Why is the computer industry pushing us to 16:9

[Bill Huber]

I just do not understand why the computer industry is forcing everyone to go to a 16:9 monitor.
I have 2, 20" 4:3 LCD monitors and one of them is going out, no problem just get a new one.

Have you looked around for 20", 4:3 monitors, can find them but the price is much higher then the 16:9s.

Why, we view just about everything in portrait mode any way. Why have a 24" 16:9 monitor that you can only see have a page on unless you use really small fonts.

They used to have 4:3 that would turn from landscape to portrait so you could see more of the page but now they have gone the other way.

So in about 3 years are they going to come out with this new great monitor that is 4:3 in portrait so you can see more of what you are browsing for.

[Jim Koepke]

It may have to do with the changing of our media world.

I think the 19:9 is more of a cinema display and what is more in demand for viewing video media.

4:3, if my memory is working, is studio aspect ratio.

Interesting that 4 & 3 squared comes out to 16 & 9.

I like the wide screen to have two documents side by side for comparison.

jtk

[Chuck Wintle]

I just do not understand why the computer industry is forcing everyone to go to a 16:9 monitor.
I have 2, 20" 4:3 LCD monitors and one of them is going out, no problem just get a new one.

Have you looked around for 20", 4:3 monitors, can find them but the price is much higher then the 16:9s.

Why, we view just about everything in portrait mode any way. Why have a 24" 16:9 monitor that you can only see have a page on unless you use really small fonts.

They used to have 4:3 that would turn from landscape to portrait so you could see more of the page but now they have gone the other way.

So in about 3 years are they going to come out with this new great monitor that is 4:3 in portrait so you can see more of what you are browsing for.

Is it because all media is broadcast ot formatted for 16:9 ratio?

[Rich Engelhardt]

I believe the answer is that the computer industry is trying hard to keep up w/the cellular explosion..
Cell phones pose a serious & viable threat/alternative to what users are using now as a "do it all" personal computer.
If you google - 16:9 cell phone - you'll get about 33 million hits.

The 16:9 aspect ratio fits the needs of the cell display better.

Believe me - I take things like this extremely serious.
What I mentioned above, about cell phones displacing the "PC" in the near future, was a major factor in my decision to retire from the computer industy next year.

[David Weaver]

Believe me - I take things like this extremely serious.
What I mentioned above, about cell phones displacing the "PC" in the near future, was a major factor in my decision to retire from the computer industy next year.

I work in a computation intensive industry. We do a lot of financial and probability-based projections (they are mostly brute force unless they're huge and simplifying assumptions are used) and the tech guys at the top have been barking for years about replacing our desktop computers with phones that do it all.

It was a good day when PCs had enough power to do those projections standalone, and phones will be there soon.

[Curt Harms]

I've wondered why pivoting displays aren't more common. They were around for a short time but have disappeared. Formatting of apps? Toolbars? A 20" monitor in portrait mode will display a 8.5" X 11" page with plenty of room left over. I have seen VESA mounts that enable display pivoting but they're not common.

[Karl Brogger]

It was a good day when PCs had enough power to do those projections standalone, and phones will be there soon.

I think we're there. I got a new phone this summer, (HTC evo), its got a 1000mhz processor in it. That's as fast as my first notebook computer in 2001.
Technology is a terrifying, beautiful thing.



As far as the monitors go, I wish 16:9 had never caught on, and everything went to whatever the aspect ratio the movie theaters use.

[Jim Underwood]

It was a good day when PCs had enough power to do those projections standalone, and phones will be there soon.

Couldn't tell it from my Boulder... The Verizon's OS really sucks. It's formatted badly and it can't get out of it's own way... You must be talking about newer smart phones...

As for smart phones being able to "do it all"? I much prefer a large desktop monitor so I can see what the heck I'm looking at.... And a powerful CPU.

[Pat Germain]

As far as the monitors go, I wish 16:9 had never caught on, and everything went to whatever the aspect ratio the movie theaters use.

There is no one ratio used by movie theaters. Theatric films use many different aspect ratios. That's why when you watch a movie on a HiDef TV, which is 16:9, sometimes there are still black lines above and below the picture. (The aspect ratio of the film is up to the director. He or she chooses it for creative reasons.) If the picture fits your HD television perfectly, that particular movie was filmed with a 16:9 ratio.

I think computer monitors are going 16:9 because that's the ratio for HD Television. People are watching more and more TV shows on their computers. And they want those TV shows to fit nicely on their computer monitors.

[Russ Filtz]

Works better for gaming too. The wider aspect ratio gives a more immersive panoramic view.

[Jeff Bratt]

It's not the computer industry - it's the television industry. HDTV is 1920x1080 - which is 16:9. Almost all the computer monitors you can buy are that resolution - because it's the same resolution that all the HDTVs are.

