← Twenty-Four a Second · Lesson 2 of 3
Aspect ratios and black bars
A frame’s shape is its aspect ratio, width to height. Televisions are 16 : 9 (about 1.78 : 1); many cinema films are 2.39 : 1, much wider.
Fit the wide film to the TV’s width and its height comes out smaller than the screen, leaving black bars above and below. The bars are the difference between the two ratios.
A 2 : 1 film fills the full width of a 16 : 9 screen. About what fraction of the screen’s height does the picture use?
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