On Mar 7, 2005, at 7:20 PM, Marta Edie worried: > Can somebody shed some light on the new wide TV screens ? What are > they good for? All they seem to do is pull people out of proportion. > People all look to me like gnomes -wide heads, wide bodies, short > legs, almost like the caricature one sees oneself in when going to > one of those mirror shows at the fair which distort one's image.- > Well, not quite - but then- what is the purpose? It is one thing when > I have my desktop picture pulled apart to cover the whole screen, but > It is only I who has to look at it. Thus far I have not gotten an > answer to my question from anybody.
Traditional analog television screens are in what is termed a 4:3 ratio. That means the width is about 1/3 more than the height. The newer high definition televisions are usually in a 16:9 ratio, which means the width is quite a bit more than the height. The newer 16:9 ratio is closer to that of Hollywood movies. This means movies shown in high definition won't have be either trimmed to fit on the screen, or shown letterbox style, with the black strip at the top and bottom. Video buffs and movie makers have been wanting this for years because they hate having the carefully composed shots in movies mangled to fit on a TV screen. Most of the newer widescreen TVs have several settings for watching the 4:3 content. There are three I've seen: (1) Fill the whole screen. This causes the squashed people you're complaining about. (2) Clip the top and bottom out of the picture to keep the aspect ratio correct. This removes Peter Jennings' hair and hands. (3) Show the 4:3 picture in the center of the 16:9 screen. This causes a "letterbox" look with the black bars on the sides of the screen instead of the top and bottom. Most of the high-end TVs I've looked at let you choose the method for 4:3 viewing somewhere in the setup. You'll probably stumble on it, if you play with the remote control for a while. As a last resort, ask to see the manual. -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: smime.p7s Type: application/pkcs7-signature Size: 2373 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://www.math.louisville.edu/pipermail/macgroup/attachments/20050307/4da4e98d/attachment.bin
