It seems that some of the flat screen digital TV’s have a “middle aspect ratio”.
That is, it’s wider than a 4:3 but less wide than a 16:9. These are the digtial TVs of companies like Sony that aren’t HD, but are digital and are flat.
At the sony website, some of these TVs say “16:9 enhanced” and then go on to say that they handle the 16:9 signal better. But they’re clearly not 16:9.
So, what’s the Straight Dope with them. They still need to stretch/squash/zoom/black bar a regular signal, but they’re not wide enough for the High Def signal.
My WAG is that when the new digital standards come in, the aspect ratio of the digitial signals will fit these TVs. But with HD taking hold, (HD broadcasts 16:9) is this “middle aspect ratio” just going to be extinct before it ever had a chance to take hold?
When the “digital law” is enacted, what will be the aspect ratio?
This is on my mind because of this: I had a chance to watch the ball game in HD last night. It’s kind of funny. The camera work is still designed for the 4:3 – any head shots have lots of room to the sides. The pitcher and catcher in the “normal pitching shot” are stranded in the middle of the picture, the graphics (which stretch side to side on a 4:3) only go to where the 4:3 screen would stop, etc.
Yes, the picture fills the 16:9, but they don’t use it.
My CONCERN is this: if my WAG is correct and the digital standard is designed for the “middle ratio”, then the broadcasts still won’t be properly formatted for a HDTV. That’s kind of disturbing to me.
Can these TVs adjust to either format with appropriate letter boxing? If this is the case it may be a preferred compromise by some who will continue to watch a lot of 4:3 programming. I hate watching 4:3 images stretched out to fill a 16:9 screen.
A related question, hard to explain, but I’ll try. Let’s say you’ve got a true 16:9 HDTV. Now most TV stations are sending out 4:3 material, so the set shows that 4:3 image, with black bars on the sides, right?
Now, what if the TV station shows a movie in letterbox (not HD, just “regular” TV). Is there a way to make the set use the full 16:9 display area, or do you get black bars on the side, then a 4:3 image that contains the letterbox, with black bars top and bottom?
that’s not entirely what I was saying. There is a broadcast HDTV signal that fills up the 16:9. They just not using it all because the same production is being sent in 4:3 too. That is, if you had a HDTV and 4:3 side by side, you’d see that the 4:3 is just the HD signal, with the sides cropped. They don’t use the outside edges for anything. Not black, just space behind the pitcher or whatever would be in the frame.
All HDTV is broadcast in 16:9.
HOWEVER, there are some things that are broadcast in just 4:3. In that case, you need to tell your tv what to do –
put up black bars. con: black bars can “burn in” to your screen.
stretch the image uniformly. con: people look squished and distorted.
stretch the sides of the image con: lots of distortion at edges.
select a “cut out” 16:9 from the 4:3 signal. cons: cuts out top and bottom of image, severely.
That, I don’t know. Most TV stations DON’T do that. However, the option “4” above should handle that.
Of course the TV has no problem wtih a true letterbox from a DVD.
I don’t think that will be a big issue down the road. If they’re broadcasting letterbox, it’s probably going to be HD.
There is usually some type of “zoom” setting on the new 16:9 sets. It allows you to take that 4:3 picture with the top/bottom black bars and enlarge until the picture better fills the screen.
Many HD sets have various Aspect modes, which allow you to choose how to display a 4:3 signal on their 16:9 screen. On my set, there are 4 modes - one leaves the 4:3 alone, and displays with black bars on the left and right. “Zoom” expands the picture proportionally - no stretching or squeezing - so that the left and right edges of the 4:3 image meet up with the edges of the 16:9 screen, but the top & bottom of the 4:3 image are actually cut off. “Full” stretches the 4:3 image horizontally, so the left and right edges meet up, but now everything looks wider than it should be. “Justified” stretches horizontally as well, but stretches the outer edges of the image more than the center, so things in the middle of the shot don’t look much wider (though it’s fun to watch a person walk from the left edge of the screen to the right - they start fat, get normal, then get fat again).
Anyway, when a station broadcasts a 4:3 image with letterboxing, I use the Zoom mode. The top and bottom that get cutoff are only in the letterbox bars, so the image looks correctly proportioned and takes up all (for 16:9 movies) or most (for 1.85:1 and 2.35:1 movies) of the screen.
FWIW my projector (Infocus 4805) has the same thing. The aspect ratios are 4:3, 16:9, and Letterbox - letterbox being the ‘middle’ aspect ratio. Letterbox is what I most often use to view movies that are designated ‘wide screen’. I use the zoom to then fill the screen.
So I think the middle aspect ratio is used mainly for movies. Dedicated HDTV programming from what I’ve seen is in 16:9.
