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Have you ever wondered why most TVs and monitors were that boxy, almost square

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shape until recently? Well, back in the 1890s, Thomas Edison and his assistant

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William Kennedy Dixon introduced a device for viewing films called the

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kinettocope. This device displayed an image 35 mm wide. Yep, just like film.

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Introducing the 4x3 aspect ratio. But

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what is an aspect ratio? Well, simply put, an aspect ratio is the ratio of the

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width to the height of the image being displayed. So, this same 4x3 ratio was

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adopted by many movie and TV producers, making it the standard for decades

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because that's how it often goes in the film industry. Once you've adopted a

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standard, thanks to the cost, oh my goodness, the cost of the equipment,

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it's really hard to run around changing it all the time. And so it wasn't until

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the early 1950s that widescreen was conceived. And

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this is kind of funny. Originally widescreen, despite having, you know,

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obvious benefits, was used as kind of like a marketing gimmick by the movie

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studios. Why watch movies on your 4x3 TV

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at home when you could watch a widescreen movie at your local theater,

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not to mention paying more for it and buying a bag of popcorn while you're at

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it? So widescreen ratios became widespread starting in 1953 with a

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system called the synorama that used three projectors on a curved screen. Now

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unfortunately this proved to be too expensive leading to the development of

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single projector widescreen as well as movies produced for flat screens which

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is kind of funny because curved displays are now starting to make a comeback.

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It's like technology is almost the same as fashion at a certain point. At first,

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widescreen films were actually made by removing the top and bottom edges to

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create a 15 by9 aspect ratio, very close

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to what is seen in most displays today. But later, 20th Century Fox collaborated

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with French professor Henry Cretier, who helped to create a special anamorphic

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lens that squished a widescreen image

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onto regular film. So when played back through a second anamorphic lens, the

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resulting image had an aspect ratio of 2.35 to1, almost identical to the modern

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21x9ish filming standard. Nowadays, TVs

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very commonly used the 16x9 aspect ratio

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we've come to know and love, adopted because it could display videos recorded

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in other common aspect ratios without a ton of cropping or distortion. So, not

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surprisingly, this format was chosen for broadcast HDTV. But the story doesn't

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stop there. 16x9 is also the most popular gaming resolution and is used

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with popular streaming websites like YouTube, Vessel, Hulu, Netflix, and

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countless others. Not watching in 1080p? That's fine because 16x9 was also chosen

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because it downscales easily to other resolutions.

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But even with the ubiquity of 16 by9, many people still prefer even wider

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aspect ratios because they give you a more immersive experience thanks to the

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fact that they fill up more of your visual field. Flying through space in No

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Man's Sky, driving off-road in Dur 3, or just playing Minecraft in a 21x9 ultra

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wide aspect ratio can be deeply engaging. So due to this, more and more

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games are starting to support 21 by9 natively, and we're seeing 21 by9

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monitors become more common in the

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marketplace. So where does this leave us for the future? Well, I wouldn't be

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surprised if the market for ultrawide content and hardware continues to grow,

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not just because of its immersiveness, but also because of its benefits to

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content creators, uh, productivity-minded people, and the

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manufacturers of displays who desperately need something new to sell

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you. And there's also little doubt that we'll start to see new aspect ratio

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standards start to pop up thanks to the rise of VR. The Oculus Rift, for

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example, uses a 16x10 aspect ratio to

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fill the wearer's field of view as much as possible. I mean, hell, maybe we'll

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just make our own special Linus Media Group aspect ratio for optimal Luke

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viewing. After all, viewer satisfaction

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is what we're all about. Speaking of satisfaction, have you ever wanted to

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editing or whatever else the case may be." Yes, my friends, links in the video

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description. And that's all. So, thanks

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