What does aspect ratio mean? For lovers of quality cinema and computer games

2 years ago

The monitor is chosen based on preferences. And what is important to one user is not important to another. That's why some people like a regular monitor, while others like a widescreen monitor.

To begin with, it must be said that today there are two formats of a regular monitor. It's 4:3 or 5:4. This is a classic monitor aspect ratio. However, there is a ratio of 16:10. This monitor is widescreen. Regular screen format is suitable for regular work at the computer. For example, to view mail. A regular monitor is also better suited for Internet surfing.

Widescreen monitors do not provide any benefits when browsing websites, although it is convenient to place panels of Internet pagers or, for example, widgets in the side areas. But for watching movies regular format not entirely convenient. Indeed, in most cases, all films are in widescreen format, and the picture is displayed on the monitor as a narrow stripe in the middle.

How unsuitable such a screen is for computer games. After all, in dynamic games, coverage is mainly valued in width rather than in height, and this is inconvenient. It is inconvenient to work with several programs at once on a regular monitor. Editing audio and video, working with multiple documents is also inconvenient.

The 16:10 ratio, like 16:9, is a widescreen format, which nevertheless displaces the classic 5:4 ratio from the market. And there are reasons for this. They cost about the same as regular ones. 19-inch models with a 48 cm diagonal monitor can be purchased for less than $250.

A widescreen monitor is good for watching movies, working with photos and videos, as well as 3D graphics. It is also convenient for computer games, due to the wide field of view. A wide-format monitor has significantly more space in width rather than in height, and this is always more important.

This monitor is good for office work. This is because there is enough space in width. It is possible to work with several documents, since you can hold two on the screen at the same time open windows. This is a big plus, given that office work often involves parallel work with several documents or files. A wider monitor is also suitable for graphics work. It makes it convenient to place editor tools along the edges of the panel. At the same time, they will not cover the image you are working with.

When working with tables, you need to determine in advance what is more important: to fit on the screen more lines or columns. With a large volume of work with text documents It is better to give preference to a regular display, which will accommodate more lines.

Monitor resolution is the size of the resulting image in pixels. The higher the resolution, the more detailed the image you can get and the higher the cost of the monitor (all other things being equal).

Typical permissions modern monitors are given below:

Separately, it is worth mentioning the Full HD and 4K resolutions.

Built-in speaker system

If you do not have serious demands on the sound quality of your audio system, you should consider purchasing a monitor with built-in speakers. If you connect such a monitor using an HDMI or DisplayPort connector, you will not need a separate cable for audio transmission, which is very convenient.

Headphone output

If you use headphones frequently (for example, listening to music at night or in the office), then a monitor equipped with a headphone audio output would be a smart purchase. This will make them more convenient to use.

3D image support (3D-Ready)

The 3D format is gradually gaining popularity. First it conquered cinema screens, and now it is penetrating the market. household appliances. Some monitor models already support 3D content. These monitors have high frequency screen updates (144 Hz and higher) and can alternately display images for the left and right eyes. To ensure that each eye sees its own picture, the kit includes special glasses with “shutter” technology.

To summarize, we can roughly divide monitors into several price categories:

monitors costing from 5,000 to 10,000 rubles. Inexpensive monitors for office or home use. They have a diagonal size from 17 to 21 inches. As a rule, they are equipped with TN type matrices, or an inexpensive VA or IPS matrices. Maximum resolution is FullHD or less. Equipped VGA connectors or DVI. Additional adjustments to the screen position are rare.

monitors costing from 10,000 to 20,000 rubles.  Monitors for everyday home use fall into this category. They have a diagonal size from 22 to 27 inches, equipped with good TN, VA or IPS matrices with FullHD resolutions. Equipped HDMI connectors or DisplayPort. May have USB hubs, built-in speakers and screen position adjustments.

monitors costing over 20,000 rubles.  More advanced monitors with diagonals from 24 to 35 inches and higher, with matrices with resolutions from FullHD to 5K with good response speed and color reproduction. In this category there are models with curved screen or 3D image support. They also have on board a wide range of different connectors for connecting system units and other devices, USB hubs, and audio outputs.

