What is Widescreen? All Your Queries on Widescreen Answered Here
What is Widescreen? Most of the camcorders nowadays claim to support the widescreen format because of its increasing popularity. But do they actually support it? Find all your queries on Widescreen answered here!
Widescreen, high-definition TV is fast becoming a reality in many countries with many households owning one to enjoy the widescreen experience.
Because of the obvious demand for widescreen images, camcorder manufacturers have also come up with models that can support the widescreen resolution.
But do all the camcorders, who claim to support widescreen, are actually capable of doing that?
Here is an overview on widescreen, which should answer all your queries!
What is Widescreen?
Widescreen is used to describe TV and film images that are wider than what we have been used to watching over the years.
The traditional PAL and NTSC images have an aspect ratio of 4:3 (4 units across and 3 units down).
Images in widescreen format on the other hand will be wider have an aspect ratio of 16:9.
Images captured with 4:3 aspect ratio is what we have been accustomed to seeing over the years.
Widescreen refers to a picture shot with 16:9 aspect ratio. Pictures with widescreen resolution is what you see on cinema screens and on widescreen digital TV.
Widescreen on Low Cost Camcorders!
Though most of the low-cost camcorder models would say that it supports the widescreen format, they actually fake it.
What you will find is that the widescreen feature shaves-off the top and the bottom of the footage, to give a cinema like effect. The aspect ratio of the picture is still the normal 4:3.
But when you watch it on television, the result is actually not good. You will see a lower resolution picture, than what you would see if you don’t apply this feature.
Actual Widescreen on Camcorders!
Your camcorder’s ability to generate images with proper widescreen resolution depends on the size of its CCD’s pixel array.
Here is how you check if your camcorder supports the widescreen format.
If your camcorder supports both the standard 4:3 mode and the widescreen 16:9 mode, check how a scene looks with the 4:3 mode. Observe the left and right limits of the image.
Now switch to the 16:9 mode and see how the image looks. Does it look wider? I mean can you see parts of the picture that were not visible in the 4:3 mode?
If yes, your camcorder supports the widescreen format. It is using additional horizontal pixels to produce the image.
Summary
I guess this gives you a much better idea of "What is Widescreen?". Most of the camcorders nowadays support the widescreen format because of its increasing popularity. The low cost ones actually fake it whereas the expensive ones do support it. The method described above should help you figure out the fake ones from the genuine ones.
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