16:9 is a widescreen aspect ratio with a width of 16 units and height of 9 units.
Once seen as exotic, [1] since 2009, it has become the most common aspect ratio for televisions and computer monitors, and is also the universal standard image format for the universal FHD (1920x1080p) format.
16:9 or "sixteen-nine" is the universal widescreen standard format [2] and Wide-aspect Clear-vision. [3] Japan's Hi-Vision originally started with a 15:9 ratio but converted when the international standards group introduced the wider ratio 16:9. Many digital video cameras have the capability to record in 16:9, and it's the only widescreen aspect ratio natively supported by Blu-ray Disc. It is also the native aspect ratio of the Blu-ray Disc, but Blu-ray Disc producers can also choose to show even a wider ratio such as 18:9 within the 16:9 frame adding Letterbox black bars within the image itself.[ citation needed ]
Kerns H. Powers, a member of the SMPTE Working Group on High-Definition Electronic Production, first proposed the 16:9 (1.77:1) aspect ratio in 1984. [4] The popular choices in 1980 were 4:3 (based on TV standard's ratio at the time), 15:9 (5:3) (the European "flat" 1.66:1 ratio), 1.85:1 (the American "flat" ratio) and 2.35:1 (the CinemaScope/Panavision) ratio for anamorphic widescreen.
Powers cut out rectangles with equal areas, shaped to match each of the popular aspect ratios. When overlapped with their center points aligned, he found that all of those aspect ratio rectangles fit within an outer rectangle with an aspect ratio of 1.77:1 and all of them also covered a smaller common inner rectangle with the same aspect ratio 1.78:1. [5] The value found by Powers is exactly the geometric mean of the extreme aspect ratios, 4:3 and 2.35:1, ≈ 1.77 which is coincidentally close to 16:9. Applying the same geometric mean technique to 16:9 and 4:3 yields an aspect ratio of around 1.5396:1, sometimes approximated as 14:9 (1.55:1), which is likewise used as a compromise between these ratios. [6]
While 16:9 (1.77:1) was initially selected as a compromise format, the subsequent popularity of HD broadcast has solidified 16:9 as perhaps the most common video aspect ratio in use. [7] Most 4:3 (1.33:1) and 2.40:1 video is now recorded using a "shoot and protect" technique that keeps the main action within a 16:9 (1.77:1) inner rectangle to facilitate 16:9 conversion and viewing. [8] Conversely it is quite common to use a technique known as center-cutting, to approach the challenge of presenting material shot (typically 16:9) to both an HD and legacy 4:3 audience simultaneously without having to compromise image size for either audience. Content creators frame critical content or graphics to fit within the 1.33:1 raster space. This has similarities to a filming technique called open matte.
In 1993, the European Union instituted the 16:9 Action Plan, [9] to accelerate the development of the advanced television services in 16:9 aspect ratio, both in PALplus (compatible with regular PAL broadcasts) and also in HD-MAC (an early HD format). The Community fund for the 16:9 Action Plan amounted to €228,000,000.
Over a long period in the late 2000s and early 2010s, the computer industry switched from 4:3 to 16:10 (1.60:1) and then to 16:9 as the most common aspect ratio for monitors and laptops. A 2008 report by DisplaySearch cited a number of reasons for this shift, including the ability for PC and monitor manufacturers to expand their product ranges by offering products with wider screens and higher resolutions, helping consumers to more easily adopt such products and "stimulating the growth of the notebook PC and LCD monitor market". [10] By using the same aspect ratio for both TVs and monitors, manufacturing can be streamlined and research costs reduced by not requiring two separate sets of equipment, and since a 16:9 is narrower than a 16:10 panel of the same length, more panels can be created per sheet of glass. [11] [12] [13]
In 2011, Bennie Budler, product manager of IT products at Samsung South Africa, confirmed that monitors with a native resolution of 1920 × 1200 were not being manufactured anymore. "It is all about reducing manufacturing costs. The new 16:9 aspect ratio panels are more cost-effective to manufacture locally than the previous 16:10 panels". [14]
In March 2011, the 16:9 resolution 1920 × 1080 became the most common used resolution among Steam's users. The previous most common resolution was 1680 × 1050 (16:10). [15] By July 2022, 16:9 resolutions are preferred by 77% of users (1920 × 1080 with 67%; 2560 × 1440 with 10%). [16]
16:9 is the only widescreen aspect ratio natively supported by the DVD format. An anamorphic PAL region DVD video frame has a maximum resolution of 720 × 576p, but a video player software will stretch this to 1024 × 576p.