I hope this small guide will help you choose the right monitor for your computer.

Why, even on a 16:9 widescreen TV, is a feature film played with horizontal frames? Why are these frames larger on some films and smaller on others? It's all about in various ways filming and how to transfer it to digital media. In order to understand why this happens, you first need to take a closer look at all existing recording formats. So:

Cinerama

Cinerama - available in aspect ratios of 3:1, 2.77:1, 2.75:1 and 2.59:1. When a video is converted to full widescreen, this format gives the greatest letterbox effect. This shooting method uses three cameras, after which the images from all 3 cameras are stitched together.
As an example, consider the film "How The West Was Won", which was shot in this format. If you look closely, you'll notice lines in the stitching areas and differences in colors between frames.

CinemaScope

CinemaScope - available in 2.66:1, 2.55:1 and 2.35:1. The original 2.66:1 aspect ratio then became 2.55:1 when the soundtrack was added. This was one of the most common methods of shooting films, because the main requirement - special lenses of the same name for the projector, were in almost every cinema. The format was created by 20th Century Fox but is no longer used. Panavision replaced CinemaScope in the early 70s.
As an example: on the left you see "20,000 Leagues Under The Sea" on film, then in the original 2.55:1 aspect ratio, that is, the screen is 2.55 times wider in width than in height, and on the right you see the result of "Pan and Scan" - with an aspect ratio of 1.33:1 (4:3), cropped "to fit the image on your TV screen."

VistaVision

VistaVision - 1.96:1, 1.85:1 and 1.66:1. In this format, shooting is done with a special camera and a special projector is needed for playback, but the image improves in quality compared to regular 35mm. "Vertigo", "To Catch a Thief" and "North by Northwest" were filmed in this format. The format is still used today, but only for filming special effects shots, because it provides high resolution, which is especially necessary when adding computer graphics. "Apollo13", "Contact" and "Twister" are proof of this.

Todd-AO

Todd-AO - 2.35:1, 2.20:1. It uses 65mm negatives, printed on 70mm film, with six-channel sound, as a result - very high quality images. Many epics and musicals of the 50s and 60s were filmed in this format. "Oklahoma", "South Pacific" and "Around the World in 80 Days" were shot in 2.20, while 70s and 80s films like "2001 A Space Odyssey", "Dune" and "Logans Run" use the 2.35 aspect ratio :1.
Example: On the left you see "Around the World in 80 Days" in its original 2.20:1 aspect ratio, and on the right you see the same film, but pan-scanned to 1.33:1.

Technirama

Technirama - variable aspect ratio. The process was developed by Technicolor Corporation in competition with Eastman Color. It requires special camera(same as VistaVision) and widescreen lenses (same as CinemaScope). "Night Passage", "Disney's Sleeping Beauty" and "Spartacus" were filmed in this format.
Example: on the left is “Disney’s Sleeping Beauty” in the original 2.35:1 format, on the right is a pan-scanned version in which a couple of characters are lost and one is “cut in half.”

Ultra Panavision 70

Ultra Panavision 70 - aspect ratio 2.76:1. MGM's Camera 65 uses the same materials as the Todd-AO. Only 2 films were shot using anamorphic compression on 70mm film. Other 70mm recordings were made from decompressed optical 70mm films or using the quasi-Cinerama system 70mm." After Raintree County and Ben-Hur, which used 35mm film with letterboxing on top and bottom to preserve the original 2.76:1 aspect ratio, all other films used 35mm anamorphic film with CinemaScope-compatible dimensions.
Example: On the left you see "Ben Hur" in its original 2.76:1 aspect ratio. And on the right is a pan-scanned version of the 1.33:1 format, as you can see - more than half of the frame is simply lost.

