When DVD technology arrived in the late 90′s, there was a giant boost in the popularity of widescreen video. All of a sudden the average home viewer was enjoying widescreen video for the very first time and those iconic black bars on the top and bottoms of the screen arrived. TV shows, music videos, and commercials all plopped down some black bars to show off how hip they were. The TV viewing world was excited about widescreen, and were readying themselves ready for what was still to come, widescreen TVs… Or were they?
Before we jump in, here’s a bit of background on aspect ratios for the kids:
Aspect ratio: An aspect ratio is a numerical way of comparing an object’s width to its height. A perfect square would be 1:1 (sometimes written 1X1), translating to 1 unit of measurement wide by one unit of measurement tall. For example, think of that cheesy peel and stick laminate floor tile; it is 1ft x 1 ft. Thus, the floor tile’s aspect ratio is 1:1. Another example would be a floor tile that is 2ft x 1 ft; its aspect ratio would be 2:1, meaning it is 2 units of measurement wide by one unit of measurement tall.
(There are several types of aspect ratios we encounter, here are the major ones.)
1. 4:3 Aspect Ratio: The original aspect ratio is 4:3; or traditionally called “Full Screen.” Way back in the day, believe it or not, movies were all in 4:3 (four units wide by three units tall). 4:3 is the aspect ratio of SD TV (standard definition television). Later, when TV got popular, movies had to become more awesome than TV, so they adopted a new gimmick called “widescreen”.
2. 16:9 Aspect Ratio: This aspect ratio, traditionally called “widescreen,” became decidedly sexier then 4:3 over time. After half a century of being exclusive to movies, widescreen was adopted by TV thanks to the home theater. 16:9 is now the aspect ratio for HD TV (high definition television).
Sometimes, the aspect ratio of the content you are watching, doesn’t match the aspect ratio of your TV. When this happens, some adjustments need to be made.
1. Letterbox: To fit a 16:9 image onto a 4:3 screen, the image needs to shrink down, which leaves some unused space on the screen (i.e. black bars). This kind of video is called letterbox because at some point in video history, this reminded someone of peeking though a mail slot, isn’t that profound?
2. Anamorphic: Instead of wasting a valuable portion of the video signal on black bars, anamorphic video intentionally stretches its image tall so as to stuff all the possible detail into the video signal. While letterboxed video is fine with a 4:3 TV, a 16:9 TV can benefit from a the anamorphic video. When anamorphic video is viewed on a 16:9 TV, the image is stretched back out to look its best; otherwise on a 4:3 TV, the video will be viewed as letterboxed.
These are the methods we used to jerry-rig our video so that we could enjoy the glory of 16:9 video, while we were stuck with 4:3 TVs. We wanted our widescreen! We wanted it all! We got greedy. The horror was still to come. What do you think happened once when we grew up and finally got our real 16:9 TVs? Now we have all this jerry-rigged widescreen video to deal with. To be continued… DUM DUM DUUUUUUUMMMMM!