I also wish there was more choice in monitor resolution - I like the wide screen part, but I'd rather have more vertical pixels that 1080...

[Brian Elfert]

I didn't like the widescreen monitors when my employer first got them, but I really like them now. We have some apps that are a pain to use on an old fashioned monitor.

[Steve Peterson]

One reason is because of the marketing department.

A 24" at 1600x1200 resolution (4:3) has 276.5 square inches of viewable surface area.

Then they went to 1920x1200 resolution (8:5) with 258.9 square inches of area. 93.6% as large as the 4:3, but still marketed as 24" since it is 24" diagonal even though the surface area is slightly smaller.

Now everything is 1920x1080 resolution (16:9) with only 246.1 square inches of area. 89% as large as the 4:3, and again marketed as 24".

People shop for monitors (and TVs) using the diagonal measurement rather than square inches. In the old days, all TVs always had the same aspect ratio so the diagonal measurement was an accurate indicator of relative size. It is a less acurate way of indicating true size when the aspect ratio changes.

Steve

[Brian Elfert]

My LCD monitor is 4:3 and 19". I figured out I would need a 24" widescreen monitor minimum to match what the height of what I have now. After working on a 22" widescreen monitor all day long my 4:3 almost seems too tall.

[John Sanford]

Don't forget the impact that laptop computers have on the general market. There are no 4:3 laptops AFAIK. As for me, I use two monitors at work. I used to poo-poo the other guys who had two, but then I said "what the heck, let's give it a try." Man, I LOVE having more "desktop." I might go to three if we can support it.

[Shawn Russell]

I prefer the 4:3 aspect ratio. And yes, once you go to multimonitor, it is hard to get the same level of productivity on a single screen.

[Fred Perreault]

Bill,
The question isn't so much the 16:9, but why did the industry even start with 4:3 to begin with? Originally PC computers had only a very few programs, among them Lotus 1-2-3. But when the nascent indutry took off and started producing monitors larger than 11", and in color , they chose to not shape the video display to conform with the vast majority of developing software programs which displayed in portrait mode. Just one of the many frustrations with the magic boxes.

[Brian Elfert]

I'm sure 4:3 comes from TV sets before HDTV. The original computer monitors were just upgraded TVs. Some of the early computers actually output to a TV instead of requiring a special monitor.

[Matt Meiser]

I love my 24" 16:9 that I have for work to replace my previous 19" 4:3. I find the 16:9 monitor big enough that I can have an application open on the left side and still see at least the right side of a document on the right side. In addition I have my laptop's built in display open with my email so I can easily find it.

[Eric DeSilva]

To say that computer monitors reflect cell phone screen sizes or TV is, in my book, ignoring the elephant in the room. 16:9 was developed to better replicate movie aspect ratios for home televisions. Yes, some movies are 2.35:1, but 16:9 is certainly closer that 4:3 was. The fact that computers and cell phones are also making that switch seems to me to solely be a reflection of the fact that those devices are increasingly being used for media. So in my book, it all goes back to the movies and the emergence of the HD ATSC standard.

I like 16:9. I can have two things open at once and see both pages, or have enough screen real estate to still be able to see my picture when I've got a bunch of photoshop tools taking up space. Then again, I'm presently looking at a pair of 1920 x 1200 24" diagonal monitors, so I can actually have four or five things open at a time and see them all. At home I use a single 27"--2560 x 1440, which gives me enough screen size to see a reasonable amount of a digital picture and still keep a bunch of handy Photoshop tools/menu bars on the screen.

Bill, you may want to think about replacing them both--either go with a big single monitor or a pair of new monitors. Getting two dissimilar monitors calibrated so that colors/contrast/brightness/screen is consistent is really painful. For a while I used to have a 22" and a 24" from different manufacturers, and it meant that either the pixel size on the two was different or I lost a strip on the bottom of the 22". The colors never looked right.

[Jaze Derr]

I've wondered why pivoting displays aren't more common. They were around for a short time but have disappeared. Formatting of apps? Toolbars? A 20" monitor in portrait mode will display a 8.5" X 11" page with plenty of room left over. I have seen VESA mounts that enable display pivoting but they're not common.

I can't speak for everyone, but I know why I don't ever pivot my screen, despite it being easy to do: too much crap in the way. My desk has junk piled up and around the monitor...

[Burt Alcantara]

16:9 is HD. Sooner or later everything will be in this format and that means "to a theater near you," or, your home. Personally, I hate TV that's in 4:3. I have 2 1980x1200 25" monitors so I can view multiple screens for video editing. I'd get bigger if I could afford it, but that's just me.