Panavision

Panavision - 2.35:1 and 1.85:1. The company of the same name became the most successful supplier of large format lenses and in the 70s their lenses became the de facto standard for large format films. CinemaScope was left behind, and Panavision still makes lenses for most of the major studios. In addition, the company makes lenses for films shot in 3x4, for their transfer to a wide (not necessarily 2.35:1) format. Panavision also often uses 1.85:1, also known as 16x9, which is also the standard format for HDTV. DVD format has a 16x9 option, but you'll need a proper TV to use it, and if the movie's aspect ratio is larger than 1.85:1, you'll still see black bars at the top and bottom, but they won't be as wide as on a regular TV.
Example: on the left you see " Star Wars" in the original 2.35:1 aspect ratio, and on the right is the same film, but pan-scanned to 4:3. As you can see, they cut out Ben and Han so that when they start talking, the camera has to pan to them and then back to Luke.

Another example: on the left is “Lost World” in the original 1.85:1 format, and on the right is its pan-scanned version. Although the image did not suffer too much in the second case, it is still not the image that the director intended.

Super 35

Super 35 is an aspect ratio of 2.35:1, the process does not use widescreen lenses, however, the film is "framed" to achieve the desired aspect ratio. The “frame” is removed from the top and bottom, and we get the desired image. Some old films shot in this format, when transferred to video, do not “lose” the frame at the top and bottom, as a result we see a larger image area than in the cinema. But it’s worth considering that the director did not intend to show this part of the image to the viewer, so it’s up to you to decide whether this option is “correct.” "The Abyss", "Aliens", "Terminator 2", "True Lies" and "Titanic" were all filmed in Super 35.
Example: James Cameron shoots a film at 2.35:1. After that it transfers it from Super35 to digital format high resolution. Now from this source it is easy to obtain a wide-format version for film distribution and a special pan-scan version. Let's look at the original film in Super 35: the red square is the widescreen image that is visible to the cameraman, and the blue one is the pan-scanned version, in which the image is larger vertically but smaller horizontally. However, it is worth considering that the pan-scanned "square" is sometimes moved around the image on the fly to show objects that are not simultaneously on the screen. Sometimes Cameron zooms in on an area to highlight an aspect. In addition, do not forget that all scenes with special effects are filmed in 2.1:1 and must be properly pan-scanned. On the left is an example of a widescreen version, and on the right is a pan-scanned version.

Pan and Scan

Pan and Scan - 1.33:1 (aka 4:3). You will see the pan-scanned version on most videotapes, in all TV series, and if you watch a movie in this format, remember that you lose about half of the useful video information, and in some cases more. The method is called “Pan and Scan” - because the operator is forced to move the “pan-scan frame” to the object of interest throughout the entire film. Sometimes, instead of pan-scanning, the picture is stretched vertically and distorted - but this does not lead to anything good.
In any case (PAL/NTSC) - the aspect ratio of the frame is considered 4:3 (or, which is the same thing, 1.33:1). This is the same aspect ratio as a CRT computer monitor. Although, unlike a monitor, the pixels on a DVD are not square (width is not equal to height) - this is a normal phenomenon in television broadcasting.

What is Anamorph?

As described above, film frames are not at all limited to the 1.33:1 format. So we had to come up with some way to record a 2.35:1 frame onto a DVD with its 4:3 frame. The first, and easiest option is to write it in a letterbox - that is, with wide black stripes at the top and bottom:

Although this method is simple, in terms of quality it is not best option. For example, if a full DVD frame PAL format contains 576 lines, then in a 2.35:1 letterbox only 576 * 1.33 / 2.35 = 326 lines will be used. The situation is even worse for NTSC, in which out of 480 lines only 480 * 1.33 / 2.35 = 272 lines will be used. In addition, there will be black bars in the frame, which will consume a certain amount of the video stream.
Therefore, a second method was invented, called anamorph. Its essence is as follows: we take a 2.35:1 frame and place it in a 16:9 format. In this case, the black stripes at the top and bottom will be noticeably smaller than in the case of a letterbox. Then the resulting frame (16:9) is compressed horizontally to a 12:9 format, i.e. 4:3. In this case, the whole picture visually becomes elongated vertically. Now we have a 4:3 frame, which is compressed:
Such a frame is called anamorphic. Please note that the usable area occupied by the picture in the DVD frame has increased by a quarter. In addition, since the vertical resolution of both frames is the same, the anamorphic image has a larger number of lines, which means its image will be clearer.

