Things I never knew
Feb. 13th, 2013 06:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ivyficI watched Citizen Kane last week, and noticed it was full-screen, but didn't appear to be cropped at all. Judging by Roger Ebert's commentary, I think I would have noticed if things were missing from the screen.
So I did a little googling, and movies were originally the same aspect ratio as TVs (1.37:1). Which is why TVs are the aspect ratio they are. When they were invented, they were designed to match the movies of the time. Which, DUH. But I'd never thought of that.
In fact, looking at that link, there have been a mind-boggling array of different aspect ratios in favor at different times. And here I thought "full screen" and "wide screen" were pretty much your only options.
So I did a little googling, and movies were originally the same aspect ratio as TVs (1.37:1). Which is why TVs are the aspect ratio they are. When they were invented, they were designed to match the movies of the time. Which, DUH. But I'd never thought of that.
In fact, looking at that link, there have been a mind-boggling array of different aspect ratios in favor at different times. And here I thought "full screen" and "wide screen" were pretty much your only options.
no subject
Date: 2013-02-14 10:04 pm (UTC)is awfulcontains multitudes. The relationship of TV to film aspect ratio is this strange jockeying relationship: TV tries to be like movies, movies try to escape the competition by getting wider, TV gets wider too. I guess the next step for movies is 3D.