Aspect Ratio Incompatibility

The television industry's changing of aspect ratios is not without difficulties, and can present a considerable problem.

Displaying a widescreen aspect (rectangular) image on a conventional aspect (square or 4:3) display can be shown:

1- in "letterbox" format, with black horizontal bars at the top and bottom

2- with part of the image being cropped, usually the extreme left and right of the image being cut off (or in "pan and scan", parts selected by an operator or a viewer)

3- with the image horizontally compressed


A conventional aspect (square or 4:3) image on a widescreen aspect (rectangular with longer horizon) display can be shown:

1- in "pillar box" format,

2- with black vertical bars to the left and right with upper and lower portions of the image cut off (or in "tilt and scan", parts selected by an operator)

3- with the image horizontally distorted


A common compromise is to shoot or create material at an aspect ratio of 14:9, and to lose some image at each side for 4:3 presentation, and some image at top and bottom for 16:9 presentation. In recent years, the cinematographic process known as Super 35 (championed by James Cameron) has been used to film a number of major movies such as Titanic, Legally Blonde, Austin Powers, and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

This process results in a camera-negative which can then be used to create both wide-screen theatrical prints, and standard "full screen" releases for television/VHS/DVD which avoid the need for either "letterboxing" or the severe loss of information caused by conventional "pan-and-scan" cropping.