16:10 vs 4:3

MistaPi

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What will cover more of your field of sight, a 19" 16:10 or a 20" 4:3 display.
 
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What will cover more of your field of sight, a 19" 16:10 or a 20" 4:3 display.

Isnt the total screen size the same for say a 20" display whenever its 4:3 or 16:10?
A 20" 4:3 screen is 16" wide, 12" high.
A 19" 16:10 screen is ~16" wide, ~10" high.
http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/showthread.php?p=891355#post891355

It should be pretty obvious that the 4:3 20"er covers more of your view simply because it has extra area above and below the profile of the 16:19 19"er. Still ... for my own purposes I'd probably prefer the widescreen.
Btw it's more ergonomic (neck, eyes) to have the top edge of the display at or below eye level, so you always look slightly downwards. That makes a tall screen not seem very desirable.
Yes, cover more would be incorrect. But a 19" WS would be better suited for our visual perception?
Yes. Widescreen is a more natural fit for the human field of view. Some of the reasons for that (navigating mostly across the ground plane) also carry over to games.
 
Yes. Widescreen is a more natural fit for the human field of view. Some of the reasons for that (navigating mostly across the ground plane) also carry over to games.
Human vision covers more than 180Degree horizontally and less than that vertically. So "optimally" we would have a display thats infintely more wide than tall. Those naive comments would therefore recommend a display thats 1 inch tall and 30 inch wide over your two options.

More seriously, how can you recommend a widescreen, thats NOT (or marginally) wider than a 4:3 "tall" screen. You get any coverage the widescreen has and then some. At the worst you will be watching 16:9 movies with black bars (which allow subtitles that dont occlude the image btw) that have the same dimension as your 16:9 screen. Or you could game with splitscreen, which would be two 16:6 screens (ultra-wide), how`d you split a 16:9 screen?

And more philosophically, I consider the whole 16:9 is more natural talk bullshit. You see the human FOV argument is weak, and I consider it more important to look at our focal point (the area which we can see clearly), which seems to be pretty much like a circle. IMHO the only reason most people consider it more natural is that movies are filmed in wide resolutions. For the simple reason that cinemas (and other buildings) typically stack people horizontally.
 
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More seriously, how can you recommend a widescreen, thats NOT (or marginally) wider than a 4:3 "tall" screen. You get any coverage the widescreen has and then some. At the worst you will be watching 16:9 movies with black bars (which allow subtitles that dont occlude the image btw) that have the same dimension as your 16:9 screen.
That's just me. I like the ergonomics. 20" 4:3 is a pretty huge monitor if you want to sit directly in front of it, and if I'd put that on my desk (which may be built a tad too high), I know it would be too tall for comfort for me. I know that because I have a 19" 4:3 CRT which is already problematic.
But that's just me. I haven't held back the information that there's extra area to be had on the 4:3 display :)
Npl said:
Or you could game with splitscreen, which would be two 16:6 screens (ultra-wide), how`d you split a 16:9 screen?
You'd wait until you have four players ;)
Some games I've seen do a vertical split (2x8:9). Doesn't work very well, mind you.
Npl said:
And more philosophically, I consider the whole 16:9 is more natural talk bullshit. You see the human FOV argument is weak, and I consider it more important to look at our focal point (the area which we can see clearly), which seems to be pretty much like a circle. IMHO the only reason most people consider it more natural is that movies are filmed in wide resolutions. For the simple reason that cinemas (and other buildings) typically stack people horizontally.
I'm not so sure about that.
I don't have any research about that in front of me, but my focal point seems to be a pretty small spot, like, what, one or two inches on the screen (current viewing distance is estimated at 20"). Wouldn't be much fun having a display just for that small area.

You dismiss the FOV thing too easily. You don't have to build a divide-by-zero-width screen. What everyone's trying to do is approaching the human FOV with a practical limited display area.
Try looking up as far as you can by moving just the eyes. Down. Left, right. Up, down again. I may be a wimp but I find vertical eye movement much harder.
Theory: creatures that fly or dive all day would likely have a FOV that approaches 1:1. Vertical movement isn't doing much for us as a species because we live on the land. Hence the wide fov.
 
You dismiss the FOV thing too easily. You don't have to build a divide-by-zero-width screen. What everyone's trying to do is approaching the human FOV with a practical limited display area.
Try looking up as far as you can by moving just the eyes. Down. Left, right. Up, down again. I may be a wimp but I find vertical eye movement much harder.
Theory: creatures that fly or dive all day would likely have a FOV that approaches 1:1. Vertical movement isn't doing much for us as a species because we live on the land. Hence the wide fov.
Well, I wouldnt care if the TV/Monitor reaches a certain height. I dont care about the format in cinemas because its tall enough. For something smaller, like basically anything but the most expense and big TVs I`d prefer having just that extra space. I got a 32" 4:3 TV and I can tell you that I wont get anything with less of that height, its not like you have to move your eyes around much with these sizes (you lazy git ;)).

But then I highly prefer to game over watching movies, so I dont have troubles finding examples were you have to fly or dive, just simply be aware whats above you, having some status information on top or bottom of the action, having a top-down view...
In case you want to do some work on the Monitor you will welcome any available space too.

Im already in a world of hurt with 16:9 succeeding and being the only HD-Format, so I know my opinion cant be that popular.
 
Well for movies/tv the obvious choice is widescreen, since you're able to see alot more of the scene but for gaming it's really not as clear cut imo.
I'm still using a crt (albeit a trinitron) and I'm not to excited about 16:10 lcds.
 
Well for movies/tv the obvious choice is widescreen, since you're able to see alot more of the scene but for gaming it's really not as clear cut imo.
I'm still using a crt (albeit a trinitron) and I'm not to excited about 16:10 lcds.

Were you not the same person who was asking about LCDs..... just about a week ago?
 
Were you not the same person who was asking about LCDs..... just about a week ago?

Yes I originally had written a longer post talking a bit about that, but decided to delete it
I was only flirting with the idea ;)
I've decided to buy other things not relating to computers.
With the viewing distance I have my display at I really dont wont any bigger, I'd rather save up for a HDTV :D
 
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