Main > Everything Else
Widescreen scam (history)
Howard_Casto:
I can answer all of these questions/gripes believe it or not.
Film has always been widescreen because of the background shot. As others have already stated, like it or not the eye prefers a widescreen shot because it's more natural.... a horizion stretching wide in both directions with little vertical viewing.
Tv's were in 4:3 for so long because CRT tech makes it difficult to make a really wide tube (hard to shoot electron beams at such a sharp angle). Tvs were always meant to be widescreen, it's just the limited tech at the time combined with the added weight and floorspace (remember old tvs were huge) made it impractical. As a matter of fact, the first tvs were round, then 1:1 and gradually with got stretched to 4:3. 4:3 was as "widescreen" as we could get until projection tvs showed up, at which point we started getting 16:9 televisions.
Photography got it's unique aspect due to the typical subject matter. Landscape photography has always been much less popular than portraits. You have two portraits... a single person, with the camera on it's side, shoting from the hip up (most popular), or a group shot with a few people usually full length. In either cases, the 3:5 aspect frames suit the subject best, so that's how it evolved.
Computer monitors started as modified tv tech and they've remained so even to this day. This makes sense because several televisions are sold for every pc and it's easier to keep costs down if you can borow parts and manufacturing processes from tvs. For a while there monitor tech was ahead... we got lcds on computers first and it was 4:3 because that's what we were used to. Once flat tvs came out, however it switched to 16:9 becuase a manufacturer could make a really cheap lcd monitor by simply taking a lcd and stripping off hardware. In other words trends in computer aspects has virtually nothing to do with user preference.
Most people prefer a 4:3 screen simply because we are used to it, and 16:9 screens are new, meaning most websites and applications are still optimized for 4:3 screens. This will change over time.
Those that prefer a long computer monitor simply relate better to the analog model, namely a piece of paper. The size of paper, btw, has fluctuated much over the years as it was dependant upon the size of a US postal service envelope (approx the same width, three times the length so it can be folded into thirds) until the 40's-50's when office jobs became popular and the sizes of business paper became pretty much standardized.
SavannahLion:
--- Quote from: Howard_Casto on January 29, 2011, 07:20:02 pm ---I can answer all of these questions/gripes believe it or not.
Film has always been widescreen because of the background shot. As others have already stated, like it or not the eye prefers a widescreen shot because it's more natural.... a horizion stretching wide in both directions with little vertical viewing.
<snip>
Most people prefer a 4:3 screen simply because we are used to it, and 16:9 screens are new, meaning most websites and applications are still optimized for 4:3 screens. This will change over time.
Those that prefer a long computer monitor simply relate better to the analog model, namely a piece of paper. The size of paper, btw, has fluctuated much over the years as it was dependant upon the size of a US postal service envelope (approx the same width, three times the length so it can be folded into thirds) until the 40's-50's when office jobs became popular and the sizes of business paper became pretty much standardized.
--- End quote ---
::sigh::
Try as I might, I simply can't agree with these view points in their entirety. I do see the points that you present here. But I disagree that you're really presenting all the facts. However, to present additional information that would better illuminate someones understanding on the matter would be pointless. It would also take up excess amounts of my time crafting response after response after response.
In a nutshell. We've reached a point in our society were we not only disregard 200-some odd years of research and understanding into the ocular sciences we gleefully disregard painstaking research that was done in a mere past fifty years relating to everything from the human eye, mind, perception, and various related technologies. Ladies and gentlemen, the future is another step backwards.
What pisses me off the most is it's probably going to take at least another 30 years for the ---smurfs--- to figure out the ---steaming pile of meadow muffin--- our grandfathers already figured out.
Oh and the postal thing? It's a chicken and egg thing. Almost to the point that it's irrelevant. I've sorted through enough antiquated documents to know this.
Howard_Casto:
--- Quote from: SavannahLion on January 31, 2011, 01:41:37 am ---::sigh::
Try as I might, I simply can't agree with these view points in their entirety. I do see the points that you present here. But I disagree that you're really presenting all the facts. However, to present additional information that would better illuminate someones understanding on the matter would be pointless. It would also take up excess amounts of my time crafting response after response after response.
--- End quote ---
Ditto. Like yourself, I see your points but they just aren't true. You are relying on facts that were determined when the scientific method was barely out of it's diapers. On top of that you are only looking at selective facts and just aren't seeing the bigger picture. Certain aspects are just pleasing to the eye. Don't believe me? Go into an art gallery and see how many landscapes you can find on a 4:3 ratio. They'll almost always be either taller or wider depending upon framing.
ahofle:
--- Quote from: Howard_Casto on January 29, 2011, 07:20:02 pm ---Most people prefer a 4:3 screen simply because we are used to it, and 16:9 screens are new, meaning most websites and applications are still optimized for 4:3 screens. This will change over time.
--- End quote ---
I disagree with this, unless you are suggesting that rotated 16:9 will be the norm. How do you explain books, magazines, and even e-readers being portrait and not widescreen? I'm pretty sure it's not because it's 'just what we are used to' but rather that we read from left to right and then 'carriage return' all the way back to the left and down a line. This is very inconvenient/inefficient on a widescreen display with long lines if text. I hope you are wrong about the mass redesign of the internet to fit whatever monitors hardware makers find convenient to throw at the public. Sure there are ways of mitigating this problem (adding panes, or pages of text side by side), but then you are just bastardizing the content to fit the display.
By the way, I would argue that most of what the average person uses their computer monitor for involves reading in some form (web browsing, email, documents, coding, etc).
RayB:
Text and visual media are two very different use cases.
@howard: Did you bother reading the article that was linked by OP? I'm not saying you're necessarily wrong, but it sounds like some of it may be your opinion or "guesstimate".
@Savannah: I disagree that we're "reinventing" what's already been researched and resolved. You have to consider technical limitations in the equation, like Howard's example of the electron gun angle limit (which is fact).
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page
Go to full version