Why don’t tv screen automatically know what size the image is or should be. Why does the edge of the image sometimes get cut off?
In: Technology
Its something called aspect ratio. Your screen has a shape, but the film or show isn’t always the same shape. Sometimes things are filmed to be a taller image, or wider image than your screen. So your TV will expand the image to the closest edge, but leave black bars where the image simply just doesn’t reach
The tv knows, thats why black bars are a thing. If you don’t have the bars its because you are asking the tv to “zoom” and cut part of the image
When a camera takes a video, the sensor in the camera is a certain shape (generally a rectangle of some sort). If the rectangular shape of the TV screen is not the same proportion as the rectangle of the camera sensor, then there is no way to display that video without black bars or by distorting the video.
Different video content has different dimensions. Old school is 4:3, modern tv is usually 16×9 (1.78:1), modern movies are usually between 2.35:1 and 2.40:1, then you have IMAX at 1.90:1 and 1.43:1.
Most all tv channels have a “native” setting, but have others for preference (stretch movies vertically and old content horizontally, so no black bars).
Then there is also “overscan” which zooms in a bit; I’m not sure, but probably a holdover setting for old content that had damaged edges (like white static).
Latest Answers