	2.35:1 aspect ratio			1.85:1 aspect ratio
	Anamorph	Letterbox		Anamorph	Letterbox
Useful strings for PAL	436 of 576	326 out of 576		554 of 576	414 of 576
Useful strings for NTSC	363 of 480	272 of 480		461 of 480	345 of 480

To display an anamorphic frame, you will need to do the opposite operation. Therefore, the frame is first compressed, then stretched to a 16:9 ratio, and we get a normal aspect ratio.
Note: the advantage of anamorph over letterbox appears primarily on widescreen devices - plasma, 16:9 TV, and so on. However, full-screen TVs that support the so-called “16:9 mode” are also suitable. In this mode, the TV receives a deformed frame and itself compresses it to normal proportions. This is achieved by compressing the raster (reducing the distances between lines), so the picture will be dense and clear. If the TV does not provide such a mode, it will not be able to display the anamorphic frame without distortion, and the player will have to convert the anamorph into a letterbox for display. This leads to the picture becoming less clear - in the letterbox it contains a quarter fewer lines. Moreover, most often such a transformation is done by simply throwing out every fourth line, which leads to “jaggies” in the image. For this reason, having a 16:9 mode is extremely important for watching movies on a full-screen TV.
Sometimes on discs there are anamorphic releases with the anamorph flag not set, and the player displays them “as is”, with the proportions being violated - i.e. with elongated faces, the so-called “horse muzzles”. A typical example: “Water World” from DDV (signature DW-0042B) or the licensed “Thunderbird” from Twister. However, there are also more curious cases - an anamorph flag is placed on the letterbox picture. As a result, the picture becomes too flattened. This can be seen on the disc “True Lies” with the signature PL-DVD-GLN-290310.

In the previous post we already talked about this briefly, but I think this issue is worth covering in more detail...

So, there are two common monitor formats today: 4:3 (or 5:4) - i.e. classic, and 16:10 - widescreen. Let's see what these formats are intended for.

P.S. Although, as I already said, you should choose a monitor based on your preferences (so that YOU would be comfortable), but the COMFORT criteria differ based on the tasks in which the monitor and the computer as a whole are used... Let's continue about the formats:

4:3 (5:4) - classic monitor aspect ratio, example:

Traditional screen format, suitable for ordinary (or rather ordinary) computer work ( office tasks, Internet surfing, mail, etc.). Not suitable for watching movies, because... Often all films are in widescreen format, and the picture is displayed on the monitor as a narrow stripe in the middle.

It is also not suitable for computer games, because... In dynamic games, coverage in width is mainly valued rather than in height - hence the inconvenience.

Also not entirely convenient for serious computer work. Working with several programs at the same time, editing audio and video, working with several documents, etc.

16:10 (16:9 – modern standard) - widescreen format.

Wide-format monitors today are steadily pushing the classic 5:4 ratio out of the market, for many reasons...

Firstly: a widescreen monitor is very well suited for watching movies, working with photos and videos, as well as with 3D graphics, and is well suited for computer games - the viewing width is sufficient. It's also just great when you need a lot of desk space.

Often, width space is more important than height space. A widescreen monitor has significantly more space in width.

And secondly, such a monitor also adds convenience to simple office work and browsing the Internet. Reasons - again, a sufficient amount of space in width: useful when working with several documents (you can, for example, keep two windows open on the screen at the same time) - big advantage, especially when you consider that even simple office work often involves MULTITASKING, and, accordingly, parallel work with several documents or files.

