widescreen doesn't make sense unless its in a theatre or theatre-like room

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Bo_Bice

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is there extra space on the sides? no. im sure we've heard this before. and its true. one could make a movie where the 16:9 version has less content than a 4:3 version and vice versa. the sides are cut off, oh but the top and bottom are cut off! etc..

but some of you may not realize that the only logical benefit of a widescreen format is so that there can be more people seated in a theatre room that are closer to part of the picture. but even though the theatre would fit extra people, the people on the extreme sides near the front would not have a great experience by any means. i know, ive had to do it before. now if it was a 4:3 theatre, the extreme sides wouldn't be that big of a deal, because the other side of the screen is still very close. but then the 4:3 theatre wouldn't bring in as much money per showing. its the only reason widescreen makes sense. for home use or personal use, there are no benefits except for any novel feelings you might have because its 'just like da movies!'.

another test is if you had a 16:9 ratio monitor and a 4:3 monitor set up, and on these displays were 4 letters in the 4 corners of each monitor with the same size font. looking at the direct center of each display, only using your periphreal vision you would name all 4 letters. then, the font would be shrunk by 1 size. at a certain point you would still be able to read the 4 letters on the 4:3 monitor, while being unable to on the 16:9. duh, makes sense right. but this shows you that a 16:9 display is inferior to a 4:3 display according to your eyes and your ability to be able to see whats going on in the picture.

im glad for the quality of the 720p and 1080p standards , but its just too bad there will be no HD-DVD, blu-ray or HD broadcasts in 4:3. i guess HD in 4:3 will be confined to PCs and PC gaming like it has been for years.
 
I just read your post and it didn't make any sense. Wider screens are used because our eyes see more from side to side than they do up and down. In movies and many games, you get extra content on the sides when comparing to a 4:3 monitor. Now just because you don't understand something doesn't mean you have to go trying to spread false information.
 
Are you serious. Cinemas uses 16:9 (or close) format because it´s better for the eyes... Trust me widescreen is more relaxing for the eyes than the space saving 4:3 format computer monitors generally use.

Try game in widescreen mode if you have a big enough monitor anyway you will notice the eye fatigue get far less.

that is the main reason why cinemas uses 16:9 format it´s not to draw in more money...
 
The other posters are right. And if you can't see with your own eyes that you see more width than height...then you have something wrong with you that needs to be checked out...whether mentally or physically...your vision is fubar.
 
another test is if you had a 16:9 ratio monitor and a 4:3 monitor set up, and on these displays were 4 letters in the 4 corners of each monitor with the same size font. looking at the direct center of each display, only using your periphreal vision you would name all 4 letters. then, the font would be shrunk by 1 size. at a certain point you would still be able to read the 4 letters on the 4:3 monitor, while being unable to on the 16:9.
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what does not make sense about the above? its something thats easily verifiable. this experiment proves that you are unable to distinguish as much content on the 16:9 display as you can on the 4:3 display.
 
dotCapone said:
I just read your post and it didn't make any sense. Wider screens are used because our eyes see more from side to side than they do up and down. In movies and many games, you get extra content on the sides when comparing to a 4:3 monitor. Now just because you don't understand something doesn't mean you have to go trying to spread false information.
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Exactly, it's based on how our vision works, not on seating more people in a theatre. What you're saying makes no sense to me, lol. I don't have any trouble distinguishing anything on my 24" lcd or my friend's 50" plasma. I guess if you are sitting way too close you would have to move you head to see the whole screen. I don't sit in the first row of movie theatres because it makes me nauseas ;).
 
Bo_Bice said:
...but its just too bad there will be no HD-DVD, blu-ray or HD broadcasts in 4:3. i guess HD in 4:3 will be confined to PCs and PC gaming like it has been for years.
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I'm glad it'll finally make all those technological illiterates get a widescreen and get on with the 21st century. If they keep making everything in 4:3 people would keep buying the sets and hold the rest of us back
 
dotCapone said:
I just read your post and it didn't make any sense. Wider screens are used because our eyes see more from side to side than they do up and down. In movies and many games, you get extra content on the sides when comparing to a 4:3 monitor. Now just because you don't understand something doesn't mean you have to go trying to spread false information.
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no. you only get extra content on the sides if the developers intend it that way. they can easily put more content in a 4:3 resolution, by making the 16:9 resolution just have chopped off top and bottom.
 
StaticSurge said:
I'm glad it'll finally make all those technological illiterates get a widescreen and get on with the 21st century. If they keep making everything in 4:3 people would keep buying the sets and hold the rest of us back
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yes because new is always better right? :rolleyes:

typical consumer..

theres nothing better about widescreen. the fact that the only HD you can get is in widescreen format, is the only logical reason to have widescreen.
 
