{"id":2792,"date":"2012-02-27T15:37:19","date_gmt":"2012-02-27T20:37:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/?p=2792"},"modified":"2012-02-27T15:37:19","modified_gmt":"2012-02-27T20:37:19","slug":"widescreen-insanity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/?p=2792","title":{"rendered":"Widescreen insanity"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This is something I <a href=\"http:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/?p=1953\">griped about<\/a> before. Moments ago, I saw the following picture on the CBC Newsworld analog cable channel:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/ws_sm.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-2793\" title=\"ws_sm\" src=\"http:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/ws_sm.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"480\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/ws_sm.jpg 480w, https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/ws_sm-300x187.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 480px) 100vw, 480px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Yes, it does look like a ridiculous amount of blackness surrounding a small-ish picture. It turns out that I was looking at&#8230;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>a standard-definition (4:3) broadcast signal on a 16:10 widescreen monitor, containing&#8230;<\/li>\n<li>widescreen (16:9) original material letterboxed into the standard-definition (4:3) frame, containing in turn&#8230;<\/li>\n<li>standard definition (4:3) material letterboxed into a wide-screen (16:9) frame, that in turn contained&#8230;<\/li>\n<li>widescreen (16:9) original material.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Confusing? Well, perhaps this picture clarifies it a little bit:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/wsc_sm.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-2794\" title=\"wsc_sm\" src=\"http:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/wsc_sm.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"480\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/wsc_sm.png 480w, https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/wsc_sm-300x187.png 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 480px) 100vw, 480px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The yellow bars at the top and bottom were added when the original 16:9 material was letterboxed into a 4:3 standard-definition frame;<\/li>\n<li>The blue bars on the sides were added when this 4:3 material was letterboxed into a 16:9 broadcast frame;<\/li>\n<li>The green bars were added when the widescreen 16:9 broadcast was reformatted for the standard-definition 4:3 analog standard;<\/li>\n<li>The red bars are the unused area on my 16:10 monitor when I was watching this signal full screen.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Still complicated? Let me make it simpler, then. After years of trying (and failing) to sell us high-definition televisions, manufacturers realized that casual viewers can&#8217;t readily tell the difference between resolutions; they can, however, tell the difference if the <em>shape<\/em> is different. So they opted to develop a widescreen high definition format. (Back in the 1950s, a similar reasoning led the movie industry to change to a widescreen format. It was not for technical or artistic purposes; it was pure marketing.)<\/p>\n<p>The end result? In this example, approximately 65% of my beautiful high-resolution display is unused, with a postage-stamp like picture occupying the center 35%.<\/p>\n<p>Welcome to the 21st century.<\/p>\n<fb:like href='https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/?p=2792' send='true' layout='standard' show_faces='true' width='450' height='65' action='like' colorscheme='light' font='lucida grande'><\/fb:like>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This is something I griped about before. Moments ago, I saw the following picture on the CBC Newsworld analog cable channel: Yes, it does look like a ridiculous amount of blackness surrounding a small-ish picture. It turns out that I was looking at&#8230; a standard-definition (4:3) broadcast signal on a 16:10 widescreen monitor, containing&#8230; widescreen <a href='https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/?p=2792' class='excerpt-more'>[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2792","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology","category-television","category-12-id","category-28-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2792","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2792"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2792\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2801,"href":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2792\/revisions\/2801"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2792"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2792"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2792"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}