But specific user You need to CAREFULLY choose the format of the monitor you buy.

To do this, you need to determine the tasks that are set for the computer, as well as personal preferences - the space occupied on the table (dimensions, picture quality, etc.) plus you MUST take into account technical parameters devices (and this is a separate and very extensive question), therefore, the help of a specialist is necessary.

Personally, at first I worked on a monitor with a classic aspect ratio, I got used to this ratio, but then I decided to buy a widescreen one.

At first it was unusual (the monitor seemed somehow “wrong”), but then, after working for 3-4 days and getting used to the new one, I appreciated all the advantages of a wide screen - the convenience of work and entertainment.

When purchasing a new monitor for your system unit consultants at any electronics store may ask you what screen resolution you prefer for your monitor. For those to whom such a question may seem like something from the Chinese literacy section, let’s break it down. So.

What is screen resolution?

Let's start with what the image that we see on the monitor is. Any picture is assembled from special points - pixels. To somehow understand what we are talking about, let’s draw an analogy with embroidery. From monotonous crosses different colors the result is some kind of picture or pattern. So here, pixels are like crosses on embroidery, only they are much smaller and tightly pressed against each other, so there is no feeling that the image consists of individual dots, but looks whole. In addition, they are able to take on different colors as required by the situation. Thanks to this, we watch movies, pictures, switch different windows and instantly see the corresponding changes on the monitor.

Pixels - nowhere without them

Pixels can be square or in some cases rectangular. There was even a wave of replacement of the beloved square monitors with more elongated ones, which sometimes stretched the images too much. But more on that later.

It is the number of these same pixels per unit length, or in other words their density, that determines the resolution of monitor screens.

Screen Resolution Options

The main parameters of monitor resolution are height and width. So, if you go to the control panel on your computer and go to the screen settings section, you can go to this window (this particular window is for operating system users Windows systems 7), which you will see in the photo below.

IN in this case the monitor has installed maximum resolution 1366 x 768 pixels. What does it mean? This means that there are 1366 pixels across the width from the left to the right sides of the monitor, and 768 pixels from top to bottom. This optimal resolution monitor screen, given as an example, in which information from the screen will be transmitted as clearly and conveniently as possible for a person with normal, normal vision.

We also see that the monitor can be set to another, lower resolution. By reducing the width to 1024 pixels, for example, images can be made to appear more stretched. That is, in fact, the physical number of pixels that determines the monitor screen resolution does not change, it remains the same, but the display of images will be the same as it would be with a different resolution.

The most popular screen formats

The shape of pixels was mentioned above, so let’s look at this issue in more detail.

Previously, and we are talking about a hundred years since the appearance of the first films, all monitors of the first models of televisions and computers had a 4:3 format. Even when there were no televisions yet, silent films were shot in this format. What do these numbers mean? This is the aspect ratio of the display element, one might say the ratios of the height and width of the monitor. So, the dimensions can be as follows: 16:12 = 4x4:3x4, 40:30 = 4x10:3x10. Analogue TVs for the most part have this particular format and, accordingly, analogue TV shows are also “fitted” to fit the 4:3 frame. This also includes the 5:4 format. It is also more “square”, and is used in the production of computer monitors. But gradually he burst into life new format 16:9, which gave rise to a new image size, and the screen resolution of a wide-format monitor appeared, constantly being modernized and changing in parameters.

Widescreen broadcasting: convenient or profitable?

The new trend was advertised for its convenience. So, a person should perceive information better on the sides of the monitor than on the top and bottom. But we must not miss the point that widescreen monitors are cheaper to produce. Yes, yes, if you take 4:3 and 16:9 monitors, which have equal diagonals, it turns out that their area is different. A 4:3 screen will have more room to work with than a 16:9 screen, but a wide monitor will require fewer resources to produce than a square one. Many opinions have been expressed both for and against widescreen monitors, and both have their pros and cons. For those people who started their acquaintance with by computer means In the days of 4:3, wide screens are awkward and take a long time to adapt to.