Producers can also choose to show even wider ratios such as 1.85:1 and 2.4:1 within the 16:9 DVD frame by hard matting or adding black bars within the image itself. Some films which were made in a 1.85:1 aspect ratio, such as the U.S.-Italian co-production Man of La Mancha and Kenneth Branagh's Much Ado About Nothing , fit quite comfortably onto a 1.77:1 HDTV screen and have been issued as an enhanced version on DVD without the black bars. Many digital video cameras also have the capability to record in 16:9.
Common resolutions for 16:9 are listed in the table below:
Width | Height | Name |
---|---|---|
640 | 360 | nHD |
854 | 480 | FWVGA |
960 | 540 | qHD |
1024 | 576 | WSVGA |
1280 | 720 | HD |
1366 | 768 | FWXGA |
1600 | 900 | HD+ |
1920 | 1080 | Full HD |
2560 | 1440 | QHD |
3200 | 1800 | QHD+ |
3840 | 2160 | 4K UHD |
5120 | 2880 | 5K |
7680 | 4320 | 8K UHD |
Country | Channel |
---|---|
Albania | All channels. |
Andorra | All channels. |
Armenia | All channels. |
Austria | All channels. |
Azerbaijan | All channels. |
Belarus | All channels. |
Belgium | All channels. |
Bosnia and Herzegovina | All channels. |
Bulgaria | All channels. |
Cyprus | All channels. |
Croatia | All channels |
Czech Republic | All channels. |
Denmark | All channels. |
Estonia | All channels. |
Finland | All channels. |
France | All channels. |
Germany | All channels. |
Georgia | All channels. |
Greece | All channels. |
Hungary | All channels. |
Iceland | All channels. |
Ireland | All channels. |
Italy | All channels. |
Kazakhstan | All channels. |
Latvia | All channels. |
Lithuania | All channels. |
Luxembourg | All channels. |
Malta | All channels. |
Moldova | All channels. |
Monaco | All channels. |
Montenegro | All channels. |
Netherlands | All channels. |
North Macedonia | All channels. |
Norway | All channels. |
Poland | All channels. |
Portugal | All channels. |
Romania | All channels. |
Russia | All channels. |
San Marino | All channels. |
Serbia | All channels. |
Slovakia | All channels. |
Slovenia | All channels. |
Spain | All channels. |
Sweden | All channels. |
Switzerland | All channels. |
Ukraine | All channels. |
United Kingdom | All channels. |
Country | Channel |
---|---|
American Samoa | All channels. |
Australia | All channels. |
Fiji | All channels. |
French Polynesia | All channels. |
Guam | All channels. |
New Zealand | All channels. |
Niue | All channels. |
Palau | All channels. |
Papua New Guinea | All channels. |
Samoa | All channels. |
Solomon Islands | All channels. |
Country/Territory | Channel |
---|---|
Afghanistan | All channels. |
Bahrain | All channels. |
Bangladesh | RTV, SA TV, Somoy TV. |
Brunei | All channels (Radio Television Brunei). |
Cambodia | All channels. |
China | CCTV channels 1–15, CCTV-5+, all CGTN channels. Older contents in 4:3 and news contents are stretched on SD variants of these channels as stretching on SD channels is common. |
Hong Kong | All channels. |
India | All HD channels. Most SD channels are still broadcasting in 4:3, either fullscreen or letterboxed. |
Indonesia | All channels. Very few local TV channels still remain in 4:3, for example Ruai TV and Tepian TV . |
Iran | All channels. |
Iraq | All channels. |
Israel | All channels. |
Japan | All channels. Japan pioneered its analogue HDTV system (MUSE) in 16:9 format, which started in the 1980s. There were also analog NTSC-compatible widescreen broadcasts using the Clear-Vision system. Currently all main channels have digital terrestrial television channels in 16:9. Many satellite broadcast channels are being broadcast in 16:9 as well. |
Jordan | All channels. |
Kuwait | All channels. |
Kyrgyzstan | All channels. |
Laos | All channels. |
Lebanon | All channels. |
Malaysia | All channels. |
Maldives | All channels. |
Mongolia | MNB & MN2, TM Television, TV5, TV6, TV8, Channel 25, Эx Орон, SBN, ETV, MNC, Eagle News TV, Edutainment TV, Star TV, SPS, Sportbox and SHUUD TV. |
Myanmar | All channels. |
Nepal | Kantipur Television Network, AP1 TV, News 24 (Nepal), TV Filmy and Nepal Television. |
North Korea | All channels. |
Oman | All channels. |
Pakistan | All HD channels. Most SD channels are still broadcasting in 4:3, either in fullscreen or letterboxed |
Palestine | All channels. |
