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

[Thomas Milne]

On Thu, May 27, 2010 at 2:32 PM, Thomas Milne
<tbrucemilne-TcoXwbchSccMMYnvST3LeUB+6BGkLq7r at public.gmane.org> wrote:
> On Thu, May 27, 2010 at 2:23 PM, Lennart Sorensen
> <lsorense-1wCw9BSqJbv44Nm34jS7GywD8/FfD2ys at public.gmane.org> wrote:
>> On Thu, May 27, 2010 at 01:58:33PM -0400, Thomas Milne wrote:
>>> Okay, that makes sense. What I'm seeing, I guess, is people uploading
>>> shows that are supposed to be 16:9, but wherever this show is coming
>>> from they're broadcasting a 4:3 stream, therefore the black bars are
>>> part of the stream to compensate. The people doing this are probably
>>> completely unaware of what they're doing, because with their display
>>> it looks 'normal'.
>>>
>>> Still, it causes havoc with real 16:9 displays because I end up with a
>>> 16:9 image, with black bars 'squashing' it so it's more like 2.33:1.
>>> Unwatchable, of course.
>>
>> What you should be getting is black bars all around the picture.
>> It should not be squashed.  If it is squashed then your display or player
>> is doing the wrong thing, or the meta data on the file is wrong (and it
>> should then display wrong for everyone including the person that made it).
>>
>
> You're right. The video that prompted this comment was _really_ bad.
> What the person had done, I think in response to a comment I made on
> one of their previous uploads, was to 'correct' their mistake by
> changing the aspect of the video to 16:9 and leaving in the black
> bars. I don't know why they thought that would help, but...that's
> where we get to David's observation about the pervasiveness of
> stupidity I guess. ;)
>
> Normally the problem is that a video advertised as 16:9 is really 4:3
> with black bars all around, as you describe.
>

I would just like to further add that HDMI is the greatest thing ever.

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