What is 16:9 widescreen?
16:9 is the widescreen format that the world has standardized on for future HDTV services. It has also been used in the NHK 1125-line analog HDTV standard and the Eureka 1250-line HDTV standard, as well as variety of enhanced SDTV (standard-definition TV) services in Europe and Japan. The screen is 16 units wide by 9 units high, so the “aspect ratio” is called 16:9 because it’s easier to remember than 1.78:1 (approximately) which is the “normalized” number. Currently, most SDTV in the world is 4:3 (which equals 12:9, or 1.33:1). 35mm motion pictures are typically 1.66:1 (European), 1.85:1 (American) or 2:39:1 (anamorphic; adopted by SMPTE in 1971; hides projectionist’s splices a bit better than the previous standard of 2:35:1) although a bewildering variety of aspect ratios has been used at one time or another.
