The official 16:9 screen protest thread

I don't use 16:9 for work and wouldn't want to, I use twin 19" 4:3 for work.

 

I use a 24" 16:10 and a 19" 4:3. Each monitor is used for separate tasks, and the 16:10 works very well. Of course the 24" monitor at 1920x1200 has a dpi of 94.

 

gaming on 16:9 sucks. Are developers also switching to include 16:9 support? Is there any chance for 16:10 screens surviving?

 

I watch movies on my laptop. I game on it too.

@ Mew - Unlikely though there does seem to be a few that still use 16:10, such as the upcoming MSI GT640 and GT740. Not sure how long it will last though.

 

Thats because you're broke and cant afford a normal TV. Normal people dont watch movies on a laptop.

 

Well I just had to purchase a Dell Inspiron last week just because the old Pavilion was retired hurt. Was surprised to find that all models in the showroom irrespective of the brand flaunted 16:9 screen resolution. I myself had no other option but to go for 1366x768 res. It looks very awkward as the screen size itself is only 14 inch. Gosh! How much I miss the old 16:10. The Pavilion has a 1440x900 and for me it was perfect.

I feel the manufacturers are forcing 16:9 on the end users for their own profits. And I seriously resent this when we don't have any options. Computer manufacturers are nowadays ripping off customers as you can see for a huge investment spent, you only get a standard 1 year warranty. Just compare it with other electronics like ACs, Refrigerators, LCD TVs and so on.

 

Still no-one has answered, why did we get 16:10 instead of 4:3, what was the justification for that?

 

I answered it (and I'm assuming other people answered it) some time in the 55 pages before this post.

I'm pretty sure the answer has something to do with unicorns.

 

Lithus, you answered the question pertaining to the shift concerning laptops(with the palmrests), but was the same reason applied to desktop monitors and TVs(were there even 16:10 TVs? )?

To me, palmrests seems to be a really odd reason to change a whole screen standard.

I mean, the shift to 16:9 shows that LCD manufacturers want to create a single standard, but for the shift from 4:3 to 16:10, was there a reason for other media LCDs except laptops?

 

It seems like the 1400x1050 4:3 screen on the retired Lenovo T61 would be a good resolution/format for a laptop which begs the questions, why it didn't sell better and is it an insufficient example for there to reach a consumer resolution/format preference based on that one previously available choice?

 

Ok, so where was the outcry when 16:10 came along, where was the "I don't want widescreen i'll lose productivity"?

I seem to remember on NBR there was an anti-widescreen thread and the general response was "don't be so silly" yet now there is a standard aspect and set of res for TV and Laptops and wider keyboards/numpads etc. and everyone is whining about productivity. I don't get it, frankly. I use a 16:9 laptop every day and yes there is a bit less virtical res than 1280*800, but there's also more width which (in my opinion) is better for Windows Live Messenger and Mail, better for films and TV. There's not as much height when browsing sure but it's only a 4% loss it's not exactly huge. It's nothing like the difference between 1280*960 and 1280*800 in terms of virtical res lost.

You can argue that film and TV watching is not the primary use for a laptop, but then neither is gaming. TVs are best for watching TV and Desktops/Consoles are best for gaming on, so whining about how it's worse for gaming is just as pointless.

 

IDK, I think it's best to just let this die. A few years down the road, 16:10 will probably be just like 4:3 is today - rare, and only used by a few diehards (or people with old computers).

You can keep arguing, but I feel like you're talking to a brick wall (which coincidentally is now banned).

 

I guess that the move to 16:10 actually seemed like you were gaining screen space laterally, but with the move to 16:9, it just seems like the bottom inch of the screen has been chopped off.

 

Count me in.
I hate these 16:9 screens.

 

I do see the point, 1024*768 seems very claustrophobic these days, a move to the standard 1280*800 inclreased res in both directions while 1366*768 only increases width and slightly decreases height, although you still get an extra 25,000 pixels over all.

Right, even external monitors are all heading to widescreen now. My company just bought another load of 16:10 22" efforts after being on 19" 5:4 for ages. I like all three in their own way, I still prefer 5:4 for work though.

Yes, I got that feeling too. Let's just hope the ban is permanent. I think i'll leave it here!

All I can say is I really like my HP, not because it is 16:9, but just because it's a great laptop.

