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Opinion
Managing Aspections
9/18/2006
Scenario 2: Letterboxed widescreen source on widescreen display.
The instructor plays VHS or DVD media to the class, which is formatted with letterboxing, which places black bars at the top and bottom of a 4:3 aspect image to simulate widescreen on conventional displays.
Figure 2
Area #1 in Figure 2 shows the unused border sections on each side of the image. Area #2 is the image area, while Area #3 is the blanked-out portion of the image that was created by the letterboxing. If you were to look closely at an actual display with a letterboxed video image, you will see a difference in the quality of the black between Areas 1 and 3.
Most users don’t like the image seen in Figure 2 – they (justifiably) point out that using only a portion of the screen is wasteful and makes it harder to see for those farther away. One appropriate response is to design into the control system the capability to toggle a zoom feature found on many display devices. Most plasma monitors, for example, offer three or more zoom settings to accommodate different letterboxing formats and user preferences. This can be either a single button on the room control system that toggles settings until an instructor finds one they like, or a series of well-labeled buttons showing different stretching options. I prefer the toggling approach – too many buttons makes it too complicated-looking, and it’s usually a trial-and-error process anyway.
This is also roughly what you can see when the presenter creates their presentation in 16:9 aspect but displays it through a computer set at 4:3 output through a 16:9 display. Yes, this really happens. In that case, many plasma monitors with zoom controls on the video inputs do not have these same controls on the VGA inputs, so users are stuck with a small image with black borders on all sides.
Scenario #3: Conventional aspect source on widescreen display
The instructor brings in a PC or Mac with a conventional aspect computer output (for example, XGA 1024x768 @ 60Hz) and connects it to a widescreen display.
The image will likely appear in one of two ways:
Figure 3.1
Or
Figure 3.2
In Figure 3.1, the actual image area is displayed accurately, while in Figure 3.2, the image is stretched to fill the screen. Some newer desktop widescreen LCD monitors will always show what is in Figure 3.2 and not offer an option for accurate representation.
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