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  1. Member brassplyer's Avatar
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    I have Sony Digital8 SD camcorders that shoot in 16:9 and 4:3 and there were many others that could shoot in 16:9 as well.

    Why were 16:9 SD cameras made? Was 16:9 SD tv ever a thing in the US consumer market? It's my understanding they existed but I don't recall ever seeing one at Best Buy etc. Was there ever such a thing as a 16:9 SD tv broadcast in the US?

    Thanks for any insight.
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  2. Capturing Memories dellsam34's Avatar
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    16:9 SD frame was available as far back as Digital8 and miniDV camcorders, 16:9 TV's and monitors were available in the late 90's in the US as 720p then 1080i in early 2000's, I personally had LG 37" 720p TV in 2002 with firewire (iLink) input for direct camcorder playback, Most camcorders didn't use the full CCD array for 16:9 shooting just the center part later models used native 16:9 imaging sensor.
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    I have Sony Digital8 SD camcorders that shoot in 16:9 and 4:3
    I think it was a con. Without firing up my Sony D8, I think you will find that the actual video width ie angle of coverage is exactly the same for 4:3 and 16:9. The only difference is that 16:9 would look better on widescreen TVs because there would be no black bars top and bottom. The page from the manual explains:

    Image
    [Attachment 68176 - Click to enlarge]
    Last edited by Alwyn; 17th Dec 2022 at 02:30.
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  4. Originally Posted by brassplyer View Post
    Why were 16:9 SD cameras made?
    Why not? 16:9 was stipulated as a new aspect ratio for TV way back in the late 1980s I believe, away from 4:3 and from 5:3 used by the Japanese.
    Originally Posted by brassplyer View Post
    Was 16:9 SD tv ever a thing in the US consumer market?
    You mean TV sets? Of course. Early plasma panels were 480p. Europe had widescreen CRT TVs in the 1990s.
    Originally Posted by brassplyer View Post
    Was there ever such a thing as a 16:9 SD tv broadcast in the US?
    Not until ATSC 1.0 in the U.S. Europe had PALPlus.

    You are not surprised that "true" or "anamorphic" widescreen DVDs appeared in the 1990s, before HDTV took hold?
    Originally Posted by Alwyn View Post
    I have Sony Digital8 SD camcorders that shoot in 16:9 and 4:3
    I think it was a con. Without firing up my Sony D8, I think you will find that the actual video width ie angle of coverage is exactly the same for 4:3 and 16:9. The only difference is that 16:9 would look better on widescreen TVs because there would be no black bars top and bottom.
    Depends on a model. "Movie" mode on analog camcorders usually did what you say, a matted frame. Some DV camcorders did it too. But starting from early 2000s widescreen became a real thing with increased field of view. BTW, your example shows that at least the video was recorded as true widescreen, although the sensor may acquire image in matted form, losing resolution. This is what the DVX100 did, for example. But if instead of 4:3 interlaced you shot 16:9 progressive, it would still look better
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  5. Member Cornucopia's Avatar
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    Movies have been widescreen since the 50s, and cinephiles have always wanted to be able to watch them "as they were meant to be seen" (aka in ~ the AR they were created). Letterboxed widescreen was available as an option since the home video boom of the 80s, in Laserdisc and to a much lesser extent in VHS/Betamax. Even when doing so meant smaller size, given the near universal 4:3 TVs at the time. Of course, not everyone put up with the inconvenience of non-maximal use of the screen - and some still don't, as witnessed on this site. DVD was the turning point with anamorphic capabilities, taking advantage of the rise in sales of widescreen, but widescreen was still not commonplace until HD took off in th 2000s.
    Whenever there have been films that had a certain look, there have been fans that want to recreate that look using their own home equipment.

    Scott
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  6. Member netmask56's Avatar
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    Actually wide screen goes back to the 1920's and earlier the earliest modern style W/S was made on 70mm and had an aspect ratio of 2.098 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2slmf5PRXU John Wayne, BIG TRAIL 70mm wide screen 1930. In Australia there were W/S presentations by the local TV stations on old 4:3 CRT analog TV's, with the introduction of digital TV the standard transmission AR was 16:9 regardless of source being standard or high definition. Obviously on 4:3 material there were pillars either side. We did not have automatic switching for SD or HD. Basically we followed Europe. So SD could be 16:9 or even Cinemascope or 4:3. The changeover of sets from CRT to flat panels was very rapid here.
    SONY 75" Full array 200Hz LED TV, Yamaha A1070 amp, Zidoo UHD3000, BeyonWiz PVR V2 (Enigma2 clone), Chromecast, Windows 11 Professional, QNAP NAS TS851
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  7. Right. Letterboxing - and now pillarboxing - of native AR into broadcast AR is not new. But the particular feature, 16:9 recording on a consumer-grade camcorder, was meant to future-proof home videos in the expectation of switching from 4:3 to 16:9 for domestic TV sets on which home video is watched.
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  8. Member Skiller's Avatar
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    16:9 in SD was a big thing in Europe in the 00 years and is still used today all the time of for legacy SD broadcasts. Makes sense, why broadcast downscaled HD in letterbox or center-cut when you can use anamorphic like on DVD?
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  9. Originally Posted by Skiller View Post
    16:9 in SD was a big thing in Europe in the 00 years and is still used today all the time of for legacy SD broadcasts.
    Just like the Americans, the Europeans declined the offer from the Japanese to accept analog 1125i30 in the early 1980s and tried designing their own system. The Americans succeeded, the Europeans spent 2 billion German Marks and failed.

    The Europeans had several false starts with D-MAC, D2-MAC, HD-MAC, confusing prospective customers, yet all these formats were for satellite transmission only, unsuitable for OTA transmission within existing bandwidth. So, several OTA broadcasters came up with their own solution, PALPlus, to extend existing analog broadcasts with 16:9 and progressive scanning (there was a flag transmitted in the stream that signaled to a TV whether the content was 25p or 25i). Here, ZDF WISO über HD-MAC und PALplus (1994).

    Here is a 1998 widescreen program from the BBC. They upscaled it for YouTube into 1080, yet the frame rate is only 25p: 1998: Will MP3 Make PHYSICAL MEDIA Obsolete?
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