Philippines | 16:9 native: [lower-alpha 1] PTV, ANC (both SD and HD), [lower-alpha 2] Kapamilya Channel (HD), [lower-alpha 2] RPTV, One PH, One News, [lower-alpha 2] One Sports+, [lower-alpha 2] Hope Channel Philippines, 3ABN, Hope International, INCTV, Net 25, DZRH News Television, TeleRadyo Serbisyo, all TAP DMV channels (TAP TV, TAP Edge, TAP Movies, TAP Action Flix, TAP Sports, Premier Sports, Premier Tennis, and Premier Football), BuKo, NBA TV Philippines, PBA Rush, UAAP Varsity Channel, Golden Nation Network, Metro Channel, SMNI, SMNI News Channel, IBC 13, All TV, GMA 7, GTV and its other subchannels, TV5 (both SD and HD), One Sports (both SD and HD), RJ DigiTV (possibly some programs). 4:3 upscaled/stretched to 16:9: [lower-alpha 3] all of BEAM TV's subchannels, Light Network, UNTV, [lower-alpha 4] Ang Dating Daan TV, Kapamilya Channel (SD), A2Z, Cine Mo!, Jeepney TV, SolarFlix, RJ DigiTV. |
Qatar | All beIN Sports channels, Al Jazeera Arabic, Al Jazeera English, Al Jazeera Mubasher, Qatar TV HD, all Alkass channels. |
Saudi Arabia | All channels. |
Singapore | All channels, however 16:9 contents look squashed on older 4:3 sets. Also, all 4:3 contents including news clips are stretched as stretching is common. |
South Korea | All channels. |
Sri Lanka | All channels |
Syria | All channels. |
Taiwan | All channels. |
Tajikistan | All channels. |
Thailand | All channels. |
Turkey | All channels. |
Turkmenistan | All channels. |
United Arab Emirates | All channels. |
Uzbekistan | All channels. |
Vietnam | All of VTC's channels, VTV channels, HTV channels and K+'s channels (selected programmes), most of local channels. |
Yemen | All channels. |
Country | Channel |
---|---|
Antigua and Barbuda | All channels. |
Argentina | All channels. |
Bahamas | All channels. |
Barbados | All channels. |
Belize | All channels. |
Bolivia | Always on 16:9: PAT, ATB. Often on 16:9: Bolivia TV. |
Brazil | Channels change between 16:9 and 4:3 pillarbox depending on what's airing. |
British Virgin Islands | All channels. |
Canada | All channels. |
Cayman Islands | All channels. |
Chile | All channels. Expect Telecanal in 4.3 in ident 4:3 letterboxed in commercials. |
Colombia | All channels. |
Costa Rica | All channels. |
Cuba | All channels. |
Curaçao | All channels. |
Dominican Republic | All channels. |
Ecuador | All channels. |
El Salvador | All channels. |
Grenada | All channels. |
Guatemala | All channels. |
Guyana | All channels. |
Honduras | All channels. |
Jamaica | All channels. |
Mexico | Free-to-air television: Las Estrellas, FOROtv, Canal 5, NU9VE, Televisa Regional, Azteca Uno, Azteca 7, a+, adn40, Imagen Televisión, Excélsior TV, Canal Once, Canal 22, Una Voz con Todos, Teveunam, Milenio Televisión, Multimedios Televisión, Teleritmo, and some local HD stations. Pay television: U, Golden, Golden Edge, TL Novelas, Bandamax, De Película, De Película Clásico, Ritmoson Latino, TDN, TeleHit, Distrito Comedia, Tiin, Az Noticias, Az Clic!, Az Mundo, Az Corazón, Az Cinema, 52MX, TVC, TVC Deportes, Pánico, Cinema Platino, Cine Mexicano. |
Panama | All channels. |
Paraguay | Almost all channels on free-to-air television, especially HD feeds (ex.: RPC, NPY, Unicanal, channel 7 HD). SD feeds (usually found on pay television) are usually letterboxed and downscaled to 4:3 (ex.: SNT & Paravisión). |
Peru | All channels. |
Saint Kitts and Nevis | All channels. |
Saint Lucia | All channels. |
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines | All channels. |
Suriname | All channels. |
Trinidad and Tobago | All channels. |
United States | All HD channels. SD feeds are usually letterboxed and downscaled to 4:3. |
Uruguay | All channels. |
Venezuela | All channels. |
This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (August 2015) |
Country | Channel |
---|---|
Algeria | |
Angola | All channels. |
Benin | All channels. |
Botswana | All channels. |
Burkina Faso | All channels. |
Burundi | All channels. |
Cameroon | All channels. |
Cape Verde | All channels. |
Central African Republic | All channels. |
Chad | All channels. |
Comoros | All channels. |
Congo | All channels. |
DRC | All channels. |
Djibouti | All channels. |
Egypt | All channels. |
Equatorial Guinea | All channels. |
Eswatini | All channels. |
Ethiopia | All channels. |
The Gambia | All channels. |
Gabon | All channels. |
Ghana | All channels. |
Guinea-Bissau | All channels. |
Ivory Coast | All channels. |
Kenya | All channels. |
Lesotho | All channels. |
Liberia | All channels. |
Libya | All channels. |
Madagascar | All channels. |
