Why is widescreen so durned confusing?

Good question. The answer is, I'm afraid, is "beacause it is horribly complicated". There have been numerous attempts on the web to demystify it, but often they (understandably) make things a tad simpler than they actually are. This is a UK specific guide to what many of the different formats are, how they differ, why some "widescreen" films look okay on your TV and others don't, and what widescreen means for ordinary TV, Digital TV, DVD and Laserdisc.here in the UK.

At this point, many, many thanks to Jon Thompson for putting me right on some of all this. Jon is chairman of the Britsh Kinematography Sound and Televison Society, so this information should now be as accurate as it gets - and the subject really is a bottomless pit!!!

This is the relative size of the TV picture. First digit refers to the width, the second height. This is called the aspect ratio. So:

There are many more varients of these, but they are the most common. To get a good graphical understanding on what these shapes mean on ordinary and widescreen TVs, go the excellent "widescreen" section on Andy Hawkins' site.

Right, brace yourself. Hiding behind this clear, consise exterior are a myriad of different formats, which work in different ways.

Fist of all, lets deal with the scary word "anamorphic". It's actually not that scary at all - it just means squashed. Looked at without any modification on a normal TV, the people are tall and thin. So what happens is, on a 4:3 TV. the picture is vertically compressed, leaving black bands top and bottom. On a widescreen TV, the picture is horizontally stretched, to fill the set. This method of coding widescreen pictures keeps the overall quality high.

Now then. All feature films are shot on good old fashioned celluloid, in one of many forms. TV may be shot on video (again, one of many formats) or celluloid. Here follows a guide on what formats exists, what the differences are, and why they all look different...

Format

Aspect Ratio

Example(s)

What it looks like
on a 4:3 TV

What it looks like
on a 16:9 TV

Regular video

4:3

EastEnders

Er, EastEnders...

Either big black bands at the sides, Pat Butcher looking very fat, or with her head chopped off.

16:9 video

16:9

Keeping Mum

Small black bands top and bottom, with about 10% of picture loss at the sides. Note: In 5 years, all BBC output is sheduled to be like this.

On analogue transmission, the picture may be zoomed to partly fill the frame and give small black bands left and right. There is a small loss of quality in this process. On digital TV, the signal is anamorphically squeezed, and can be "popped out" to give a true 16:9 picture.

16mm film (UK)

1.375:1

Bergerac, in its day

As regular video

As regular video

35mm film (US)

1.375:1

Friends

As regular video

As regular video

Super 16mm (UK)

1.66:1

Ballykissangel

Roughly, as 16:9 video

Roughly, as 16:9 video, except the image doesn't stretch quite to the edge of the set.

Format

Aspect Ratio

Example(s)

What it looks like
on a 4:3 TV

What it looks like
on a 16:9 TV

Academy

1.375:1

Cassablanca

Full frame, a very little lost at the sides.

See regular video

Regular, closed matte

1.85:1

Jurassic Park

On a "regular" video, laserdisc or DVD, a portion of each shot is selectively taken, so as to fit the shape of a regular TV set, a process known as Pan & Scan. On a "widescreen" video, laserdisc or DVD, the film is shown with quite large black bands top and bottom of frame.

On a widescreen video or Laserdisc, and a letterbox DVD not 16:9 enhanced, the picture may be zoomed to fill the frame, although quite a bit of quality is lost. On a 16:9 enhanced DVD, the picture is anamorphically squeezed, and may be "popped out" to fill the frame with top quality.

Regular, open matte

4:3

The Brady Bunch Movie, The Fugitive

Full frame. However, the shots were intended to be masked top and bottom, so not much of interest goes on in this part of the picture. Occasionally, microphones and other bits of filmaking gear feature - in The Fugitive, a camera dolly can be seen bottom of frame at one point.

The top and bottom of frame are masked, as in the cinema. This is how it was meant to be viewed, but you get no extra picture width information. See "closed matte" above for 16:9 enhanced DVD.

Panavision or JDCScope or Technovision - colloquially knwon as 'Scope

2.35:1

Star Wars, Armageddon

A nightmare. Either enormous black bands top and bottom on a widescreen source, or only half the picture visble at any one time on a regular - Pan & Scan - video.

Small black bands top and bottom of frame. See "closed matte" for the difference between widescreen, letterbox and 16:9 enhanced DVD.

Super 35

Variable ratio - in the cinema, 2.35:1

Titanic, Resevoir Dogs, Apollo 13, The Rock

Full frame, more or less. A tiny amount of side information is sometimes lost. Often, the bottom half of the picture is full of uninteresting things - see the next box along as to why.

Small black bands top and bottom (from a widescreen source). This is 2.35:1, the intended shape in the cinema, and it either "chops off" the bottom half of the picture negative (a version known as common top), or takes a swipe out of top and bottom (center extract). See Panavision for more details on how this looks on a w/s set.

So there we have it - clear as mud. In fact, there are countless other obscure or obsolete formats, but these above are the ones you are most likely to encounter. CinemaScope, the name most people recognise, doesn't exist any more, and was a pencil-vision like 2.55:1! To even further complicate matters, some films - such as Back To The Future, are shot in 35mm open matte, but all the visual effects work was done in VistaVision, another format whose ratio can be adjusted. So some shots look okay in full frame, while others do not...

Another excellent site worth a visit, with some useful piccies on all this stuff, is at :Leopold's Laserdisc site.

Ah, now you're asking. A check in the Internet Movie Database, under a given film's technical information should reveal something. But as to open or closed matte, we mere mortals have little clue, I'm afraid. And it does make quite a difference.

What will happen with Digital TV? Will my regular TV be affected in any way?

Like it or not, Digital TV is coming and will change everything when it does. As far as widescreen goes, these are the BBCs stated commitments for BBC1 and BBC2 for the coming years.

The new BBC channels should be almost entirely widescreen from Day 1. ITV and Channel 4's projections are not yet clear.

The material will be transmitted on digital TV anamorphically squeezed, making people look tall and thin. 4:3 TV owners will decode this via their black boxes to watch the material with black bands top and bottom and a widescreen shape picture, while 16:9 TV owners will see 16:9 pictures. On analogue transmissions, the widescreen material will be shown with very small black bands top and bottom, and about 10% picture loss at the sides. So in five years, all BBC pictures should look like this on an ordianry, non digital, non widescreen TV.

Only you can decide. Of both Sky and OnDigital, there are a lot of channels squeezed into not enough space. Some people claim that some pictures look a bit like video on a PC - jerky and unable to cope with camera pans and lots of movement. The advice is simple - find an off air picture down your your local shop. Use your eyes, and decide for yourself.

Format	Aspect Ratio	Example(s)	What it looks like on a 4:3 TV	What it looks like on a 16:9 TV
Regular video	4:3	EastEnders	Er, EastEnders...	Either big black bands at the sides, Pat Butcher looking very fat, or with her head chopped off.
16:9 video	16:9	Keeping Mum	Small black bands top and bottom, with about 10% of picture loss at the sides. Note: In 5 years, all BBC output is sheduled to be like this.	On analogue transmission, the picture may be zoomed to partly fill the frame and give small black bands left and right. There is a small loss of quality in this process. On digital TV, the signal is anamorphically squeezed, and can be "popped out" to give a true 16:9 picture.
16mm film (UK)	1.375:1	Bergerac, in its day	As regular video	As regular video
35mm film (US)	1.375:1	Friends	As regular video	As regular video
Super 16mm (UK)	1.66:1	Ballykissangel	Roughly, as 16:9 video	Roughly, as 16:9 video, except the image doesn't stretch quite to the edge of the set.