Anamorphic might be the wrong choice. In this thread, we discuss why. (1 Viewer)

[Aaron Croft]

"I believe that as long as the 4:3 set has an anamorphic squeeze function, the resolution would be the same as the widescreen set."

Interesting. Well, then I think I see what Javier was getting at.

If I go HD, I will go 4:3 then. Bigger 4:3 immage, same sized 16:9 immage for the same floorspace.

So... what IS the point of buying a widescreen TV? Is it less expensive compared to a 4:3 TV of the same width?

Aaron

 

[Doug Bull]

I couldn't find a crocodile, so I thought I might try and tackle the next toughest thing, Javier's fantasy.
On second thought, I think it might be easier to go and look for that elusive Crocodile again.
Before I go, as it has been pointed out by others, it's called 4:3 and it would contain no more resolution than a 16:9 Anamorphic image. If you understand Anamorphic like you say you do, you would know that.
There are only a set number of Horizontal scanning lines and these cannot be added to an Anamorphic 16:9 image, which is already using them all within the picture area. (I realise, that we can get down to nit picking and do sums on Horizontal and Vertical resolution here, but basically 16:9 Anamorphic and 4:3 non anamorphic contain pretty much the same horizontal resolution)
So please tell us where your magical extra Horizontal resolution is going to come from?
The best solution for you, is to cling onto a 4:3 set for as long as possible, or until they become extinct.( I doubt very much that they will become a protected species)
On Second thought, I think I'll have a Beer or 2 or 20 with Bill McCamy, while I try and figure it all out.
Hang on!, late message here, about going out and buying a 4:3 TV.
that's fine if you can buy a 4:3 TV that gives you the same Width as a larger 16:9 TV.
I have ther largest Widescreen tubed TV available and I can safely say that there are no 4:3 tubed sets that can get anywhere near it in Screen Width, while maintaining the same height as it.
Remember also that 4:3 TVs are a doomed species, virtually all of todays new programs and movies are shot in widescreen.
So unless you plan to view a lot of old 4:3 DVDs or Laserdiscs, then 4:3 TV is very much a backward step.

 

[Matthew Furtek]

I would like to emphasize it doesn't sound like Javier is specifically talking about movies. That is why he will gain more information on the top/bottom.

Javier, so what you are saying is: you have a limited amount of width, and instead of buying a widescreen TV, would prefer to get a 4:3 TV because it offers more height.

Matthew Furtek

 

[David Von Pein]

...just zoom out and give the width of widescreen with more info at top and bottom.

But wouldn't this mean we're now back to a Full-Frame (1.33:1) picture being transmitted.
How can you "zoom out" and NOT do one of these two things? ....
1.) Lose image on the left & right of the screen.
2.) Stretch the widescreen image to fill the 4x3 TV, thusly making everything/everyone on screen appear too thin and out of proportion. (Just like on the City of the Dead (supposedly) Widescreen DVD I purchased recently. Christopher Lee gave the appearance of being just 3 days away from starving to death. )

 

[Michael Reuben]

So... what IS the point of buying a widescreen TV? Is it less expensive compared to a 4:3 TV of the same width?

A 4:3 TV that's as wide as my 65" 16:9 would be more than 70" measured diagonally. I don't think anyone even makes a 4:3 set that big.

M.

 

[David Von Pein]

What added content? Where does it come from? If it wasn't filmed, it doesn't exist.

That's exactly what I was thinking too!
Javier wants these "phantom" images to suddenly appear out of nowhere (it seems to me).
I understand he wants the FULL Widescreen image...but then he says he wants MORE stuff on the top & bottom TOO, to fill his 4x3! How? What possible content could this be? Because if he's already getting the ENTIRE widescreen picture, what's left to add to the image? Nothing else was filmed/taped! I don't get it.

In order for Javier's combo "Wide + Full" (at the same time) image to be transmitted, wouldn't the AR of the image have to be something along the order of...say...2.35:2. Or perhaps 1.85:1.55. These ratios don't exist. Anybody know if it's even possible to produce a ratio like that?