 

If high resolution 4:3 screens are such a desireable thing for consumers then why is there not one manufacturer there to capture this "niche" market? I think you would need some economists and possibly some engineers to sort this out because the progression or I should say regression from 4:3 to 16:10 to 16:9 was not consumer driven.

 

None of the screen changes were consumer driven. There has been a cost saving factor involved in all the changes.

Purely speaking of the screen, we've been losing actual screen area with each change. A 19" monitor from now has physically less screen area than a 19" monitor from 4 years ago say. When I got my 16:10 19" HP LCD, I felt like it was smaller than my old 19" CRT Sony and that wasn't just a feeling, the screen physically got smaller. Remember, the farther away you stray from a square(i.e. the more rectangular you get), the less overall area you get for a same diagonal. Now, I'm not sure this wholly applies to the case since the shift in aspect ratios normally gives out a small shift in screen size(ex: 4:3 was a 15", 16:10 was a 15.4" and 16:9 is a 15.6") so maybe overall this area problem isn't as apparent.

Now, as Lithus pointed out, the shift from 4:3 to 16:10 not only carried a shift in screen size, but a change in the overall laptop form factor. Same mathematics as above, less area for a same diagonal so there should be less materials used to produce the laptop(his example with smaller palmrests would be pertinent).

So really, they've been cutting costs ever since the beginning form my understanding. Just so happens that now, people seem to get the "feeling" that the hit is being more apparent.

 

Well, that is quite the ignorant assumption; I have a 26" samsung TV here in my college dorm and in a week or so I plan on bringing up my HTIB. And yes, I have a DVD player here too.

Ill be waiting for your next ignorant assumption after your ban is over.

 

Well now that iGrim got banned, hopefully this thread will fade away for good.

 

very well said.

 

No - it shouldn't fade away.

16:9 supporters have not yet given a good reason why 16:9 is better than 16:10.

The film angle is irrelevant - yes some people like to watch films etc. on their laptop, but for 4:3 16:9 is even worse than 16:10 - and the primary use of a laptop is not to be a portable movie player.

Its primary use is a mobile workstation - now this includes many things, photo editing, internet research, numbr crunchin in Maple/Excel - Word, e-mail in Outlook etc.

Gaming is another aspect that wasn't the original use - but then gamin laptops are "huge monsters anyway" so they don't end up suffering as much as the users of smaller laptops.

On the mobile workstation aspect - 16:9 only brings a disadvantage.
It brings less height in pixels, or a far too high DPI.

Some people point out you get extra width - on that I say "so what"?
Programmes are "designed" around height, not width.
Even Photoshop with pretty large sidebars won't profit from 16:9 - Word (or Office alltogether) suffer from the loss of height, same goes for internet browsing as you need to scroll more.

The argument that we lost height from 4:3 to 16:10 is true in a purely technical way.
Most laptops (to the best of my knowledge) had a 1024*768 screnn - thus 1280*800 was an upgrade - even if there were larger 4:3 resolutions.

So - what do we actively gain from 16:9 - the answer is nothing - unless you are the kind who buys a laptop solely (!!) for movie watching - which begs the question - why didn't you buy a portable DVD player?

And on the movie aspect - I don't notice the small black bars that I get on for example the BBC iplayer - so what? At least it does its "workstation job" better

 

Well I recently changed from a Dell 2407WFP 16:10 to an S2409W and don't really mind the change.

I think the only legitimate people who can complain are the 1920x1200 users who are down-sized to 1920x1080. With all other resolutions, there is still at least the option of upgrading to a higher resolution even if it means going for a different brand etc.

While people say this is a solely for cost cutting, I think it is somewhat consumer driven as well. If a manufacturer is already producing 16:9 panels for TVs in much higher volume than 16:10 panels in PC LCDs, it'd definitely be more cost effective to switch to one standard size.

The manufacturer would then still have 2 aspect ratios of LCDs on sale, for example Dell. However if the cost of the 16:9 screens were generally lower than their 16:10 screens (and they often are), consumers will flock to the cheaper screens.

If consumers unanimously disliked, and thus boycotted 16:9 screens then 16:9 definitely wouldn't become standard.

 

Well, I have a 13,3" laptop at 1280*800.
What can I "upgrade too"?

Whichever laptop I'll buy in the future will have a vertical resolution of 768 pixels.

Any more and the DPI get's too high and it'll be difficult to me to read the screen.

