[opendtv] Re: Learning From the Veterans - local news in HD

  • From: Mark Schubin <tvmark@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Tue, 27 Apr 2010 17:48:15 -0400

On 4/27/2010 5:24 PM, Manfredi, Albert E wrote:

Mark Schubin wrote:


If you look at something like the American Cinematographer
Manual, you will see that common-sides aspect-ratio accommodation
does NOT use a vertical center cut. You do not, therefore, get too
much sky.

Mark, maybe I'm not using the correct technical terms; my argument is purely 
geometric. If you show common sides, then the 4:3 image will either show too 
much vertical content, or the 16:9 will look like the image viewed through a 
microsope. (Slight exaggeration.) What other possibilities are there? When 
movies went to wide screen, they went that way to show more of the scene than 
the previous 4:3 movies, no?

In a word, no.
You seem to be confusing resolution with aspect ratio. So let's deal with just movies, which have identical horizontal resolution in a 35-mm frame. The oldest movies filled what we now call a Super 35 frame, 3/4-inch by an inch. Then the sound track impinged. By the time the dust settled, the Academy aperture was 1.375:1. That's NON-widescreen. Movies intended to be seen at 1.33:1 (TV), 1.375:1, 1.66:1, 1.75:1, and 1.85:1 all used the exact same image width on film, with common sides. The common sides allow an editor to make decisions based on when objects and characters enter and leave the frame, something vital to comedic and dramatic timing. If the wider aspect ratio showed more of the scene, the movie could not be edited the same for different aspect ratios.
What is trimmed between the different formats is height, but not from the center. There is a bias towards the top of the frame. That's why there's not "too much sky" in the 4:3; instead, we see more of people's bodies. 



  So I'm suggesting, when people BUY wide screen displays, they also are 
looking to see more of the scene. The article that started this thread also 
alludes to this, when talking about the design of the news set, and 
acknowledged that they have to limit the usefulness of the sides.
That's because of the mistake I alluded to. When the TV industry gave up common sides in moving towards HDTV, they caused that problem. John Sprung of Paramount Pictures was among those who fought hard for common sides but lost. To protect the guilty, I will not explain exactly why he lost. 



Imagine watching HD football with the common sides approach. You get nice 
closeups of the players, don't you? You don't get the wider view of the 
stadium, that you'd expect compared with your old analog set.
Again, you are confusing resolution with aspect ratio. Suppose I have a 16:9 standard-definition TV and a 4:3 standard-definition TV, both 20 inches wide. I can have close-ups or wide shots on either. Why would a wide shot on the 16:9 TV be wider than a wide shot on the 4:3 TV when both screens are 20 inches wide and have the same resolution? 



2. The 16:9 image will not take advantage of the greater
resolution the 16:9 HD monitors have.

You assume the same resolution in capture and display. Common
1080-line HDTV is 1920x1080. In the Paramount Pictures version of
4:3 capture, the digital masters would be 1920x1440. So how would
there be a loss of resolution?

The common sides image has to be viewable on low res 4:3 analog sets. Which 
means, no matter what the capture resolution was, the horizontal view connot 
contain more detail than analog sets can show comfortably. So wide screen 
displays cannot display any more content per screen width than the low res 
analog displays. You have lost the benefit of the higher res.
Next time you shop, see how much resolution small 16:9 displays offer. The iPod Touch, for example, has a nice, widescreen display. It offers a whopping 480 pixels across the width of the screen.
If you want to talk about aspect ratio, then please talk only about aspect ratio. 

TTFN,
Mark



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