 

[Ned]

This is just classic ignorance. Anamorphic has nothing to do with Aspect Ratio. Very few movies are re-done for 4:3 properly (bugs life, monsters inc, all CG stuff of course).

Just pulling off the soft mattes is a stupid way to make 4:3. Maybe it fills the screen but so what.

You guys ever wonder why educating on OAR can be so tricky?

 

[Doug Bull]

The bottom line here, is that large sized 4:3 tubed TVs are a fast vanishing species, that will cease to exist in a few years time.
Already some of the leading CRT makers in Japan and Asia have stopped making any more large 4:3 Tubes.
Widescreen Digital TV is happening, and it's happening very fast World Wide.
Now, where's that Beer? Bill, are you there?

 

[Bill McCamy]

Cheers Mate,

I'll have a V.B.

Bill

 

[Jeff Kohn]

If I go HD, I will go 4:3 then. Bigger 4:3 immage, same sized 16:9 immage for the same floorspace

Why would want to make the 4:3 image bigger than the widescreen image? On my widescreen 55" set, 4:3 images are already too big, because 4:3 source material is coming from things like DirecTV, and having such a huge picture just magnifies all the quality problems in the source material. My set is about 47" wide, and a 47" wide 4:3 DirectTV picture would look like utter crap. No thanks.

Also, as Doug mentioned widescreen DVD and HDTV are already using all the scanlines. So if you "added" to the top and bottom to get a 4:3 image, you might be getting a bigger picture but you wouldn't be getting more resolution. Unless you want to define new NTSC and ATSC resolutions with different numbers of scan-lines. I don't see that happening anytime soon.

 

[MarcinL]

I think what he is talking about its having widescreen movie and than adding more picture instead of the black bars, I kind of understand he wants not only more picture on the sides, but also on top and bottom, 4X3 but without panning and scanning, have all the picture of the widescreen presentation plus more picture on top and bottom, sort of like SUPER35, which by the way, if anyone ever watched AIR FORCE ONE side b 4X3 presentation, there is actually more picture than widescreen because it was shot in super35 but cropped to fit 2.35:1

TO be Honest I'm kind of a freak, I don't care about OAR, but I have to have the BLACK BARS, my eyes do not wonder around so much on screen, plus res. is better, I just hate 4X3, I guess, it all boils down since I was 7 my dad made me watch movies on LD in Horrible Black Bars, now 14 years later, I love them and I love DVD!!!

DVD FREAK!

 

[Inspector Hammer!]

The more I read the more it sounds like he's talking about basic open matting of widesrceen presentations to me and that's a HUGE no no!

Yep, 4x3 is going away slowly but surely, getting a 4x3 HD set makes no sense at all considering that HD is naitive to 1.78:1 and not 1.33:1.

If your going to get an HD set, don't short change yourself by buying a set that will essentially be obsolete in a couple of years. If your going to do HD, do HD right.

 

[Seth Paxton]

OK Lew, imagine the football transmission in widescreen. Now imagine it with added content on top and on the bottom. That's what I'm talking about

Let's imagine the football transmission in 4:3. Now imagine it with added content on the sides. That's what we are talking about.

Why is taller equal to more? More is only figured one way - total screen area, period.

You just don't like a wider screen, fine. But adding to the sides means MORE, just as adding to the top and bottom does. You are trying to pass some judgement on where the adding is actually going to come from, as in the football (soccer) match is having image added to the top. Is it? Or will it be when an HDTV camera is used to capture it?

Or will it actually be your old 4:3 image now with added image on the sides?

 

[Seth Paxton]

"I believe that as long as the 4:3 set has an anamorphic squeeze function, the resolution would be the same as the widescreen set."

