dell XPS 1710, and it has a 17.4 inch screen, but guess what? The screen height is the same as that of my 15 inch laptop! What is there to gain?--Kylohk 13:42, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Less or more?

I have noticed that when people talk about widescreen monitors, they always talk about how it have extra screen space at the sides. They never say it has less screen space at the top and bottom. Which monitor sounds best - the one with more space at the sides, or the one with less space at the top and bottom? :-)

Widescreen TV and computer displays

Grammar and punctuation is sub-par within this section. Additionally, the section contains claims may be true, (television is usually broadcast in 4:3 standard, etc.) but lacks proper citations for claims. Needs clean up and verified claims. Thank you! --Nishbatsha 12:06, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Criticism of Widescreen

This entire section is heavily biased, not referenced, and generally just poorly written. I move for it to either be rewritten completely or just lopped off. April 11 2007

Changes...

Aside from expanding, I've made several changes out of clarification's sake, including:

• Reconstruction of the format list and adding further info. Numbers are unclear and don't allow for multiple paragraphs, which the list needs. Bold/Italic works best, in my opinion.

• Cut out the line about "Full aperture can make dailies difficult to properly project." Any professional who is projecting dailies knows what they're doing and will have no trouble switching lenses and apertures to the director of photography's specifications.

• I've edited the "criticism" paragraphs far more carefully, expressing the rhyme and reason for each argument. Clearly, the paragraph was written by someone with less technical know-how and more of a vendetta against widescreen, which is pretty foolish.

I hope these changes you will find satisfactory.

-The Photoplayer 05:05, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Comparison section removed

It's unsouced and some information is flat out wrong, i.e. 1.85 is incompatible with 70mm blow-ups.

human vision

I have deleted the section " Comparison to human vision "

The section contained the text

"The normal limits of human vision are not rectangular, yet the Naked eye field of view estimates simultaneous visual perception in an area of about 130° × 160° -- the aspect ratio closer to classic 4:3."

First, the sentence "the aspect ration closer to classic 4:3" is wrong. The aspect ration closer to 4:3 is 4:3. Among the aspect rations listed in the section "Previous and presently used aspect ratios", the one closer to 4:3 after 4:3 itself is 1.37:1.

Then, how in the Earth can 160 x 130 be close to 4:3? Can someone explain it to me?

If a TV screen occupied 160 degrees of your vision horizontally and 130 vertically, the aspect ratio would be tan(160/2)/tan(130/2)=2.6:1, which is far from 4:3. Jorge Peixoto 21:01, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Computer game comparison pictures.

Edited the comparison footnote to reflect the advantage for widescreen users in the screenshots was due to software settings and not the aspect ratio. Pleasetry 02:24, 26 August 2007 (UTC)