On Fri, 24 Apr 2009 09:10:15 +0100, Invisible wrote:

>>>> Movies. Movies have been widescreen forever. People want to watch the
>>>> movie "unaltered" at home. That's why.
>>> Really? I hadn't noticed that one.
>> 
>> It was my understanding that most TVs in the UK these days are
>> widescreen anyways; if that's the case, it's not surprising you
>> wouldn't notice the difference. :-)
> 
> Most *new* TVs are widescreen. (Indeed, it is apparently impossible to
> buy one that isn't.) Which is most perplexing, because there are no TV
> signals broadcast in widescreen, so owning a widescreen TV instantly
> means that everything you watch must either be distorted or have black
> bars down the sides. Um... and this is a "good" thing because...??

HDTV broadcasts (ATSC here in the US and Hi-Definition cable channels) 
are all in widescreen.  I seem to remember when visiting the UK a few 
years ago that the broadcast signals we watched there also tended to be 
in widescreen.  In fact, it seemed more popular than 4:3 broadcasts from 
what I saw.

>>> Is there a reason why movies are filmed this way?
>> 
>> http://www.widescreen.org/aspect_ratios.shtml seems to have some
>> relevant information.
> 
> Only really says what aspect ratios were used and how it was done - not
> why these ratios existed in the first place.

Check out the other pages on the site...

Jim

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