What is 16:9? What is its origin?
Answer:
16:9 is a widescreen format. It's the ratio of horizontal pixel number to vertical line number. In high definition TV formats there are two resolutions of 1920x1080 (progressive or interlacing) and 1280x720. The fisrt number before multiply sign is the active horizotal pixel number per scan line, the number after the sign is the active scan line number in one frame. You can see 1920:1080=16:9, 1280:720=16:9.
I believe it's from the Bible? John Chap 16 verse 9 ?
16:9 is the screen ratio for Widescreen. By contrast, the screen ratio for a normal TV is 4:3. It's the ratio of Width to Height.
So if you have a 16:9 TV that is 30 inches across, it will be about 17 inches high.
Hope that helps,
Simon H
16:9 is a widescreen format, more specifically it is the ratio between width and height of the screen. So if you had a screen that was 160 inches wide it would be 90 inches high. Originally cinema was 4:3 as well, but when television became popular cinema moved to a wider screen to give it that little bit extra. Now television has caught up and has also gone to 16:9 widescreen. Of course cinema has moved on again since then and a lot of cinema material is closer to 21:9, which is why you still sometimes see black bars on the top and bottom of the screen while watching a film on your 16:9 plasma or lcd monitor.
Its the aspect ratio x:y
16:9 (1.77:1) and 4:3 (1.33:1) represent common aspect ratios used in the video and computer industries. The larger number represents the WIDTH of a video image or display and the smaller number represents the HEIGHT of a video image or display. These aspect ratios were not arbitrarily chosen but were the end result of a collaborative engineering process. You will also find that vertical and horizontal resolution for a display or video is directly proportional to the 16:9 or 4:3 aspect ratios. For example 1920×1080, 1280×720, and 720×480 are all 16:9 ratios predominant in digital video and 1600×1200, 1024×768, 800×600, and 640×480 are all 4:3 aspect ratios found throughout the computer industry. (See [1] for IMDb's enlightening list of film and video aspect ratios found on DVD-Video discs.)
In 1984 the Working Group on High Definition Electronic Production from the Society of Motion Picture and Theater Engineers (SMPTE) established the 16:9 (or 1.77:1) aspect ratio as the standard [2] for future High Definition Electronic (Video) Production. The standard was intended to specify the aspect ratio for shooting HD video for electronic production; it was not intended to specify an aspect ratio for future HD displays. [3]
The 16:9 aspect ratio was chosen because it comes closest to providing the best video image shape that minimizes the average area loss for film and video image shapes between 4:3 and 2.35:1. Also, the 16:9 aspect ratio is "close to the linear (1.76:1) and geometric (1.75:1) means of the world's most popular theatrical projection aspect ratios (1.66:1 and 1.85:1)." [3]
One interesting note is the relationship between 4:3, 16:9 and the CinemaScope film format, i.e., 4:3 × 4:3 × 4:3 = 16:9 × 4:3 = 64:27 ≈ 2.37:1 (extremely close to the 2.35:1 aspect ratio of the CinemaScope film format; purely coincidence?) I mention this because the 2.35:1 CinemaScope aspect ratio is making noticeable inroads of late in the high-end home theater market. [4][5][6]
Throughout the ATSC's [7] DTV standards process many professional cinematographers [8] vehemently voiced displeasure with the proposal to adopt the 16:9 aspect ratio as the only aspect ratio to be specified for HD content. The cinematographers were appealing for an aspect ratio not less than 2:1 to be chosen instead [9][10]; in the end their pleas fell on deaf ears.
If you are interested in learning more on the subject of film and video formats and their related aspect ratios please check out the following detailed articles [11][12] and [13].
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