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Television Standards Converters, Modulators etc Standards converters, modulators anything else for providing signals to vintage televisions.

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Old 1st Jan 2015, 4:18 pm   #1
Ian - G4JQT
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Default Aspect ratios and dates

Can anyone tell me when most professional, semi professional and home video recording equipment moved from 4:3 to the various wide screen formats?

I'm trying to roughly date a video that appears to have been recorded in one of the wide-screen formats and wondering when the earliest it is likely to have been made.

Thanks.

Ian
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Old 1st Jan 2015, 9:00 pm   #2
Nickthedentist
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Default Re: Aspect ratios and dates

What kind of video are we talking?

Even some very early pre-recorded VHS videos were not 4:3.

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Old 1st Jan 2015, 9:36 pm   #3
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Default Re: Aspect ratios and dates

Agreed. Lots of music video producers were producing 4:3 video with black bands at the top and bottom in the early 80s for a more 'filmic' look - in fact MTV was infested with them in the mid 80s.
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Old 2nd Jan 2015, 6:58 pm   #4
Maarten
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Default Re: Aspect ratios and dates

That could very well be the case. However on the off-chance that it's a genuine 16:9 recording from the right era, it would be from the early 1990's or later.
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Old 2nd Jan 2015, 8:10 pm   #5
Nicklyons2
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Default Re: Aspect ratios and dates

Maarten is correct, little was being originated in 16:9 for specific TV use before the early 1990s. The first use, pre it being accepted was when many 16mm film cameras were adapted for 'super 16' which gave an approximation to 16:9 although much of the drama shot using this format was actually telecined in 4:3 with the sides cropped off because all analogue transmission at the time was 4:3. It has only been with the release of some stuff 're-digitised' for DVD use that has shown some of this stuff actually as shot. In the UK any 'off-air' analogue recording would have been transmitted 4:3, there were no official anamorphic transmissions on the analogue service. If you have an off-air recording that is 16:9 it must have been made from either a Sky Box or early 'On Digital'/ITV Digital/Freeview Box making it late 1990s.

I ought to know, but can't remember exactly when, the IBA/ITCA insisted all commercials for submission to TV stations were 16:9 FH anamorphic, I would think c.2000 - this is the watershed point in the professional domain. I would say corporate and domestic stuff followed within 5 years. However the picture (forgive the pun) was different outside Europe; up to 5 years ago I was still working on US versions of commercials which had to be shot 4:3 despite the European version being shot 16:9.

I'm not quite sure what you mean by various widescreen formats - there's only 1 for TV - 16:9FH (or ananmorphic as some of us old lags call it; after cinema practice). Anything that is a different shape is something masked off in a 16:9 window e.g. a proper CinemaScope picture, shown fully is 21:9 so it will appear with black bars top & bottom BUT it is still Txed in a 16:9 frame.

To confuse you further the 16:9 TV uses a 1.33:1 squeeze to get the picture into a 4:3 TV frame whilst Hollywood uses a 2:1 squeeze to get CinemaScope into a 4:3 film frame.

Hope this has helped a bit,
Nick
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