Why is widescreen popular

A few films were produced in these larger formats but they quickly died as the depression made the expense to re-equip theatres with new projectors and screens an economic impossibility. Eidoloscope, circa , featured an aspect ratio of 1.

Film gauge: 51mm inside rollers. The Bat Whispers Photographed in both 35mm and 70mm, as seen in the title frames above. Perhaps the studios offered too much, too soon, for exhibitors. As noted on this poster for The Bat Whispers sound was still a big deal, and a huge financial investment. Unfortunately, despite the continued widespread use of cameras, LCD monitors with a aspect ratio are getting harder and harder to find.

Many manufacturers have abandoned them in favor of the newer widescreens. These range in size from 5. They are available with standard, waterproof, steel or open frame enclosures. They can be touch screen, sunlight readable, medical-grade, or optically bonded. These are increasingly used in video conferencing, broadcast and medical applications. They display superb, distortion-free, high-definition images. You must avoid video images which are stretched, chopped, squeezed, shrunk or distorted.

The resulted in several decades where 1. Things stayed with this until television became popular. This worried the cinema industry as TV was taking their audience. So they decided to fight back by doing something TV could not do: offer "bigger" images in a different aspect ratio. The first way to do this was Cinerama first used in which produced a ratio of 2. This was successful but expensive. The fact that it was a success spurred an explosion of innovation driven by the desire for "bigger" pictures or wider ratios than TV but constrained by the cost of the various systems.

This was effectively an arms race of new technology constrained by cost. Paramount first responded in by releasing movies in 1. In an old invention, the anamorphic lens, was used to shoot wide screen on conventional film. This was CinemaScope which had a ratio of 2. This was followed by other innovations like VistaVsion in which gave a 1. Innovation didn't stop there. Since then innovation has continued in an attempt to balance the cost with the desire to have non-TV ratios. When TV started to catch up in the s with new video standards a new compromise ratio was developed for video production that would minimise the empty space on screens when movie ratios were shown on TV and eventually DVD and higher definition broadcasts such as HDTV.

This was a ratio of 1. The proliferation of formats was initially driven by the need to do better than TV but became an arms race of new formats driven by the need to trade off the technology and production cost of new formats with the benefits of non-TV ratios. Most of the facts here are derived from this excellent video by FilmMakerIQ. Sign up to join this community. The best answers are voted up and rise to the top. Stack Overflow for Teams — Collaborate and share knowledge with a private group.

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