I agree with the OP. As far as I can tell, my vision is much closer to 4:3 than 16:9.
 
4:3 would make more sense than 16:9 if your eyes are on top of eachother or if youre a cyclopse.


Edit:

Hold your arms parallel to your shoulders, and keep moving them away from your head until you can barely see them in your peripheral vision. Now try the same thing with your arms vertically. Keep your eyes centered and head straight as well, and keep your hands in your peripheral vision.
 
I don't see why it isn't better, I much rather enjoy the wider view as it fills my vision. It also let's me see movies much closer to the way the director intented. Pan and scan movies are terrible and watching widescreen on a 4:3 set is just as bad. So why is 4:3 better again? For watching old tv shows? If you want the extra height just get a bigger screen.
 
To the people who prefer 4:3 to 16:9: you might want to see an optometrist you may have tunnel vision.
 
StaticSurge said:
I don't see why it isn't better, I much rather enjoy the wider view as it fills my vision.
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but wouldn't adding a few inches to the top and bottom fill your vision even more?

StaticSurge said:
It also let's me see movies much closer to the way the director intented. Pan and scan movies are terrible and watching widescreen on a 4:3 set is just as bad. So why is 4:3 better again? For watching old tv shows? If you want the extra height just get a bigger screen.
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im just saying that the 4:3 ratio is more preferred by our eyes, which can be proven with the experiment i quoted. i'm not saying that 4:3 is the way to go this day and age. because obviously im not going to keep my 4:3 tv if i can't enjoy HD.
 
si0dine said:
4:3 would make more sense than 16:9 if your eyes are on top of eachother or if youre a cyclopse.


Edit:

Hold your arms parallel to your shoulders, and keep moving them away from your head until you can barely see them in your peripheral vision. Now try the same thing with your arms vertically. Keep your eyes centered and head straight as well, and keep your hands in your peripheral vision.
Click to expand...

I actually have one eye, and I like widescreen better than 4:3. So watch the cyclops comments. It's not only the way you eyes are arranged, but also how your eyelids work too.
 
Bo_Bice said:
but wouldn't adding a few inches to the top and bottom fill your vision even more?



im just saying that the 4:3 ratio is more preferred by our eyes, which can be proven with the experiment i quoted. i'm not saying that 4:3 is the way to go this day and age. because obviously im not going to keep my 4:3 tv if i can't enjoy HD.
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I just tried the test and the text in 16:9 is more legible; I think you have tunnel vision.
 
si0dine said:
To the people who prefer 4:3 to 16:9: you might want to see an optometrist you may have tunnel vision.
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That's exactly what I was thinking. When I read the OP comments it immediately reminded me of a professor I once had with this condition. But I think he had one glass eye (it could have just been lazy, but it looked off) so I wasn't sure if it also applied to those with two eyes.
 
si0dine said:
I just tried the test and the text in 16:9 is more legible; I think you have tunnel vision.
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im so glad i can attract such intelligent people as yourself to my thread.
 
dotCapone said:
I just read your post and it didn't make any sense. Wider screens are used because our eyes see more from side to side than they do up and down. In movies and many games, you get extra content on the sides when comparing to a 4:3 monitor. Now just because you don't understand something doesn't mean you have to go trying to spread false information.
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Agreed. :D
 
You know...if 4:3 was so much better, then why did Apple go widescreen across the board? And again, if it was so bad, how come you don't hear any Apple users complaining about the lack of a 4:3 iMac these days?

And if you're wondering, I went from a 17" CRT to a 2405.
 
What is this talk about content getting chopped from top and bottom when using widescreen?

I thought the height is scaled down appropiately and you get more FOV viewing area on the side, hence you aren't losing top and bottom content when watching a movie.

Sure for desktop purposes you are losing real estate, but in my case I function a lot better with the added width.
 
actually, movies use 16:9 i beleive, but monitors are 16:10, why you stillget the bars on top and bottom when you buy a 16:10 LCD screen - or it is the other way around.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aspect_ratio_(image)

With widescreen you will se %30 more on the screen.

check out the images - vertical size - you see more in 4:3 - horizontal, you see alot more in 16:9, the differnce in what is added in the 4:3 image, which is cropped in 16:9 is NO WHERE NEAR what you gain left to right in 16:9 16:9 just offers SO much more scenery to the image vs the 4:3 that is cropped.

