Video Asylum

Posted by Dalancroft (i) on March 06, 2001 at 16:00:13:

In Reply to: What Is Aspect Ratio??? posted by indy on March 06, 2001 at 14:57:54:

Width of screen/height of screen.

An HDTV unit will be 16/9, which would mean, for example, 32" wide by 18" tall, which would probably measure 36" or so diagonally.

A regular NTSC unit's aspect ratio is 4:3 (or, for an apples-to-apples comparison, 16:12), so a 32" wide TV screen would be 24" high and would measure somewhere around 40" diagonally.

The benefit to a 16:9 ration is that anamorphic DVDs play without needing the black bars above & below, and more & more TV shows, ads, etc. are also in this narrower screen ratio . . .