[OT] Why do so few people understand aspect ratios?

[Thomas Milne]

On Wed, May 26, 2010 at 8:50 PM, David Christopher Chipman
<dchipman-rYHPKw+MWrk at public.gmane.org> wrote:
> Thomas Milne wrote:
>>
>> I don't know if anyone on here does any video encoding, but can anyone
>> tell me why it is that so many people insist on adding the black bars
>> to their videos? It's amazing how many people I run into who cannot
>> seem to grasp the difference between 4:3, 16:9 and panoramic. They
>> think if a movie is widescreen, ie. 16:9, they need to add the black
>> bars to 'pad' the video...why?
>>
>> Are their TV's wrong? Their computer displays? I've had all kinds of
>> TV's, old CRT and flat screen, I've never, ever, needed to mess with
>> video to make it display properly. Ever.
>>
>>
>
> Hey there,
>
> It's not the end user's fault, really. It has to do with the fact that the
> aspect ratios for some video content is not that same as broadcast TV, which
> "most" monitors are designed for. That's why the black bars are there. Other
> wise they have to pan-and-scan the source image, to look at "important"
> things. OK?
>

No, because I'm not asking about video content that has non-standard
aspects. I'm asking about people who take video content that _is_ in a
standard 16:9 aspect, and pad it so that it is 4:3. There is _never_ a
good reason to do this, yet people persist.

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