The Widescreen TV is the Closest
Thing You Can Get
to a Cinematic Experience in Your Home.
The widescreen TV comes in many flavors, and can utilize many different technologies. But their universal purpose is to create an image that has an aspect ratio that’s very similar to what you would find in your local cinema. Let’s talk about what makes a television a widescreen TV.
Widescreen TV vs.
Standard Aspect Ratio TV
The TV
that you’re most accustomed to watching is probably a Standard Aspect
Ratio TV. A common TV as a ratio of width to height of 4 by 3. That
means that it is 4 units wide (this unit can be any amount of
measurement, feet, inches, centimeters, etc.) by 3 units tall.
A
widescreen TV possesses a 16:9 Aspect Ratio, meaning that a wide screen
is almost 2 times wider than it is tall. What’s the reason for this?
In order to fully understand the rapid emergence of high tech widescreen
TVs, it’s necessary to understand the aspect ratios of movies.
Aspect
ratios can also be expressed with single, non-comparative numbers. For
example, a widescreens aspect ratio is 16 by 9, but that figure can also
be expressed at 1.78 to 1, and when dealing with aspect ratios where the
root is the value of 1, your end up with a television that has an aspect
ratio or 1.78.
Now,
wide screen motion pictures are usually shot in an aspect ratio of 1.85,
also know as Academy Standard. When you compare the aspect ratio of a
widescreen TV with the AR of a Motion Picture, you’ll soon see why
widescreens are as wide as they are.
A
widescreen is most commonly used in a Home Theater installation, where
the aspect ratio lends itself to displaying Feature Films with no
visible change in the original composition of the film.
You mean
that a widescreen television is used mostly for playing movies?
Not
necessarily. Widescreens can be used to display just about any form of
wide screen or 4 by 3 content that’s on the market. But, as the
High
Definition Standard becomes more saturated in the marketplace, so to
will the widescreen become more of the standard display device. High
definition video's native aspect ratio is 16 by 9, which is the same AR
as a widescreen television. So, as the world slowly changes its
television standard to High Definition, more programming will be
captured in a wide screen Format. And those of use with a wide screen
display will be ready to display that content in the format that it was
meant to be.
What
that knowledge in your back pocket, you can rest assured that widescreen
TVs are the right choice to future proof your entertainment center.
Take a look at some of the most reputable widescreen TV online merchants that we’ve found. They represent the
best value and customer service online.
|