Malawi | All channels. |
Mali | All channels. |
Morocco | All channels. |
Mozambique | All channels. |
Mauritania | All channels. |
Mauritius | All channels. |
Namibia | All channels. |
Niger | All channels. |
Nigeria | All channels. |
Rwanda | All channels. |
Sao Tome and Principe | All channels. |
Senegal | All channels. |
Seychelles | All channels. |
Sierra Leone | All channels. |
Somalia | All channels. |
South Africa | All channels. |
South Sudan | All channels. |
Sudan | All channels. |
Tanzania | All channels. |
Togo | All channels. |
Tunisia | All channels. |
Uganda | All channels. |
Zambia | All channels. |
Zimbabwe | All channels. |
Widescreen images are displayed within a set of aspect ratios used in film, television and computer screens. In film, a widescreen film is any film image with a width-to-height aspect ratio greater than 4:3 (1.33:1).
Enhanced-definition television, or extended-definition television (EDTV) is a Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) marketing shorthand term for certain digital television (DTV) formats and devices. Specifically, this term defines an extension of the standard-definition television (SDTV) format that enables a clearer picture during high-motion scenes compared to previous iterations of SDTV, but not producing images as detailed as high-definition television (HDTV).
Anamorphic widescreen is a process by which a comparatively wide widescreen image is horizontally compressed to fit into a storage medium with a narrower aspect ratio, reducing the horizontal resolution of the image while keeping its full original vertical resolution. Compatible play-back equipment can then expand the horizontal dimension to show the original widescreen image. This is typically used to allow one to store widescreen images on a medium that was originally intended for a narrower ratio, while using as much of the frame – and therefore recording as much detail – as possible.
The display resolution or display modes of a digital television, computer monitor, or other display device is the number of distinct pixels in each dimension that can be displayed. It can be an ambiguous term especially as the displayed resolution is controlled by different factors in cathode ray tube (CRT) displays, flat-panel displays and projection displays using fixed picture-element (pixel) arrays.
PALplus is an analogue television broadcasting system aimed to improve and enhance the PAL format by allowing 16:9 aspect ratio broadcasts, while remaining compatible with existing television receivers, defined by International Telecommunication Union (ITU) recommendation BT.1197-1. Introduced in 1993, it followed experiences with the HD-MAC and D2-MAC, hybrid analogue-digital widescreen formats that were incompatible with PAL receivers. It was developed at the University of Dortmund in Germany, in cooperation with German terrestrial broadcasters and European and Japanese manufacturers. The system had some adoption across Europe during the late 1990s and helped introduce widescreen TVs in the market, but never became mainstream.
In television technology, Wide Screen Signaling (WSS) is digital metadata embedded in invisible part of the analog TV signal describing qualities of the broadcast, in particular the intended aspect ratio of the image. This allows television broadcasters to enable both 4:3 and 16:9 television sets to optimally present pictures transmitted in either format, by displaying them in full screen, letterbox, widescreen, pillar-box, zoomed letterbox, etc.
720p is a progressive HD signal format with 720 horizontal lines/1280 columns and an aspect ratio (AR) of 16:9, normally known as widescreen HD (1.78:1). All major HD broadcasting standards include a 720p format, which has a resolution of 1280×720p.
1080i is a combination of frame resolution and scan type. 1080i is used in high-definition television (HDTV) and high-definition video. The number "1080" refers to the number of horizontal lines on the screen. The "i" is an abbreviation for "interlaced"; this indicates that only the even lines of each frame, then only the odd lines, are drawn alternately, so that only half the number of lines are ever updated at once. A related display resolution is 1080p, which also has 1080 lines of resolution; the "p" refers to progressive scan, which indicates that each full frame appears on the screen in sequence.