So, when working in office programs like Microsoft Word, at the same scale, 5:4 monitors will be able to display more lines than their widescreen counterparts. You don’t need to constantly move up and down the sheet to find some information; you can see the entire sheet, and at the same time you won’t lose much in the readability of the text. Wide monitors stretch the “square” image, causing round things to become oval, stretching the faces and bodies of characters on the screen. Fortunately, they are working on all the problems. So, on a 5:4 monitor you can view a widescreen movie, only black margins will be added at the top and bottom so as not to cut off part of the image. Similarly, on a wide monitor, you can make sure that the picture has its original parameters and does not spread across the entire screen area. In computer games, developers add the ability to maintain different formats etc. But what is still important is that the wide format is primarily beneficial for the manufacturer, and it is constantly being imposed on us, reducing the production of square screens. “Do you want a 5:4 monitor? But this is unfashionable, no one buys these anymore!” Of course, he doesn’t buy it, because everyone is chasing fashion, not really thinking about convenience. And the funny thing is that screens with 4:3, 5:4 formats are cheaper than models of wide-format monitors, the production of which uses less material, and which, logically, should cost less. But let’s return to the issue of monitor screen resolution.

Problems in choosing the optimal resolution

The fact is that the abundance of manufacturers who decide for themselves which expansion is best for them puts the consumer in a difficult position. There are more than three dozen different video standards, which have different resolutions and different aspect ratios. Let's say the XGA video standard has a resolution of 1024 × 768 (786k) or 640 × 480 (307k), with an aspect ratio of 4:3, when the VGA standard has four acceptable resolutions (640 × 480, 640 × 350, 320 × 200, 720 × 400 ) with appropriate aspect ratios (4:3, 64:35, 16:10, 9:5). The WHUXGA video standard has by far the largest number of pixels - 7680 × 4800 (36864k), and it is widescreen - 16:10. But how to choose exactly the one that will suit a particular user?

What to consider when choosing a monitor resolution

The maximum resolution of the monitor screen is often optimal for working on a computer. It can be manually changed to one of those available in the list of resolution settings.
Since the issue of screen resolution is relevant for both televisions and computers, which are fundamentally different devices(although a TV can also be connected to a PC as a monitor), we will consider the optimal parameters separately for both types of devices.

TV: ease of viewing

Standard definition analogue television, a monopolist in its field for some time, has always had a 4:3 aspect ratio, and only relatively recently has the 16:9 ratio begun to appear, which is positioned as an image with high definition– digital television. We are now exactly at the stage when the transition from one standard to another is taking place, and how long this process will drag on is completely unclear. Some countries have long switched to a new, more convenient and high-quality digital format, but in domestic spaces this can be expected for a long time. Therefore, you can buy a newfangled widescreen TV, almost all models of which provide a function for adjusting the resolution of monitor screens. After carefully studying the instructions, the user will be able to decide for himself how to view a square picture on a rectangular monitor - stretch it to fill the entire monitor, or add a black frame on the sides to maintain the proportions of the original image.

PC monitor - a dilemma for gamers

If a gamer chooses a monitor, then he must first familiarize himself with the requirements for the preferred game/games, and then, based on this data, summarize which monitor screen resolutions are best suited for this. It’s impossible to say unequivocally “this model is ideal for all games in the world.”

View news in Odnoklassniki - is it worth bothering with choosing a resolution?

If you use a PC to work in office programs or just to view mail, news feeds in social networks etc., you need to choose solely according to personal experience or consult with an experienced user who can explain to you all the points of interest.

This also includes the screen resolution of the laptop monitor. It is likely that for its transportation it will be more convenient (purely physically) for it to be rectangular and compact, so as to fit into a backpack or bag. On a rectangular monitor, it is convenient to open two windows at once, when a 4:3 or 5:4 monitor gives you more space to view and work on one document.