16:9

[Charles Angus]

Does anyone know why 16:9 was invented for HD instead of using 1.85:1, an existing standard (which is very close to what they ended up choosing).

I know the geometric mean explanation, but why invent when something nearly identical exists already?

 

[Harry Clark]

Because 1.85:1 is not the only cinema standard.
16x9 (also known as 1.78:1) is exactly halfway between 1.85:1 (the most popular American spherical release format) and 1.66:1 (the most popular European spherical release format)
The hope was that a new TV standard's aspect ratio would strike a small compromise and accommodate the widest range of formats.
The ASC (late in the game) unsuccessfully tried to lobby for 2:1, which I personally think would have been much better, accommodating both 1.85:1 and 1.66:1 fully with slight pillarboxing.
Cheers,
Harry

 

[Charles Angus]

Yeah, I know that, but what I'm saying is that it seems odd to make new standards - it seems so arbitrary.

Look at it this way, the new format does not accommodate any existing format perfectly. 1.85 would have accommodated 1.85 perfectly, with a similar compromise when dealing with 1.66. 2:1 has the same problem as 16:9 - noone ever used it before, and it accommodates no existing formats perfectly.

I guess I'm just griping. It was probably a political decision anyway - can't seem to be favouring NA over Europe, or vice versa.

 

[Fredrik Harreschou]

I thought it had something to do with multiplying 640 (NTSC) by 3 makes 1920 and by 2 makes 1280. But that doesn't explain the ratio so I guess that's not what you are looking for...

 

[Chris Pickle]

wouldn't you now view 16:9 as a major de-facto standard since all flat panels are now in that aspect?

When Red gets 16:9 worked out really well, then I wonder if one might just shoot 16:9, knowing that you could just crop out to 1.85 for any needed prints?

Since many films will primarily be seen on TV, then 16:9 would be an easy workflow to that end.

But maybe I'm missing something.

Chris

 

[Steve Sherrick]

When Red gets 16:9 worked out really well, then I wonder if one might just shoot 16:9, knowing that you could just crop out to 1.85 for any needed prints?


Chris

I'm shooting 16:9, full sensor Red RC36 on everything at this point, unless I have specific reason to go to 2:1, cropped sensor. Are people still having problems with 16:9? Just curious.

 

[Charles Angus]

Yeah, 16:9 is a standard now, but it wasn't before they arbitrarily came up with it.

 

[M Most]

Yeah, 16:9 is a standard now, but it wasn't before they arbitrarily came up with it.

It was not arrived at arbitrarily. It was adopted (in 1984, BTW) by a SMPTE working group on advanced (i.e., HD) television systems based largely on work done by Kerns Powers, a member of that group. It was basically a compromise, but it was arrived at by overlaying all of the most common aspect ratios at the time, and discovering that all of them could be contained within a rectangle that was 1.77:1. It was also found that the inner border of the combined aspect ratio overlays was also 1.77:1, so it was felt that by providing that as a standard, all of the aspect ratios could be accommodated by various "shoot and protect" schemes - which is exactly what's done today to allow for both 16:9 and 4:3 distribution. If you want to read about the reality behind 16:9 rather than the old wives tales, you might want to look at this:

http://www.cinemasource.com/articles/aspect_ratios.pdf

It explains it all quite well, with drawings to illustrate why this compromise was adopted.

 

[Charles Angus]

I would venture to disagree and say that Kerns Powers scheme is arbitrary. Why were the normalized for equal area? Because of grain issues, I suppose, but that turned out to be irrelevant as what was supposed to be an aquisition format became a distribution format. So, if area is out, I could normalize for height, and notice that the widest ratio contains the others. Or I could normalize for width and notice that the tallest ratio contains the others. Or I could normalize for diagonals, and notice something else.

The fact is, even Kerns Powers has admitted 16:9 was not a good choice. (http://www.tvtechnology.com/features/Masked-Engineer/f_masked_engineer.shtml)
(http://www.tvtechnology.com/pages/s.0081/t.13940.html)

At the end of the day, I suppose I don't have to shoot 16:9 (and I never do), but it bugs me that yet another format has sprung into existence.

We are thankfully moving away from 4:3, but it would have been great if that had pared us down from 4 big standards to three, instead of introducing a new format that is very similar to two existing formats.

 

[Chris Pickle]

Oddly, Youtube will keep 4:3 alive. Their code doesn't adjust for 16:9 aspect, only letter-boxed 4:3. Not a big deal, but kind of ironic--sort of.