High-definition video is video of higher resolution and quality than standard-definition. While there is no standardized meaning for high-definition, generally any video image with considerably more than 480 vertical scan lines or 576 vertical lines (Europe) is considered high-definition. 480 scan lines is generally the minimum even though the majority of systems greatly exceed that. Images of standard resolution captured at rates faster than normal, by a high-speed camera may be considered high-definition in some contexts. Some television series shot on high-definition video are made to look as if they have been shot on film, a technique which is often known as filmizing.
1080p is a set of HDTV high-definition video modes characterized by 1,920 pixels displayed across the screen horizontally and 1,080 pixels down the screen vertically; the p stands for progressive scan, i.e. non-interlaced. The term usually assumes a widescreen aspect ratio of 16:9, implying a resolution of 2.1 megapixels. It is often marketed as Full HD or FHD, to contrast 1080p with 720p resolution screens. Although 1080p is sometimes referred to as 2K resolution, other sources differentiate between 1080p and (true) 2K resolution.
16:10 (1.6:1) is an aspect ratio commonly used for computer displays and tablet computers. It is equal to 8/5, close to the golden ratio, which is approximately 1.618. Video editing applications are commonly designed to allow editing of 16:9 content with the editing interface occupying the lower tenth of the display, allowing editing using a single display with the video occupying the full width.
The technology of television has evolved since its early days using a mechanical system invented by Paul Gottlieb Nipkow in 1884. Every television system works on the scanning principle first implemented in the rotating disk scanner of Nipkow. This turns a two-dimensional image into a time series of signals that represent the brightness and color of each resolvable element of the picture. By repeating a two-dimensional image quickly enough, the impression of motion can be transmitted as well. For the receiving apparatus to reconstruct the image, synchronization information is included in the signal to allow proper placement of each line within the image and to identify when a complete image has been transmitted and a new image is to follow.
High-definition television (HDTV) describes a television or video system which provides a substantially higher image resolution than the previous generation of technologies. The term has been used since at least 1933; in more recent times, it refers to the generation following standard-definition television (SDTV). It is the current de facto standard video format used in most broadcasts: terrestrial broadcast television, cable television, satellite television.
The display aspect ratio (or DAR) is the aspect ratio of a display device and so the proportional relationship between the physical width and the height of the display. It is expressed as two numbers separated by a colon (x:y), where x corresponds to the width and y to the height. Common aspect ratios for displays, past and present, include 5:4, 4:3, 16:10, and 16:9.
"21:9" is a consumer electronics (CE) marketing term to describe the ultrawide aspect ratio of 64:27, designed to show films recorded in CinemaScope and equivalent modern anamorphic formats. The main benefit of this screen aspect ratio is a constant display height when displaying other content with a lesser aspect ratio.
4K resolution refers to a horizontal display resolution of approximately 4,000 pixels. Digital television and digital cinematography commonly use several different 4K resolutions. In television and consumer media, 3840 × 2160 with a 16:9 aspect ratio is the dominant 4K standard, whereas the movie projection industry uses 4096 × 2160.
A display resolution standard is a commonly used width and height dimension of an electronic visual display device, measured in pixels. This information is used for electronic devices such as a computer monitor. Certain combinations of width and height are standardized and typically given a name and an initialism which is descriptive of its dimensions. A graphics display resolution can be used in tandem with the size of the graphics display to calculate pixel density. An increase in the pixel density often correlates with a decrease in the size of individual pixels on a display.
The aspect ratio of an image is the ratio of its width to its height. It is expressed as two numbers separated by a colon, width:height. Common aspect ratios are 1.85:1 and 2.40:1 in cinematography, 4:3 and 16:9 in television, and 3:2 in still photography.
ITU-R Recommendation BT.2020, more commonly known by the abbreviations Rec. 2020 or BT.2020, defines various aspects of ultra-high-definition television (UHDTV) with standard dynamic range (SDR) and wide color gamut (WCG), including picture resolutions, frame rates with progressive scan, bit depths, color primaries, RGB and luma-chroma color representations, chroma subsamplings, and an opto-electronic transfer function. The first version of Rec. 2020 was posted on the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) website on August 23, 2012, and two further editions have been published since then.
Ultrawide formats refers to photos, videos, and displays with aspect ratios greater than 2. There were multiple moves in history towards wider formats, including one by Disney, with some of them being more successful than others.