Aspect Ratio Follies

you can set it so it doesnt keep adjusting it. i plugged my video into my widescreen tv and it kept adjusting every 10 seconds.

Yeah sometimes it is really annoying! I didnt know I could fix it, I'll have to check my settings.

I'm pretty sure VHS videos were 4:3 with black bars on the top. That's the point of the Zoom function on the telly, right? xp

yeah they were almost all 4:3 but the widescreen ones were supposedly 'the whole picture' rather than fitted for smaller screens.

so at the movies, 'cinemascope' aka 2.35:1 or wider is back?

I often hear that 2.35 “feels more cinematic.” The natural question to follow is: What is the cinematic reference? For example, if we’re looking at cinema as Sundance in 2004, 2.35 would look decidedly non-cinematic. If it’s looking at the current cinema, it makes sense, but that merely confirms the convention and doesn’t answer the question of how we got here. I believe the cinematic reference points are a subset of films from a particular time, where the 2.35 aspect ratio was aligned with the practice of capturing physically elaborate subjects. The aims of such films appear to me at odds with the core of many independent films, and so I also interpret this sentiment as a signal. It is a signal of personal history and spiritual alliance but may not emerge organically from the project at hand.

So if the dramatic growth in the use of 2.35 is due to its use as a signal, it would be curious but not the strangest of human conventions. The more substantial question is: Does this convention have aesthetic consequences?

http://www.hammertonail.com/editorial/suddenly-cinemascope-by-patrick-wang/