True. At least if the 4:3 set wants to be called an HDTV.
Yes, you would save floorspace.
If you have limited height but much more width then a W/S display will obviously be the better choice in getting the max size for all images (since the 4:3 image will now be limited).
There is a certain aesthetic ideal behind wider films appearing larger than 4:3 films, though 2.35 material still suffers from LBXing taking away from this on 16x9 sets anyway. To match this ideal (if you agree with it at all) the best scenario would be for at least a 2.35 screen. This has been debated before in regards to movie theaters - some adjust the screen by reducing the height, some reduce the width. I know at least Jason Whyte and I were 2 of the people that strongly prefer the width adjustment so that a 2.35 is larger than a 1.85 film. But this debate is still mostly opinion (though perhaps some input from filmmakers in regards to their intent with the AR might add some "fact" to the debate).
No, there is NOTHING wrong with buying 4:3 sets using a well calibrated/performed squeeze function. At least in regards to the pictures you will get. Burn can be another matter, in terms of where it will come from. That boils down to what material you watch the most. In fact, if I understand things correctly, at least some CRT based W/S sets do use "squeezing" to scan in the 16x9 screen space, no different than a 4x3 set doing the same thing except that you then can see the unused portion of the screen.
None of this has the least bit to do with anamorphic of course.
An ideal case would be for all video to use all the scan lines available and have the sets squeeze to whichever AR is required. Having a flag in the video stream trigger this in the hardware would be even better. The fact that this will probably never happen is depressing.

 

[Seth Paxton]

A 4:3 TV that's as wide as my 65" 16:9 would be more than 70" measured diagonally. I don't think anyone even makes a 4:3 set that big.

Mitsu at least used to have one. I saw it in someone's house.

But as I just pointed out, at some point height can become a problem as well. 7 feet wide (my front projection screen) would be getting pretty tall (5.25 feet) versus under 4 feet for the W/S version. I literally could not go much taller bascially due to the angled ceilings in the theater room.

 

[Iain Lambert]

For what its worth, by the way, here in the UK we have our Football (Soccer if you want to call it that) matches screened at 16x9 as a matter of course; there aren't very many 4x3 tv sets sold any more here. It looks great; much better than the 4x3 broadcasts we had to put up with during the World Cup, since most people judge how much a close-up counts as close on a vertical basis you still see more to the sides than you used to.

 

[Michael Reuben]

Mitsu at least used to have one. I saw it in someone's house.

The operative phrase, Seth, is "used to". There's no 4:3 set that size in their current line-up.

M.

 

[DaViD Boulet]

The best argument I can think of that supports my theory is that you can cram a bigger 4x3 TV set than an equivalent 16x9 one, and with added resolution (HDTV), the 4x3 could give you a better anamorphic and 4x3 image.

This is where the problem is.

There is no universal to how someone's space limitations are defined.

In your case, if you have limited width...then sure...keeping that maximum width and making the image "taller" if you could will add more picture (assuming that the source material would be designed to fit). Of course...why stop at 4x3? Why not make your image as tall as your room? You could have a width:height ratio of 1:2. Or a 1:3 or a 1:4 or a 1:5 image and you could film an entire person standing in front of you.

But what if you had a situation where your *height* is what is restricted. I have a wall in my home theater that has 9 feet of height. However, the wall is 16 feet wide. Looks like the "biggest" image I could fit on a projection screen would be widescreen in shape.

It makes no sense to just "pick" the limits defining your one particular installation and apply that globally. There are many installations where width can easily vary but it's the *height* of the image that cannot go beyond a certain measurement.

So the real question should be what's a better shape for the source material and for comfortable viewing. 16x9 is a good solution.

 

[Jim Robbins]

I know what you're saying but I also like the wider field of view which is why I always thought Cinerama looked better than IMAX even though IMAX has a sharper picture. Even the first Cinemascope theaters with their very wide(2.55) curved screens were so much more realistic than 1:37 films.
When 16:9 was picked it was for a reason. Most all films are shot wide now, in the past and will always be and that ratio was the best compomise.

 

[Javier_Huerta]

Now, you have an anamorphic widescreen DVD who's AR is approximately 16:9. It fills the 16:9 TV, and is letterboxed on the 4:3 TV, but the IMMAGE itself is the same size.
In this scenario, is there ANY advantage to the widescreen set? The immage is the same size.. is the resolution different?
So if there ISNT an advantage, than I agree with Javier. Why? Because the 4:3 HD set can display a 4:3 much larger than the 16:9 set, while still displaying the 16:9 source at the same size...

That's what I was trying to say