May 02, 2024, 09:52 am
I've seem movies in 2.5:1 up to 3.5:1 ratio, great FoV and awesome with a really big screen.
But while cinema and TV both started as small squared frames, evolution on TV seems to be very slow and painful.
TVs went from 4:3 to 16:9 (4x4V : 3x3H), still narrow compared to 21:9 or 32:9 which are like cinema proportions.
1920:1080 HD (16:9) keeps the 4:3 TV ratio and was less disruptive and expensive to the business, bla bla...
But it didn't solve the issue of watching very wide formats on a not-so-wide screen.
3840:2160 4K (16:9) just doubled the size (both vertical and horizontal), effectively quadrupling the area. Thus the name should be 4X, but it's 4K. Double again to 8K, but nobody is using that yet.
2560:1080 (1280:540, or 5120:2160) (about 21:9) seems to be the trend, a compromise between 16:9 and 31:9.
So we have, for comparison:
1920:1080 FHD 16:9
2160:1080 -2K- 16:9
2560:1080 ???? 21:9 *(approximate rounded values)
3840:1080 ???? 31:9 *(same)
3840:2160 -4K- 16:9
My point being: Now we buy ultra-wide monitors, or watch every program with black bars on top/bottom.
It sounds like the industry takes small steps to keep us buying new stuff each decade or so.
But while cinema and TV both started as small squared frames, evolution on TV seems to be very slow and painful.
TVs went from 4:3 to 16:9 (4x4V : 3x3H), still narrow compared to 21:9 or 32:9 which are like cinema proportions.
1920:1080 HD (16:9) keeps the 4:3 TV ratio and was less disruptive and expensive to the business, bla bla...
But it didn't solve the issue of watching very wide formats on a not-so-wide screen.
3840:2160 4K (16:9) just doubled the size (both vertical and horizontal), effectively quadrupling the area. Thus the name should be 4X, but it's 4K. Double again to 8K, but nobody is using that yet.
2560:1080 (1280:540, or 5120:2160) (about 21:9) seems to be the trend, a compromise between 16:9 and 31:9.
So we have, for comparison:
1920:1080 FHD 16:9
2160:1080 -2K- 16:9
2560:1080 ???? 21:9 *(approximate rounded values)
3840:1080 ???? 31:9 *(same)
3840:2160 -4K- 16:9
My point being: Now we buy ultra-wide monitors, or watch every program with black bars on top/bottom.
It sounds like the industry takes small steps to keep us buying new stuff each decade or so.