Posted by Lee Mellows on 04/24/06 10:47

> Can you explain to me why 'Overscan is the same whether watching 16:9 or
> 4:3, you don't miss any more or less' please.
>

Er... because it is.
Obviously at the top and bottom of the picture the overscan is the same
because both 4:3 and 16:9 reach the top and bottom of the frame. But also if
you use the 'zoom' mode on the tv to expand a 4:3 picture to the sides of
the frame you'll find that the picture content at the sides of the image are
pretty much the same because even 4:3 mode crops the picture very slightly
to avoid any 'nasties' on the very edges of the frame.
When you go to the movies the edges of the image are always cropped slightly
by the screen masks in order to give a 'cleaner' edge. Very rarely does
anyone see the 'whole' of the recorded image, usually only those involved in
the production of said image, and this is taken into account. This isn't to
say that people always leave mics, lightstands etc. happily in these areas,
but I certainly have heard cameramen say 'oh, that's Okay, that's in cutoff'
on many an occasion. Certainly the advent of LCD's and Plasmas has caused a
lot of controv about what's 'in frame' and what isn't.

Believe me, we've all been looking at overscanned images all our lives with
no problem. The advent of 16:9 makes absolutely no difference to this. 4:3
images fill the frame of a 4:3 tv and 16:9 images fill the frame of a 16:9
tv. In exactly the same way with exactly the same amount of cutoff (give or
take a bit depending on the tv).

Lee

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