 

Hmm, I actually hate 4:3. I can't stand it, it feels like it doesn't adhere to my eye ratio properly. I hate 16:9 on notebooks, but 16:10 is the sweet spot for me. This makes me think, how ridiculous would it be if there was a 5:4 notebook?

 

Which came first, the chicken or the egg? The movement toward better resolution began a long time ago. And it was the advent of movies on video tape which led that charge. Since most movies were in widescreen, it took years of outcries from video enthusiast insisting in maintaining the purity of the original movie. From that, the movement towards widescreen was born.

That all depends on your perspective. For years, tv screens have gotten bigger and bigger. People gave up living space for a bigger picture.

Not to long ago we transitioned form convex screens to flat monitors. Did we lose or gain back then?

Speaking of cutting cost, I can remember a time when things like cell phones were so expensive that only the rich could afford them. These day, those things are not only cheaper, but many times more advanced. Reducing cost, is good for manufacturer and consumer alike.

Actually is should...and it will.

Again, there's been many. The least of which is that "better" is a matter of perspective.

 

We've been having issues with aspect ratios and resolutions for movies for a while because movies were rarely all filmed at the same resolution(depending on the camera and choice of the director). Therefore, we had(and sometimes still do) have trouble finding a good aspect ratio which would fill in and crop the movies perfectly. It may be a detail, but the simple fact that one movie has 5cm black bars and the other has 10cm black bars is what's making some people work to find an aspect ratio that crops them all nicely.

Well that's why I added the argument of the physical size of the screen. However, there is still a mathematical loss. If that loss is really reflected in real life is another thing. For argument's sake we won't talk about technological advancements or quality, but mathematically, screens did get smaller when compared to a screen of the same diagonal length from the past.

I agree that cutting costs isn't necessarily a bad thing. Once again, it all depends on your point of view. At the end of the day, this thread is more or elss only a place to release steam. The only other utility I see is potentially "converting' the other guy to your point of view...

There are more productive ways of trying to halt or making your point of view known to manufacturers if you were that unhappy.

 

Why do you say he got banned? He is not banned

 

That's the exact problem 16:9 was designed to solve.

http://www.cinemasource.com/articles/aspect_ratios.pdf

Page 8.

 

Well, at the time of that post he was banned.

 

Which gets right to the point of the problem. The move to 16x9 came from the movie and entertainment industry. While we can and sometimes do use our computers to watch movies, that isn't their primary usage, and shouldn't dictate their design.

While I have heard a lot of people say they don't mind 16:9, I have yet to hear anyone who thinks it is better from a productivity standpoint than 16:10. When we moved to 16:10, computer users gave a huge sigh or relief. It was generally very welcome. 16:9 gets the opposite reaction from those same people.

 

Exactly
Primary task: Mobile workstation

What I said a few posts earlier too Laptops are not first movie players.

 

Yeah I know, I've read and been told that. However, it's still not perfect as the presence or absence as well as the different sizes of black abrs indicates croping issues are still present.

May I ask why the change to 16:10 was welcome? From what I garner, we've experienced loss in that case too.

I do agree that 16:9 is less productive, but for 16:10, the same argument can be used when comparing it to its predessecors. You get less vertical space per horizontal space for 16:10 compared to 4:3 or 5:4. Higher resolution was the main fix for that loss of height really. The main complaint I see is taht apparently DPI is now too high if we increase resolutions for 16:9, which is moer or less a preferencial issue.

 

Most 4:3 screens had a vertical resolution of 768 pixels.
Most 16:10 screens have a vertical resolution of 800 pixels.

So in most cases it was a win - of course not for everybody, but for the majority of people it was.

 

Well it goes back to the "feeling" that there was a gain, not that there actually was.

As I stated, they simply increased the resolution to make people happy, but you still lost vertical-to-horizontal size.

Now however, increasing the resolution apparently doesn't work anymore according to some(and again, that is a preference).

I honestly don't like the way things are going. The more rectagular screens get, the less area we get overall(not factoring in DPI). Also, there comes a point where too rectangular can simply be bad form-factor-wise(exagerrated ex: when you'll have to make 1.5m high bags to accomodate 17" laptops).

 

So what you're saying is that you're fine with aspect ratio changes, but you just don't like any loss of pixels?

So if for any reason in the future, screens were made with a minimum resolution of 1600x900 or so, 16:9 haters would be ok?

