Posted by RichA on 12/02/06 19:42

moviePig wrote:
> Walter Traprock wrote:
> > Folks, you should know, there's HDTV in standard aspect ratio!
> >
> > There's no need for the distortion-vision of widescreen TVs!
> > There's no need for bright gray bars to "warn" you that you're
> > watching material in the "wrong" aspect ratio.
> >
> > Go for flat screen, in Academy ratio as it's now possible.
>
> Might make sense *if* your set's to be used only for 4:3 movies. For
> the rest of us, though, 16:9's a reasonable compromise (between 1.85:1
> and 2:35:1)... with 4:3 getting shortest shrift, which is justifiable
> considering that older movies generally have coarser resolution to
> begin with, and thus won't suffer as much, percentage-wise, in a
> reduced raster-portion.
>

There should be NO compromise in movie playback. Problem is, too many
people literally can't tell there is any distortion. How often have
you seen tvs with uncalibrated colour or basketball player stretched or
squashed, midget-looking actors and the idiots watching them could care
less? The moment you start taking cues from those people, you might as
well jump off a bridge.

[Back to original message]