Mar
7
Aspect Ratios
Filed Under Home Theater Theory
I feel a bit strange even discussing aspect ratios in 2008 but just the other day someone asked me, “Why doesn’t it fill up the entire screen?” referring to the 2.35:1 “cinemascope” movie playing on the 16:9 screen. “It’s a different aspect ratio” I replied, “the films cinematographer picked it because they felt it was the most appropriate aspect to help tell the films story.” That generally sounds a bit better than “that’s just the way they shot it”.
There are a million different analogies one can use and most of them get the point across but in a nutshell, some films just lend themselves to wider aspect-ratios (scopes) than others. The question of zooming i.e. stretching the content vertically to fill the screen often goes hand in hand with any discussion of aspect ratios.
Personally I never zoom, crop, stretch, fill or otherwise alter anything I’m watching if it all possible. That said I understand why others may want to make sure every last inch of screen space is filled. In the end the decision to zoom or crop is yours. I’d urge you to at least give the original aspect ratio presentation a shot from time to time, you might be surprised to see how much of the image is lost when using zoom and crop functions.
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