 

Tha would result in a DPI increase - and that's the problem.

The pixels on my SZ are small to me.

And no, I'm not simply Ok with resolution changes.

I can see where arguments in support for 16:10 come from - and it can be useful - I had a 1024*768 4:3 laptop screen before.

But now anywhere I will go I'll loose.
I don't use huge laptops - my SZ is a nice 13,3" - and at that format I can got to (for example) the 13" Sony Z with 1600*900 or loose vertical pixels.
The Z has got tiny pixels - I haven't seen the screen in person, but I don't want it smaller than my current SZ - it was already a significant step donw in pixel size for me.
Some people tell me I'd need a 14" 16:9 notebook - well, those tend to be heavier too...
Then there are teh plamrests which I use a lot.

I liked the 4:3 palmrests too, but the 16:10 ones are OK - but shorter would be uncomfortable.

 

Well in your case DPI would definitely get smaller, which would be a bad thing for you as you prefer a more readable DPI. So what you're really wanting is your old DPI but on the same diagonal length (13").

I guess this can be mostly attributed to the change to 16:9 -> higher DPI, but what you seem to be arguing for is mainly the fact that there is higher DPI, not particularly that 16:9 is a bad aspect ratio etc.

 

The problem is they go hand in hand.

Anything that is perfect on 16:10 will need a higher DPI on a 16:9 laptop of same size or else you loose vertical resolution.

Point2:

Software is developed for height - not width - MS Office is a prime example.

 

16:9 does not crop or distort non-16:9 aspect ratios (unless you set your screen to do so)...it displays them all with an equal area and fills in the screen that is not used with black bar masking.

The only aspect ratio that has more image area than the others is 16:9 because obviously it's a better fit.

 

Yep, that's its main objective.

 

Only for 16:9 content,
not for 4:3 content.

 

Really? Unlike text, the aspect ratio of visual material cannot be altered without interfering the content.

Productivity, comes in may varieties.

Incorrect! Laptops are tools; and their uses can be applied in an infinite number of ways. In my case, that use happens to be a custom fit for 16:9: video editing.

 

That's great if you have the luxury of 3 different PCs for your varying needs - as it is I carry around one machine that has to do everything for me, as such I would prefer a bit more vertical screen space for web use, and really couldn't care less about a black border above and below a movie. I would happily pay a bit extra for 16:10 over 16:9 if that's what it comes down to.

 

There should certainly be a choice. I would prefer 16:10 for my next laptop. As it is I'm now planning to keep my 5-year-old 4:3 laptop for a couple more years and hope the situation changes. Maybe eventually enough people realize the industry-wide shift to 16:9 was a bit of a scam?

 

I'm afraid that it's going to be much like the transition from 4:3 to 16:10 aspect ratio displays. The vast majority of consumer models have already made the switch to 16:9, but business models (ThinkPads, Dell Latitudes, etc.) will continue to be available with 16:10 for a year or two (hopefully).

For anyone hoping to get a 16:10 display, I'd suggest buying one of the business models so equipped in the next six months (or sooner)!

 

With screens getting shorter and shorter, I wonder if MS will redesign the menu bars and taskbar to take up horizontal space instead of vertical space in Windows 8?

Cuz if the widescreen trend keeps up, at this rate we'll all be stuck with 16:6 screens and be nostalgic about the good old 16:9 days by the time Windows 8 launches.

I wonder what they'll do to make screens wider after they hit 16:1 though.

 

I don't know but sure there will be plenty of posters saying 16:1 FTW! and talking about how much better it is for viewing scrolling ticker symbols and news blurbs or some such nonsense.

 

Well there's past a certain point where it'll be too wide. If you can't even fit a full sized keyboard on a 15" because it lacks enough vertical space, we'll knwo they're starting to get too short lol

 

16:9 ~ 1.78:1

Many movies (such as Star Wars) are filmed originally in 2.35:1 (~16:6.8)... maybe one day

 

You're right, but I'm convinced that LCD panel makers are insane.

For instance, most businesses today still prefer (and purchase) 4:3 monitors, yet the LCD panel makers have completely abandoned 4:3 nonetheless. If they're already ignoring half the market (businesses), I don't see any reason why they won't just ignore the other half of the market (individuals) too and make whatever they please. Reminds me of the early days of software engineering when the programmers designed programs for themselves rather than the end users.