I don’t want to live on this planet anymore.
Some nerding:
From a technical perspective that’s less an issue with people and more an issue with the technology design. People aim for the most comfortable, ergonomic way to hold a smartphone. Which is, you already know it, holding it “vertically” (= long side up, small side sideways). You can easily do it with one hand, whereas you usually need two hands to hold it horizontally. However, it is easily possible to place the camera sensor chip such that it can capture images in widescreen format even when holding the device vertically. Manufacturers usually don’t do this, because they want to allow a more intuitive handling, like “what you see is what you get”. If you hold the phone horizontally, this is directly reflected by a widescreen image and the other way around.
Since people also usually hold their phones vertically when using apps, several platforms, like YouTube for example as well as their content creators, have developed improved support for this. So you can continue mindless scrolling while enjoying more of an image. If the videos / images were in widescreen, the image would be scaled down and details might be missed when holding the device vertically. You would have a lot of black and just a small box in the middle with the images or videos. Probably everyone who reeds this will have experienced this.
However, this is of course annoying for people who don’t mind holding the phone vertically or who are watching videos on a widescreen device like a PC monitor. And that’s not a surprise. We humans evolved to have a larger field of view in horizontal than in vertical direction. We can see more to our sides, but less in up-down directions.
I don’t fear that movies or shows will be recorded in this format (other than for artistic purposes), since that’s a thing where even the comfortable “vertical phone holders” will prefer the wider screen format. But for cheap low effort content or shorter videos and if the target platforms are usually used on smartphones, this is probably a nuisance we have to learn to live with. ;)
That’s all fine and dandy, but what I can’t excuse is people exporting a portrait format to widescreen with black bars. Or the reverse, for that matter.
However, this is of course annoying for people who don’t mind holding the phone vertically or who are watching videos on a widescreen device
I think you meant to write “horizontally” here :)
Only if you want to film ants.
Do you want to film ants? Because that’s how you film ants!
I think this is the best explanation I’ve ever seen to the reapond to the vertical video complaint. Thank you!
Why can’t the software have an option to hold your phone vertically but shoot horizontally? How is this not fixed yet?
Because the sensors are landscape 4:3 and you would lose resolution when doing so.
AFAIK there’s no other reason other than that and giving people the option might confuse people.
Many camera sensors in phones are so high resolution nowadays, you could fit 4K video in any orientation
I agree! I wonder if there’s already camera apps that do this?
In any case, unless it’s in the default camera app and a default option, it will likely do nothing to reduce the plague of vertical video. I would guess that most people filming something that would be better in landscape didn’t even think about it, so won’t think about turning an option on.
Many sensor are 3:2 or non trivial ratios because of how the color filter pattern is aligned. Why do you think the sensors are 4:3?
I realise sensors come in other aspect ratios, but I didn’t want to spend the time researching and listing them all. Some sensors are 4:3 (like the IMX363).
But that’s irrelevant to my point that the sensor is not square which means you lose more resolution cropping to 16:9 in one orientation (usually portrait) than the other.
Dude, I couldn’t agree more. There should be a special place in hell for people who shoot vertically.
Wait till the vertical TV comes out, and then the vertical cinema, oh and of course the first vertical movie that guaranteed gets an Oscar…
You mean Samsung the Sero? :’(
Then you have the opposite.
Fucking dimwits uploading stretched 19:6 gameplays to YouTube of videogames that were designed for a 4:3 aspect ratio .
No, you idiot; Gran Turismo 2 wasn’t designed for widescreen.
I hate when they do that to TV shows. Of course watching it in 4:3 with black bars is better than having it zoomed into to get 16:9, but have the top and bottom cut off.
I don’t know why it’s hard to understand that having the complete picture without half of it removed is superior. You can still zoom in on literally any TV from the past what like 15 years at least, right?Dude, back in my day, I’d regularly have customers bitch and moan about “the black bars cutting off my picture” when they’d rent the widescreen edition of something by accident. People are idiots.
Well just zoom out then, duh ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Overall 16:9 is mostly better than 4:3 if you aren’t scaling up the size and price of your screen with the cube of the diagonal length, and I’m glad we’ve moved on to 16:9, but 4:3 wasn’t actually ever that bad. It’s fine. Not great, but fine. There’s no need to be melodramatic about it.
I don’t think anyone thinks 4:3 was that bad, it’s just being used as a precursor/setup for “stop recording in vertical!!”
I say we change the ratio to metric paper
Hell yeah ISO 216 forever babyyyyyyy
I believe one of the overpriced Google tablets actually did use 1: √2 ratio, but they didn’t stick with it. Of course, google has the attention span of a lobotomized gerbil so they don’t stick with anything.
youteub wul begin playn four videos at once, justa save bandwidth!
(cant find video link yet) ah here it is
And also websites in a vertical paper format
What, you don’t like watching videos like you’re looking through a keyhole?
awful 4:3 box ratio
Vertical video is for teens. You sign an agreement never to do that again when you turn 18. Those who film vertical after the age of 18 are forever forbidden from leaving Facebook
Oh shit, so that’s what happened to all my friends. :(
