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Deciding between 16:9 and 4:3Feb 12 '04 Write an essay on this topic.
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The Bottom Line The 4:3 set is just a better deal. It offers all the quality with less tradeoffs.
I'm going to focus on a single key decision in selecting a TV, and my recommendation will surprise you. See, the 4:3 set is a better value and can require no sacrifices in terms of picture quality! I'm focusing on tube TVs here. Some of these arguments are relevant to other types, but not all are. Right now, there are two screen shapes out there, the traditional squarish 4:3 and the wide 16:9. These numbers refer to the relative shape of the picture tube, with the traditional set being 4 units wide by 3 high, and the wide set being 16 wide by 9 high. When most people go shopping for a TV see a wide set, they notice two things: 1) The widescreen set looks smaller than the "normal" 4:3 set of the "same size" 2) The widescreen is cooler and MUST make DVDs look better Making Measurements Surprisingly, the first is true! TVs are measured by the diagonal size of their picture tube. So if we do the math, a 34" widescreen set is 26.6" wide by 16.7" high, with a total screen area of 494". A 34" 4:3 set is 27.2" wide by 20.4" high with a total area of 554.9"! In fact, any 4:3 set is exactly 12% larger, area-wise, than a "same-size" 16:9 set. Take this a bit further, and we can calculate the "equivalent" sizes of the various TVs. Since wide programs are squished horizontally on 4:3 sets, and "normal" programs are squashed vertically on 16:9 sets, these are the dimensions that matter. So here's the cheat sheet: Size..16:9....4:3 17.....13.9....15.6 20.....16.3....18.4 24.....19.6....22.0 27.....22.1....24.8 30.....24.5....27.5 32.....26.1....29.4 34.....27.8....31.2 36.....29.4....33.0 40.....32.7....36.7 So a 30" 16:9 set looks like a 24" 4:3 set while watching "normal" programs. And a 30" 4:3 set looks like a 27" 16:9 set when watching widescreen things. Which would you rather have? I'd go with the normal ratio! Picture Quality Another factor to consider is picture quality. Most TVs "paint" the entire screen with a large number of equal-sized dots or pixels. When you watch a 4:3 show on a 4:3 set, every dot gets used. But when you watch a wide program, say a DVD movie, on that same set, those nasty black bars appear on the top and bottom. For some reason, people hate those! One argument for buying a widescreen TV is that it will reduce or eliminate the hated black bars while watching DVD movies. But this isn't entirely true. Almost no films are shot in 16:9 ratio. Most are much "wider", and some older films were shot square! So you will almost always have black bars on the screen when watching movies on a widescreen TV! Unless, that is, you turn on the stretching/cropping "features" that make the program look strange. So if widescreen sets don't eliminate the black bars, why to people love them so much? It's all about resolution. See, wide sets use more of their pixels to display actual picture data with wide content than a normal 4:3 set. Since TV's almost always paint the whole screen, even just reducing the bars gives you a more detailed picture! So is this a slam dunk for a widescreen set? No way! Remember that MOST programs are still 4:3. Widescreen sets will have huge black bars on the sides when displaying those. And the latest 4:3 sets, especially HDTVs, have a "16:9 Enhanced Mode" that lets them squish down their painted area when showing widescreen content. So you won't lose vertical resolution with one of these 4:3 sets! But no widescreen sets have an equivalent "4:3 Enhanced Mode" so you WILL lose horizontal resolution with those. Yes, I know Epinions claims that lots of 16:9 TVs have this feature, but NO MANUFACTURER lists it as a feature. Search Google yourself and see... Money Is An Object One more thing to consider is price. A typical 16:9 set costs about the same as a 4:3 set 4"-6" larger. In other words, expect to pay the same for a 34" widescreen HDTV as a 36" or 40" 4:3 HDTV with similar features. And remember that you're getting the equivalent of a 27.8" 4:3 TV when you buy it...  |
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