We have implemented a policy change at work.

As noted previously on this site, Digital Television is set to kick off in about a year. One of the profound changes this represents is to the very delivery form of television: It’s aspect ratio. SD (Standard Definition, Analog TV) is 4:3– and DTV is 16:9.

It’s as simple as that. But you’d be amazed how poorly this is being understood on the ground. The DVD authoring and Video Post business I’m a part of serves the great middle of the video distribution universe: Exercise, education, special-interest, and independent film titles comprise the bulk of our business. These generally go out in runs of 1000 to 5000 units and are either marketed directly or through specialty distribution. It sounds like small potatoes compared to studios with their million-unit runs, but take my word for it: Our clients do well by it.

But what we’re finding going into 2008 is a rather disturbing trend in delivery– call it the “Sports Bar TV Effect.” Every Sports Bar worthy of the name has not one but several new flatscreen televisions spread around the place. They’re relatively cheap and they don’t take up a lot of room. Generally, the one with the prime game is tuned to the HD satellite station and the image is in crisp 1080i. But as often as not, the bar doesn’t have an HD box, so everything is in SD– And never, never, EVER displayed correctly. The 4:3 SD video is stretched across the 16:9 screen, rendering all the players as squat-looking gnomes and making playing fields look erroneously enormous.

Nobody seems to notice this– Which is the problem.

We’re still receiving masters in 4:3. Even worse, we’re getting them marked “widescreen” or “16:9 LB” with big black bars on ‘em. This is, if anything, even worse than submitting masters in old square SD: a full quarter of the image is going to waste, and it’ll look plain ludicrous shown on a widescreen TV. Not everyone we work with has this peculiar Aspect Ratio aphasia, but a lot of clients simply do not understand the difference. I worry that if they cannot manage the paradigm shift, their media will quickly become as obsolete as the TVs they temporarily look so good on.

And it’s not just me: My associate Glen has a nice side-business selling footage to iStockphoto.com. He has told me that things have gotten so bad there with videographers submitting letterboxed or 4:3 video clips they have put up admonishing postings reminding them how it’s supposed to work.

So our new 2008 policy: INSISTING clients submit new SD masters in 16:9 FHA. FHA stands for “Full Height Anamorphic:” The “squished” image that results from putting a 16:9 image in a base 4:3 format. We don’t have to insist on this for HD delivery, because HD is already 16:9.

In the interests of educating you, our treasured readers, on emerging video technologies I’m going to take a moment here to clearly outline the aspect ratio paradigm shift– Through examples.

This first example is a 4:3 video, AR (aspect ratio) 1.33:1. It is a legacy of 35mm film, which was invented by Thomas Edison over 110 years ago and has been obsolete theatrically for nearly 50 years. As a video format, (NTSC or PAL) this AR is going to be completely obsolete in twelve months.

Next is 16:9 video, AR 1.77:1. It is the new worldwide standard video aspect ratio. Contrary to popular wisdom, this AR isn’t just for HD. 480i is a version of digital television that is designed to exactly match NTSC in resolution. (And yeah, that is Shego giving the business to her boss Dr. Drakken. Gotta live up to the reputation, I guess.)

Next example is 4:3 video IMPROPERLY displayed on a 16:9 monitor. Additional examples can be seen in Sports Bars from coast to coast. Some flatscreen TVs have a “justified” display mode, which takes the left and right margins of a 4:3 image and stretches it over the screen, leaving the image center looking fairly normal. This is better than nothing, but still distorted.

Next is 4:3 video PROPERLY displayed on a 16:9 monitor. It’s called “pillarboxing,” and you can see it on SD video up-rezzed to HD but pretty much nowhere else. Especially not in Sports Bars.

Next up is 4:3 video letterboxed to 16:9. 25% of the video image is being wasted by encoding the black bars into the image. If you learn anything from this article, let it be this: Letterboxed 16:9 only looks acceptable on 4:3 televisions, and they are going away forever next February. Important tip for you filmmakers out there: If you have somehow ended up with black bars in the editing process, you have at some point made a serious mistake.

Finally: This is what 16:9 FHA (Full Height Anamorphic) looks like as raw SD footage. If you’re a video maker and this is what comes out of your camera, do not be alarmed: It will look completely normal displayed on a digital television.

So the next time you visit your favorite Sports Bar and see your favorite athlete looking like The Incredible Hulk you know exactly what the problem is and can helpfully suggest some display adjustments to the Bar’s management. It’s good to remember that few bartenders actually physically throw people out these days: liability issues and such. They’d likely call the cops.

–Skot C.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 20th, 2008 at 9:00 am and is filed under Digital Wonderland, General, Hosts, Motion Pictures, News, Television. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.