The Widescreen Paradox

Ta!

Dashed clever people at Philips/BTS. Only they would build HD cameras with 4000+ lines to allow a camera to be switched between 1080 and 720 line formats "in camera" (by changing the number of lines averaged) - rather than relying on down-stream conversion!

DPMS is a scary idea - and I knew broadcast engineers who refused to believe it was possible (or would generate decent pictures) - but LDK series cameras can really generate beautiful pictures. (And terribly ones just like any other camera if not correctly operated!)

In the technical sense, of course I recognise that 16:9 anamorphic is not a chopped down 4:3 image, but in the practical sense widescreen TV's have been delivered by reducing the screen's height, not increasing it's width.

Widescreen TV's on the whole DO display a smaller picture than an equivalent sized 4:3 set. Evidence of this can be found by looking no further than your nearest Dixons - if you look at the low-mid range TVs which they merely display in racks on the walls, the distance between the shelves has reduced (enabling them to fit in an extra rack) as widescreen has come in, because the TV's wider picture has been made possible by scaling the screens down vertically.

As I've often mentioned, we have a 29" 4:3 set in our front room. These days, it's easy to forget just how big a set that actually is, and to replace it with an equivalent sized widescreen set (especially a CRT widescreen set) would almost certainly result in us getting something which is little or no wider; it would just merely be shorter.

A replacement which genuinely delivered a wider picture would be something in the order of a 40" 16:9 gas plasma set, occupying vast tracts of floorspace and costing upwards of £7000.

I've allready had a fairly comprehensive rant about why I don't like 16:9 in another thread (it's near the bottom of page 2 at the present time), so I won't repeat any more of that here, but one of the biggest problems I have with widescreen is that I really don't feel 16:9 is a practical aspect ratio to put in an average corner of the living room, and that it's been made practical by making the sets smaller I think rather supports that viewpoint.

Crikey, I'd forgotten about that. I remember the day, I was working in Noel's HP from a very 4:3 TC1. All the monitors and cameras had masking tape on them to act as a safe area.

Personally I like widescreen, so what if TV sets are less tall than there 4:3 counterparts. Bigger the set, the more you see the line structure of the picture unless you sit a long way from it. However, I do prefer VHS players to DVD players, there is something quite nostalgic about the picture quality and the fact machines and media are much chunkier means they must be better, right? I really don't like my HDD/DVD recorder, the recordings look too much like TX and it just confuses me.... I sit watching adverts forgetting I can fast-forward. That's not progress.

No, it's not progress. It's a bad memory!

Regarding the issue of physical screen size, I seem to remember that for average eyesight you are recommended to view a CRT set from a distance of no less than 6.5 times the diagonal measurement of the screen. This was probably originally worked out on a 4:3 set. This calculation is based on the arc degree measurement of one scanning line from that viewing distance. In other words, if you sit any nearer you may begin to see the raster line structure of the picture.

One thing I'm wondering about- something that has been discussed here is the BBC's expernimenting with & informing viewers about letterboxing to reduce complaints and get people used to it. I'm wondering- why the hell aren't they doing this with pillarbox? The reason there is so much cropping (something I hate more than anything) is because they say viewers dislike & compalin about black bars at the sides of their screen- just like they did with letterbox bars in the 90s.

The problem is, they don't use them much (ouside of sports- which are anlogue 4:3- they're rarely seen) and I've yet to hear a broadcaster inform viewers of what they're for. Instead the broadcasters crop everything to fill the screen to try and stem off compalints- but why? If they treated pillarboxing the same way as letterboxing, 4 or 5 years down the line it would be common place- like seeing a film in 16:9 letterbox. So why don't they try and do this, rather than be stuck in a place where courtesy of CBBC & CITV, whole programmes are cropped because viewers don't understand pillarboxing?

Problem with pillarboxing is that it isn't "analogue" compatible. If you ran CBBC on One with 4:3 material 12P16 pillarboxed you'd have to do what sport do and ARC all the material (4:3 AND 16:9) to 4:3 full-screen (12F12). This would mean that all 16:9 material had to be 4:3 action safe - which is easy for sport (most of the action in team sport coverage is in the middle of the frame) - but more difficult for comedy and drama (where 2 shots etc. are common)

If you carried on with 14L12 (14:9 letterboxing) on analogue, but carrying 12P16 carriage of 4:3 material you'd end up with "postage stamp" or "floating" pictures with black bars all the way round on analogue - which is deemed unacceptable.

Really - 14L12 + 14P16 are a good compromise.

£7000 as a price for a 40" plasma is way out of date. There are plenty of 40" and 42" plasma displays on sale for less than £2000, several at £1250 and even one I've seen at £999 - and from a reputable retailer too. And surely one of the beauties of gas plasma screens (if you like that sort of thing) is that they take up no floorpace whatsoever, and certainly much, much less than an enormous CRT set! Gas plasmas - you hang 'em on the wall, don't you?

Well there are plasmas and then there are plasmas with varying degrees of quality - but you are quite right: prices are dropping all the time.

£7K would get you a bigger screen than 40", and a very very good one at that.

Yep, I admit it, I'm out of date with my pricing. But even so, spending a 4 figure number on a living room TV set is not something I'd ever be prepared to do. I'm not even sure that I'd ever buy a gas plasma set - my local pub bought one (and it was a high-end Toshiba, no cheap rubbish), and within 3 months it had the VH-1 classic logo burned into the screen (and while the channel was on frequently, it was hardly on 24 hours a day). Investing that much money on something with which is so susceptible to screen burn is not something I'd be happy with.


The point is that if I were to change to a widescreen set which genuinely provided a wider picture, the shere size of the thing would take up a huge amount of floor space - and I certainly don't have 4 feet of wall space at a comfortable height to put a TV on. And it is for that reason that widescreens are generally smaller than their 4:3 counterparts, the manufacturers knew that scaling up horizontally would produce sets which are just too damned big for most people, so they've scaled down vertically instead.

Regarding the apparant saved space by using a flat panel set, if you're putting it in the corner of a room as most people do, changing to a flat panel display will save you no space anyway - the space which used to be taken up by the CRT will just become redundant, empty space.

The push to create the largest screen possible has been delayed only by the technological and cost implications of larger diagonal sizes - not as you suggest by manufacturers thinking they were "too damned big". That's just not the case cwathen. You'll be pleased to know that an 84" screen can now be bought - although its made up of 4 x 42" screens tiled together. The one pixel gap causes a most noticable criss-cross, but I'm sure its a matter of time til they get rid of it.

Moreover, the reason most large CRTs are sat in room corners is precicely because they are large deep boxes. Although you might not have a 4ft space on a wall, it is the most popular place to locate a plasma screen, and is certainly a space saver.