Movies tend to focus the "action" in the middle - people more naturally are raised looking left to right then up and down - reading for starters.... (but some asians countries are up and down, right to left)

As for the arms test, your hands should go out of vision the same distance from left to right as up and down,
 
si0dine said:
Hold your arms parallel to your shoulders, and keep moving them away from your head until you can barely see them in your peripheral vision. Now try the same thing with your arms vertically. Keep your eyes centered and head straight as well, and keep your hands in your peripheral vision.
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Good test and I do agree with the widescreen crowd also, however, for some reason peripheral vision doesn't seem to be a fair test. I wouldn't want to go to a movie where the edges of screen actually were in my peripheral vision. I think if that was the case then I would end up turning my head and eyes a lot so that I could see the action in detail. Maybe three fourths of the way between focal center and peripheral would be a good screen shape? Curiously, I wonder why we dont have pill (ellipse) shaped screens (then again corners are a good home for thunderstorm warnings and channel logos for TV.)

As for the original post, I think screen ratio has something to do with the cost of building the theature itself. As the OP posted, movies need to be able to make money by fitting as many people into the theature as comfortably possible. Lets just, for sake of argument, say that the people designing the theature realize that customers can only see so far left-right-wise but this also directly influences how many people they can seat in a theature with X rows. The designer then reaches an agreement that the distance from the left-most front row seat to the right edge of the screen should be some constant distance, Z. Now, the only thing left to determine the aspect ratio of the screen is the height (since the width of the screen was determined based on number of seats per row and considerations of a watcher's peripheral vision needs.) For simplicty, lets say that our builder now only has two chices, 4:3 and 16:9. Creating a 4:3 screen with Z height might require a very tall building while a 16:9 screen could be accomidated in a building very similar to a warehouse which is very inexpensive to build. For this reason alone, movie theatures may have chosen 16:9.

That may be why theatures use 16:9/10 but does not state anything about why computer monitors are going widescreen. Personally, my only reason for liking widescreen more is the ability to have many applications side by side. I wouldn't use a widescreen monitor if I was only dealing with a single application at a time (unless of course I was editing a movie for a 16:9 movie theature -- haha!)

Another situation worth looking at is IMAX. Supposedly, this is the top-notch theature experience. I'm assuming they have done their research and know what people want out of a movie screen. Is an IMAX screen closer to 16:9 or 4:3? Why? I'd answer these questions but I don't honestly know.
 
Mav451 said:
You know...if 4:3 was so much better, then why did Apple go widescreen across the board? And again, if it was so bad, how come you don't hear any Apple users complaining about the lack of a 4:3 iMac these days?

And if you're wondering, I went from a 17" CRT to a 2405.
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this is the problem. you let companies dictate what is considered good regardless if it makes sense or a is logical progression in technology. the fact that big companies are agreeing that widescreen is good doesn't mean its any better than 4:3. its a progression based off of a novelty instead of real improvement. my experiment shows that the percentage of content your eyes can collect is substantially less with a 16:9 display.


synergyo1 said:
What is this talk about content getting chopped from top and bottom when using widescreen?

I thought the height is scaled down appropiately and you get more FOV viewing area on the side, hence you aren't losing top and bottom content when watching a movie.
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the fact that all movies give you more content with a 16:9 version in this day and age is irrelevant. im saying, theoretically, if the same amount of content was displayed on each display, your eyes would be more able to take in more of it, if it was on a 4:3 screen.
 
so based on YOUR test which is based off of YOUR vision, you asusme that EVERYONE has the same visual ability as you, therefore YOUR test on a SINGLE person, means that 16:9 is a scam ?
 
4:3
320px-Aspect_ratio_4_3_example.jpg



16:9
427px-Aspect_ratio_16_9_example.jpg



i certianly prefer 16:9 - i see a hell of alot more in the image.....
 
MrGuvernment said:
so based on YOUR test which is based off of YOUR vision, you asusme that EVERYONE has the same visual ability as you, therefore YOUR test on a SINGLE person, means that 16:9 is a scam ?
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like i said before. try it yourself. but the problem is 99% of the people in here are biased because they probably have a widescreen display of some sort, so their test results will be skewed.

but really, its quite logical. if you want to challenge the validity of the experiment, why don't you at the same time challenge the notion that as things get farther away they are more difficult for your eyes to discern...but hey, if you succeed, you'll be breaking new ground, and you'll have books written about you, so i wish you luck on that.
 
MrGuvernment said:
i certianly prefer 16:9 - i see a hell of alot more in the image.....
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I could do the exact same thing with 4:3 showing you a hell of a lot more in the image given that the width of the image is fixed (much like how your wikipedia stolen example assumed that height was a fixed quantity.) Again, I like widescreen more, but I'll play devils advocate.
 
i have excellent vision, i do see more in 16:9 - i dont stare at the middle of the screen when watching movies or tv, i look all over, i like to find details, i find it considerably more natural to look left and right then up and down.

obviously the further away from things you get, the less detailed it will get, but some people can see from further away then others... as we all know, yes there is a point where no person can see to X distance, but we are not reaching that distance when watching a 16:9 video source, otherwise the same applies to 4:3 and your comparison is irrelevant.
 
