Whither Widescreen?

Awhile so I posted something about the iPad, and noted how tired I was of people (and there were many) bemoaning the 4:3 aspect ratio. This was back in January, after the device had been announced and long before it had shipped. Now that the device is among us, the complaints seem to be much more concentrated on its lack of Adobe Flash support, which won't happen for a number of reasons but mostly because of the reasons outlined by Steve Jobs.

But that doesn't get those early whiners off the hook. Yes, it's true that just about every movie is presented in widescreen, so it would seem to be the optimal ratio for a device which purportedly excels at video, right? But what exactly *is* widescreen anyway? Is it an aspect ratio of 16x9 (1.78:1)¹? This is the aspect ratio for most films and an increasing number of television shows. Or is it 2.35:1? A lot of directors are choosing this as their preferred ratio, meaning that even your shiny new flatscreen HDTV will have those Ever-Objectionable Black Bars of Doom. In fact, in the list of the 50 top grossing movies, 36 of them are filmed in 2.35:1. And who knows what the future holds? This trend was even mocked on Family Guy, where a new cut of Lawrence of Arabia is presented in "Ultra Cinemascope Letterbox Format" Maybe the iPad should look like this?

Aspect ratio incongruences aside, the fact remains that the digital world is much greater than Hollywood might have you believe. Photography is almost exclusively a 4x3 world. Imagine viewing the thousands of digital photos you've taken full screen on your widescreen iPad, and watch those Black Bars return. Or what about the movies you took with your Flip? Probably not widescreen either. And that's not even mentioning all the old television shows and films which were shot in 4:3 and will thus be relegated to Black Bar-dom on any device that doesn't exactly match that ratio. And who's to say what the standard is for all the various games that work on the iPad? And on.

I've long been baffled by those who decry the black bars. Yes, it makes the image a little smaller, but with it you get the entire picture. You have the choice to cut off part of the picture and fill every single pixel on your 4:3 television, and you can do the same with the iPad if you choose. But other than physical image size, what's the beef with the Black Bars? I think the answer is people see these pixels as being wasted, as if they're getting cheated because every available pixel isn't being used.

Why should Apple optimize the device for watching movies when it wouldn't solve the "problem" for a lot of content out there, not to mention all the other uses for which the iPad is intended? I think the size and proportions of the iPad are just perfect, and if it means that I have to take some black bars with my movies, then I'll take that tradeoff.

Thanks to David for his assistance in compiling some of the information for this article.

¹ Actually, the more common aspect ratio for movies is 1.85:1 which is slightly different than the 1.78:1 ratio which is the HD TV standard. Still, the differences between these two ratios are small and probably only really matter if you’re a cinematographer. Thanks to Brent for pointing this out.←