NEW! THE PRO PERSPECTIVE: MARCH 4, 2008
It’s Time To Get With The 16x9 Program!
Why is the Pro AV industry so slow to adopt widescreen imaging?
Just about one year from now, we’ll finally hear the “last call” for analog television broadcasting in the United States. On February 17 2009, NTSC broadcasts will shut down for good, 80 years after AT&T demonstrated television with a Washington-NY broadcast and nearly 70 years after TV was featured at the New York World’s Fair.
The transition to digital TV is well along. Cable and satellite service providers have a full tier of standard definition digital channels and are adding high definition channels every month. Virtually every terrestrial TV broadcast station is now transmitting at least channel’s worth of digital programming, with all of the major TV networks offering a full slate of HDTV prime time shows, sports, movies, and newscasts.
Even the survivors of the 1984 AT&T breakup are getting into the act with IPTV, delivered to homes as the U-Verse service through the “new” AT&T (actually SBC) and as FiOS through Verizon. Apple, TiVo, and others are launching program download services this year, and of course the blue laser high definition DVD wars continue unabated.
The interest in HDTV has driven sales of new TVs to record highs, particularly those using LCD technology. Plasma is hanging in there, too, while microdisplay rear-projection TVs are hanging on by their fingernails. HDTV front projectors for home theater continue to plummet in price — it’s now possible to get a 720p DLP projector for under a grand, while a 3LCD 1080p model will set you back about $2,000.
There’s a common theme to all this, and that’s the inexorable movement to HDTV picture resolution and wider TV screens. Doesn’t matter if you want a 26-inch LCD TV or a 65-inch plasma or a 73-inch RPTV, they’ll all have 16x9 screens.
Ditto notebook computers, many of which are sold with 16x10 aspect ratio LCD screens. And there’s increased interest in supporting 16x9 on the part of LCD panel and computer manufacturers, according to a December 2007 report by NPD / DisplaySearch. For what it’s worth, I’m writing this month’s column using a 24-inch Westinghouse Digital LCD monitor (LT2410M) that has 1920x1200 pixel resolution.
So why is our industry still stuck on resolutions like 1024x768 and 1400x1050, both of which are 4x3 aspect ratio formats? Why do we drag our heels to adopt wider images and the benefits that go with them? Has it become a subconscious reflex to specify a 4:3 projection system for every conference room and classroom installation?
From my perspective, there is no downside to adopting the 16x9 screen format and changing the equipment spec to put in an HD projector. The extra real estate is handy when working on spreadsheets. Powerpoints look better in 16x9, particularly if you (like me) include lots of photos and charts with text in your slides. And 16x9 gives you extra space for multiple documents when editing, copying, pasting, and rewriting.
16x9 is also a great format for videoconferencing, as you can easily tile a 4x3 window with a pair of smaller 4x3 windows (graphics and video). It’s a must for the new teleprescence HD conferencing systems. In fact, 16x9 is perfect for tiling multiple video windows of any kind — just look in some of the new HD remote production trucks manufactured and leased by NEP.
We can’t really use the excuse that “road warrior” presenters are still using 4:3 notebooks. Yes, there are a lot of them out there, but there are even more widescreen models with at least 1280 pixels of horizontal resolution. Widescreen monitors are also making it onto more and more desktops for use with Windows and Apple computer systems.
Clients may want to integrate widescreen video content into their presentations, but that will be hard to do if the projection system is set up for 4:3. So we may have a “chicken and egg” situation here — should you wait for the client to request HD imaging, or should you be the first to propose it?
I say, take the initiative to push your clients to go HD on all future projects. They’re seeing enough of it at Best Buy and Circuit City, and probably have at least one new HDTV at home. For those presentations and clips that use 4:3, you can run ‘em through a seamless switcher and create a custom side curtain pattern to frame the “old” stuff.
If you haven’t tried doing 16x9 Powerpoints yet, give it a shot. It’s as easy as defining the page size with a pixel count that works out to 16x9 (848x480, 1024x576, 1280x720, 1366x768, and so forth). If you pick a standard resolution like 1280x720 or 1366x768, your HD projection system should automatically fit the slides to the width and height of the screen.
And wait until you look at Excel spreadsheets in widescreen. No more squinting at super-small text while you try to keep multiple columns of data open. On my 1920x1200 LCD monitor, I can easily see 29 columns that are 58 rows deep, using the default settings for a new Excel sheet — and that’s using the 100% image sizing option with 10-point Arial fonts.
Let’s not forget the ever-growing number of affordable 16x9 HD camcorders on the market. Your clients may already be using one of these cameras to shoot company footage, or contracting with a production company to produce corporate videos. Why not encourage everyone in the chain to stay widescreen from the start?
It certainly helps that virtually all of your new LCD and plasma monitor installations will use 16x9 displays, even if the content shown on them isn’t always in the same ratio. Familiarity with a new concept or product goes a long ways to speed up adoption. Airports, shopping malls, theaters, and public concourses are filling up quickly with widescreen electronic signage, and we’re beginning to take 16x9 for granted in those locations. Why not at work or in the classroom as well?
OK, I’m up on my soapbox here. Let’s make 2008 the year we all become proactive about pushing clients to switch to 16x9 projection. After all, the more clients we can convince, the more projectors we’ll have to choose from. I’ve been using 16x9 Powerpoints for several years now and made the initial push to use 16x9 screens and projectors for the InfoComm Super Tuesday sessions, as well as my own InfoComm classes.
Step out of the box in 2008. Do your next sales pitch on a 16:10 notebook projector, or bring along one of the new, affordable home theater models and mix in some HD DVD or Blu-ray footage with your graphics and charts. Arrange for your clients to see demonstrations of HD conferencing and teleprescence. Have them check out image tiling projection systems at InfoComm and NAB.
Why should consumers have all the fun?
Copyright ©2008 Peter H. Putman / Hanley-Wood Publications. All mechanical and electronic rights are reserved. This article also appears in the March 2008 issue of Pro AV magazine.
