And lo On Mon, 26 Apr 2010 22:01:41 +0200, andrel <byt### [at] gmailcom>  
did spake thusly:

> On 26-4-2010 14:49, Warp wrote:
>> Invisible <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
>>>>> Question: Why aren't there any widescreen cinemas yet?
>>>> At risk of entirely misunderstanding the question, all cinemas have  
>>>> shown all
>>>> films in 16:9 or wider for almost a hundred years.
>>
>>> Really?
>>
>>> Huh, well, you learn something every day. The picture always looked  
>>> fairly square to me...
>>    I'm beginning to suspect that this is not Andrew, and instead some  
>> troll
>> is posting using his nickname.
>>    If even TV is not square (it's 4:3), how in the world could you ever
>> think that movies are square? I don't get it.
>>    The narrowest aspect ratio used in movies for the past 20+ years has
>> usually been 1.85:1. The most common aspect ratios for big movies today
>> is 2.25:1 and even 2.35:1 (that's well over twice as wide as tall).
>>
> a few days ago I heard a talk that might provide an explanation. Someone  
> set up an experiment with 180 degrees view and figured out how wide they  
> perceived it. You get a camel distribution with one hump at 180 and  
> another, larger! one at 90. Experiment was reproducable per person.
>
> Hard to believe but apparently true. Something fishy in our brain. Jan  
> Koenderink, who was giving the talk, is trying to figure out why.

Perhaps something similar to line perception where we overestimate acute  
angles and underestimate obtuse ones.

-- 
Phil Cook

--
I once tried to be apathetic, but I just couldn't be bothered
http://flipc.blogspot.com

Post a reply to this message