Bo_Bice said:
this is the problem. you let companies dictate what is considered good regardless if it makes sense or a is logical progression in technology. the fact that big companies are agreeing that widescreen is good doesn't mean its any better than 4:3. its a progression based off of a novelty instead of real improvement. my experiment shows that the percentage of content your eyes can collect is substantially less with a 16:9 display.




the fact that all movies give you more content with a 16:9 version in this day and age is irrelevant. im saying, theoretically, if the same amount of content was displayed on each display, your eyes would be more able to take in more of it, if it was on a 4:3 screen.
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What your doing is comparing a 4:3 image strecthed out on a 16:9 screen? of course it's not right. it's stretched out. You're making an impirical conclusion based on a false premise.
 
Robizzle01 said:
I could do the exact same thing with 4:3 showing you a hell of a lot more in the image given that the width of the image is fixed (much like how your wikipedia stolen example assumed that height was a fixed quantity.) Again, I like widescreen more, but I'll play devils advocate.
Click to expand...


4:3
320px-Columbia_standard.jpg


16:9
320px-Columbia_widescreen.jpg



Sorry, but the amount of data cut out from going to 16:9 is NO WHERE near the amount of data you gain in the other above pics i posted.... which i stated in my last post.
 
MrGuvernment said:
so based on YOUR test which is based off of YOUR vision, you asusme that EVERYONE has the same visual ability as you, therefore YOUR test on a SINGLE person, means that 16:9 is a scam ?
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/thread.

The OP doesn't want to change his mind...so I'm wondering why we even have a thread on this if his mind is already fixed. What gives?
 
ryan_975 said:
What your doing is comparing a 4:3 image strecthed out on a 16:9 screen? of course it's not right. it's stretched out. You're making an impirical conclusion based on a false premise.
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oh boy. if only a spelling class was required before taking logic classes.
 
synergyo1 said:
Neither because both link to a no hot link image which displays the same amount of content :p
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yes i know they don't work. the point is, you can chop off the tops and bottom of the 4:3 image, and have a 16:9 image. but that proves the 4:3 can have more content. its just how the maker of the footage wants it.

i mean this is a simple thing we can all agree on, correct?

ill go over it again. take a 4:3 image. chop off top and bottom. you have a 16:9 picture with less content. now today its the 4:3 images that always get chopped in movies, but thats irrelevant to this discussion. the point is it didn't have to be that way.
 
Bo_Bice said:
16:9 ratio:

http://f10.putfile.com/main/8/21621232074.jpg

4:3 ratio:

http://f10.putfile.com/main/8/21621200772.jpg

now which has more content?
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The reason this comparison doesn't work is b/c of a fundamental advantage to widescreens >> they typically are WIDER than their 4:3 counterparts. Obviously If I had to choose between a 24" widescreen AND a 24" 4:3 monitor, the 4:3 would obviously have more content b/c then the resolution would be theoretically 1920 x 1440 (vs. the 24WS of 1920 x 1200).
 
Mav451 said:
The reason this comparison doesn't work is b/c of a fundamental advantage to widescreens >> they typically are WIDER than their 4:3 counterparts. Obviously If I had to choose between a 24" widescreen AND a 24" 4:3 monitor, the 4:3 would obviously have more content b/c then the resolution would be theoretically 1920 x 1440 (vs. the 24WS of 1920 x 1200).
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SInce it's called widescreen and not shortscreen a 24" ws monitor's true counterpart would be a 20" / 21" 4:3 monitor (I don't feel like doing the math to convert it)
 
Mav451 said:
The reason this comparison doesn't work is b/c of a fundamental advantage to widescreens >> they typically are WIDER than their 4:3 counterparts. Obviously If I had to choose between a 24" widescreen AND a 24" 4:3 monitor, the 4:3 would obviously have more content b/c then the resolution would be theoretically 1920 x 1440 (vs. the 24WS of 1920 x 1200).
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again, you are letting companies dictate what is what, instead of looking at each screen ratio with a scientific mind. when will you people stop referring to the current state of things as bible for what is correct?

the funny thing is, if a big TV manufacturer all of a sudden came out with a new display called the TallScreen endorsed by paris hilton and superman, consumers would buy into it, when all it really is, is a 4:3 ratio again.

look, its taller than a widescreen, folks! more screen space for you!
 
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