HDTV, a waste of money??

[vskid]

wide shiny screen (shiny... another LCD "feature" I hate )

The glossy screens are mirrors unless you are in a pitch black room so it has nothing to reflect. Thats why I'm sticking with used, older stuff until people come to their senses and realize that glossy=FAIL.

The reason for your friend's HDTV's "fatmode" problem might be that its an LCD. Because their resolution is fixed, anything that isn't its resolution has to be changed by the controller, so most LCD TVs probably don't look that great anyways because of that. Our HDTV is a rear projection and the picture is made by 3 CRTs, so it would adapt a lot better than an LCD to different resolutions.

The LCD could easily letterbox the 4:3 picture, the same way widescreen DVDs get letterboxed on 4:3 TVs (except on some really cheap players). Why doesn't it? Because then idiots would think their TV is broken, or they'd complain because the picture doesn't fill the screen.

I still think it would look bad, if you have a 1080p LCD, it'll still have to scale up the resolution, or have it be an itty-bitty image at its native resolution. I can't have the letterbox on our TV, burn in would happen, theres still those retarded widescreen DVDs that have a little letterbox on them because its anamorphic.

[Reaperman@home]

Who decided on 16:9 and why did they pick it?
was there a problem with 4:3, or was it just that if they stuck with it people would not buy the new stuff as quickly?

Its because movies are made in widescreen. My guess is that it was too hard to make widescreen CRTs back then and so they chose the widest screen ration they could still manufacture, 4:3.

thanks for reminding me of widescreen pet peave #2. Movies are not often in 16:9, so in addition to 'fatmode' for regular TV, we have to put up with 'tallmode' in movies because couch dwellers are generally pretty slow.

16:9 has an aspect ratio of 1.78:1 (rounded)
4:3 is 1.3:1 (rounded)
correct?

Movies are shot anywhere from 1.19:1 and 2.76:1.
so when I grabbed 5 movies at random (I had to put a bunch back that listed no aspect ratio) I came up with the following results:

lion king: 1.66:1
who is harry crumb: 1.85:1
Fire Walk with me: 1.85:1
die hard: 2.35:1
brokeback mountain: 1.85:1
I don't think, movies aren't shot in 16:9, tv shows are. so I ask again, who picked 16:9?

seems like nobody is at 16:9 natively. of course many say they're "enhanced" for 16:9--what that means is beyond me. Bars, cropping, or pan and scan, I suppose. Better hide that from the consumer who thinks they're watching the movie as it was intended...

So that means that joe average watches his TV in fatmode, and his movies in tallmode, so the result is that his $4,000 TV never really looks right, but if he were still looking at his old 4:3 with bars, he'd be just fine.

[daguuy]

Newer TVs are wider because people are getting wider and it makes them feel less jealous It also probably helps that your field of vision is wide so it's more natural.

4:3 was chosen by Thomas Edison when somebody asked what size the frames on the film should be for a movie projector and he said something like "How about an inch by 3 quarters."

[Kyo]

Newer TVs are wider because people are getting wider[...]

best avatar-post realtionship. EVER.

[Electric Rain]

die hard: 2.35:1
brokeback mountain: 1.85:1

Huh... those are two movies that should never be next to each other... *shudders*

It's true; Walmart apparently doesn't care about selling their HDTVs. They look even worse than the SDTVs because they're feeding them crap SD signals that are being split too many times without a powerful enough booster! It's really quite annoying.

Another reason for the wider aspect ratio is because it's closer to a humans field of vision, so 16:9 is supposed to be more natural and you're supposed to be able to see more at once... I guess.

That said, since the world has shown us 4:3 for so long and we're all used to it now, I still like 4:3 better. And yes, HD is that much better... when you have a decent source. NTSC SD is usually around 640x480 @ 30FPS (actually like... 29.97FPS) interlaced, I believe, although I constantly hear differing amounts for some reason. The highest (standard) HD resolution at the moment is 1920x1080 @ 60FPS progressive... so that should tell you something...

I can deal with 16:9 for movies and maybe games 'n such... but no way is that gonna work for me on a computer unless I'm using a 42" display.

[Reaperman@home]

die hard: 2.35:1
brokeback mountain: 1.85:1

Huh... those are two movies that should never be next to each other... *shudders*

sorry diehard2, I've got to pull you out for the good of the set.

...well, it was a tight fit, but it just...it just feels right. Somehow it feels far more natural than watching diehard in 'tallmode'



I believe the look on Mr. Willis' faces are priceless.

[teraflop122]

Movies are shot anywhere from 1.19:1 and 2.76:1.
so when I grabbed 5 movies at random

Films as seen in theatres are usually 16:9. When you walk into a movie theatre and look at the screen, you are most often looking at a 16:9 ratio image. Upon release to DVD, the frames are cut down to size from 16:9 to any number of other ratios.

Its kinda funny, actually. Theatre's and TV both used 4:3 at one point. When viewership dropped, theatre's created a variety of widescreen formats to make things more interesting. Now, decades later, TV's are adopting the widescreen formats from theatres.

[Reaperman@home]

Movies are shot anywhere from 1.19:1 and 2.76:1.
so when I grabbed 5 movies at random

Films as seen in theatres are usually 16:9. When you walk into a movie theatre and look at the screen, you are most often looking at a 16:9 ratio image.

I find that hard to believe. maybe in some of those lousy corporate theatres... But generally I see curtains at each side which open and close exposing more screen, and different projector lenses.

once I had to watch a movie in fatmode since the projector lens was lost--it was a midnight movie, so nobody really cared, though.

[Electric Rain]

die hard: 2.35:1
brokeback mountain: 1.85:1

Huh... those are two movies that should never be next to each other... *shudders*

sorry diehard2, I've got to pull you out for the good of the set.

...well, it was a tight fit, but it just...it just feels right. Somehow it feels far more natural than watching diehard in 'tallmode'



I believe the look on Mr. Willis' faces are priceless.

Huh... I guess I'm the only person that actually liked Die Hard 2? That's okay... from what I hear, we'll soon have a Die Hard movie to hate even more than the 2nd one.

[nightwheel]

In our house we have a 3 year old "30"inch Sony Wega widescreen HDTV. We got it used when it was not even a year old for around a $1000.
We instantly noticed the picture qualty was way better than standerd def while watching abc family's 25 days of Christmas. I had never seen Dr. Seuss's: How the Grinch Stole Christmas, the Original cartoon version so colorful and crisp.

[Reaperman@home]

speaking of sony...
I don't know why, but I always assumed sony was the company who decided on 16:9...
maybe it's just because I'm not a fan of the sony, but they had the first "widescreen" TV's I can remember...