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Video Production Basics: Aspect Ratio, 16x9 and 3x4

By Lorraine Grula

Let's talk about aspect ratio!

(Picture courtesy of laffy4k released under a Creative Commons Attribution licence)

Have you ever watched a movie and wondered what the big black bars at the top and bottom of the screen were? What about watching something like the fabulous 'Lawrence of Arabia' and been confused about why Omar Sharif's main entrance to the watering hole involved a lot of panning left and right to see the characters placed at the edge of the screen?

Well wonder no more.

This is all a product of that little discussed video production basic "The Aspect Ratio". The following is a great little article from Lorraine Grula who runs the Video Production Tips web site. I heartily recommend you take a look over at that site when you have finished reading this article. The link is at the bottom of the page. Enjoy, and thanks Lorraine for taking the time out to put this article together

Video Production Basics: Aspect Ratio, 16x9 and 3x4

One tidbit of information you need to be aware of if you are trying to learn video editing and video production is aspect ratio. I hear people express confusion over it all the time.

The phrase “aspect ratio” probably makes you yawn. What does it mean and why should you care?

Not knowing about aspect ratio will make you pull your hair out with frustration. Knowing just a few simple things can alleviate all frustration and confusion. This article will tell you everything you need to know.

Aspect ratio refers to the relative sizes of the side measurements of the rectangular shape of your video. HUH?!

OK, think of it this way. When you watch video, you are watching a rectangular shape. A standard TV screen looks like a square. (A square is a form of a rectangle) A movie screen looks like a longer, skinnier rectangle.   Many HD TV sets have the same rectangular shape as a movie screen.

Videos you watch online are rectangular in shape too. ALL VIDEO is shaped like a rectangle.

The question is: How long is the width of the screen compared to the height of the screen? The relationship between these two measurements is aspect ratio.

No matter how large a standard TV screen is, the relationship of the height to the width of the screen is 3 x 4. If the height is 9 inches the width will be 12 inches. If the height is 30 inches the width will be 40 inches. 3x4. ALWAYS.

A movie screen on the other hand, has an aspect ratio of 16 x 9. If the width of the movie screen is 8 feet, the height will be 3 feet.

(Actually, there is a third option, but let’s not confuse things too much for now. It’s the even longer and skinnier 2.35 x 1 ratio known as anamorphic.)

On a practical level, this means that anyone who produces a video needs to first decide whether they want a 3 x 4 video or a 16 x 9 video. Then, your camera and your editing system need to be compatible with whichever you decide. Actually, I would recommend just making a video with whichever of the two formats is easier.

Incompatibility will lead to problems, some major some minor.

Have you ever watched an online video and wondered what those black bars are on the sides of the video, or on the top and bottom of the video?   Some people think the black bars look cool, others think they are ugly.

Ugly or cool, it’s an aspect ratio issue.

If you take a video that is produced in the 3 x 4 ratio and put it on a screen meant for a 16 x 9 video, you will see black bars on both sides of the screen. If you take a 16 x 9 video and show it on a screen meant for 3 x 4 videos, then you have the black bars at the top and bottom of the screen.

The black bars are merely empty space. Black filler to make up for the non-existent video that would go in that space if the video and the screen shared the same aspect ratio.

One method of forcing one aspect ratio to “fit” onto the other size screen is to digitally squish it. That’s when you get the video where people look abnormally tall and skinny or like they are hopelessly short and fat.   It looks terrible. Most people would rather see the black bars.

When TV was first invented, 3 x 4 was the only aspect ratio. For at least 50 years, 3 x 4 was the only aspect ratio a video producer had to deal with. Hollywood directors shooting for the “big screen” used 16 x 9, but video did not. TV and movies were considered separate.

Of course this raised problems when they wanted to show a movie on TV. No doubt you have seen the disclaimer, “This movie has been formatted to fit your screen,” while watching movies on TV.   In other words, they fiddled with the aspect ratio.

Often, they just chop off the sides of the movie frame since nobody wanted either ugly digital squishing or the black bars. That’s an easy solution if the action taking place on the edges of the screen is meaningless, but of course that is rarely the case.

About 10-15 years ago, they started manufacturing TV sets with the 16 x 9 ratio to simulate a home theater experience. Video started being produced in both formats.

When online video first cropped up, the majority of it was 3 x 4 since that had historically been the standard. As time passed, more and more online video became available in 16 x 9. You Tube recently made the switch.

So that is why you see the black bars on lots of videos. Adding the bars is the easiest way to preserve the integrity of your picture while allowing compatibility between the two formats. I have had readers ask me how to get the black bars because they think they look cool. Video aficionados will tell you it looks like a mistake but as always, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

Lorraine Grula has been a well-respected, award winning video professional for over twenty-five years and now specializes in Internet Video. Lorraine has done virtually every kind of video production imaginable. Her blog, www.VideoProductionTips.com is full of free information and video tutorials.

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