Why the shape of your screen matters - Brian Gervase

You know, back in the '40s and '50s, the original standard television had a 4 to 3 width to height ratio. That shape was chosen to be a slight rectangle, but still mostly square, thus having the maximal screen area for the given dimensions. And that's still the ratio on many TVs and computer monitors in today's homes.

The problem is, hardly anybody today treats video content in a 4 to 3 ratio. See, this whole problem started when people wanted to watch movies from the theater in the comfort of their own homes. Movie screens are considerably larger than our home television. More important, the screen is completely different rectangle and can't mathematically fit on our TV screens without manipulation.

A typical TV is one and a third times wider than it is tall. Some movie screens could be up to three times as wide as it is tall. So what're we going to do to make it fit? Well, we have all kinds of options. Well, we could squeeze and stretch and mangle everything onto the screen, to make it all fill up, and everyone would look ridiculously thin and compressed.

The good news is the sound would be just fine, although I don't think people would be too happy about that option, particularly the actors in the movie. We could just cut a chunk of the original movie, like a cookie cutter, and just see that frame of the movie. The problem with that would be people and objects would be speaking from off the screen, or, even worse, they might be cut in half.

Some movie editors use what's called the "pan and scan" technique to allow the full height of the TV screen to be used, but pick and choose what section of the original movie should be shown on your screen, thus eliminating the annoying cutting of people. Imagine that job: staring at a 4 to 3 hole, watching movies all day, deciding for everyone which piece of the screen is the most important part for people to see.

Now let's do a little quick math. If we compare a major cinematic film produced on a 2.35 to 1 aspect frame with my standard 4 to 3 TV screen, we find out that only 55% of the movie can actually fit on the screen at any one time. Just over half! You've seen the disclaimer at the beginning of the movie on TV or DVD that says, "This film has been modified from its original format to fit on your TV screen." Well, what it should say is, "We are only displaying 55% of the movie of our choosing."

Now for all the full-screen TV lovers, this is your dilemma: do you want to see all the movie, or is 55% good enough? How about new TVs? Around the start of the century, some widescreen TVs emerged in a 16 to 9, or 1.78 times wider than it is tall. Well, this screen fits the movie a little better, but still only shows 75% of the original movie at one time.

Suppose someone made a TV for your living room that was actually 2.35 to 1 to show those full movies? Well, the TV with the same height as the most current 50-inch TVs—that TV would be close to six feet long. And on top of that, you'd only use the full screen when you watched movies. Most of the other content would have to be stretched, or have empty space on the sides of the screen.

Of course, there is one more option. We can just shrink the movie screen proportionally, to fit the width of your home television. We can mathematically scale the original to fit exactly the width of the screen, and this'll preserve the entire movie screen, but show the infamous black bars along the top and bottom that so many television watchers abhor.

Of course, now you can argue that we're only using 75% of that screen. And that is where the real question is: do you want your full screen, or do you want to see the entire movie? Most likely, you just need a bigger TV.