Some people like to end the year with a reflection on thankfulness; I’m more disposed towards ending it with a rant. Whilst on a personal level I’ve had a great twelve months, the world is in an even more shocking state than it was before. In his recent live show Humanity, Ricky Gervais talks about how in the past couple of years, for the first time in his life, civilisation has started to slip into decline. I agree, and think this is most evident in the sudden outbreak of the 18:9 (2:1) aspect ratio across television. People are so wrapped up in their worries over our failing government and the looming possibility of a no-deal Brexit, 2:1 has insidiously slipped in under the radar, undermining living-room tellies nationwide and ruining countless Christmases - mine chief amongst them.
The
Star Trek: Discovery Blu-ray,
Doctor Who,
Click & Collect,
The ABC Murders and just about every other major prime-time programme that I’ve watched over the last month has been missing 230,400 live pixels as their producers have embraced the chic new “cinematic” aspect ratio that’s unfriendly to even the newest 4K HDR TVs. It’s a good job my TV screen is 41.7” x 23.5” (a 50-incher when measuring from corner to corner as TV manufacturers obviously do) to start with as its watchable area is reduced to 41.7” x 20.85” with these programmes – that’s 110.5”
2 of missing picture by my reckoning.
What’s most irritating of all though are the long-term implications of this. Even if the next generation of TVs base their screen dimensions on the 2:1 aspect ratio, then legacy 2:1 media is still going to appear both letterboxed
and pillarboxed on their displays, as current Blu-ray standards insist upon a 1920 x 1080 frame (3840 x 2160 for UHD) and iTunes downloads (probably Amazon etc too, though I can’t speak to this) adhere to the same conventions. This means that a 2:1 image is locked into its frame between two black bars, and so if it’s ever viewed on a 2:1 screen, then the only way it could fill that screen would be if it were enlarged, resulting in a softer picture. It’d be like it was watching a 2.35:1-letterboxed-in-4:3 VHS movie blown up on an early CRT widescreen telly - unremittingly bloody awful.
Apologists for 2:1 argue that there is no cause for concern as most modern TVs allow for custom zooming, giving naysayers like me the option to zoom in on the letterboxed image. Whilst this is true, it does not account for the fact that zooming loses the outer edges of the image - or that it’s a right bloody faff. I have my custom zoom set to automatically blow 2.35:1 movies up to 16:9, losing the edges off the picture but filling up my screen, and I don’t begrudge this one bit as films are made - at least for now - for cinema exhibition, and I can easily flick back and forth between 16:9 and 2.35:1 almost as effortlessly as if I were watching a Christopher Nolan or Michael Bay film (in which case I don’t have to press anything at all to see the aspect ratio shift from scene to scene). However, if I alter this setting to blow a 2:1
Discovery or
Who up to 16:9, I’m going to have to tweak my zoom settings every time I watch a movie. Moreover, when zooming in on a movie I’m usually blowing up an incredibly detailed UHD image, and as a result any softening of the picture is imperceptible - at least on a 50” screen situated six feet away from me. But blowing up a 720p BBC iPlayer stream yields an only slightly sharper than DVD picture, which is surely at odds with the lofty ambitions of the producers who’ve adopted 2:1. Even zooming in on the otherwise stunning 1080p
Discovery Blu-ray adversely affected the image quality.
And that’s just legacy 2:1 media; 16:9, 2.35:1, 4:3... there is not an old programme or movie that will fit a 2:1 TV properly. The only way that we’ll get to enjoy properly proportioned, screen-filling entertainment is if we limit our viewing to new material; discard the last vestiges of physical media (which is ironic given my shift back towards it following iTunes’ refusal to allow 4K downloads); and surrender to endless, rolling subscriptions. Maybe that’s the idea.
Even as cynical as I am, though, I do believe that those who’ve adopted the 2:1 frame have done so with the best of intentions. High-end programmes are now utilising some phenomenal anamorphic lenses, such as the Cooke and Angénieux lenses used for the recent season of
Doctor Who, and inevitably production teams don’t want to see their painstakingly-framed and often exquisitely beautiful shots cropped for transmission in 16:9. Though I sympathise with such sentiments, I take the firm view that if something is being made primarily for viewing in a certain medium, then its format should be tailored to that medium. Those looking to paint pictures on wider canvases should make films for theatrical release instead of subverting TV.
If TV is TV anymore, that is - I am beginning to worry that I’m proceeding from a faulty premise.
Perhaps the real question is, “Are TV programmes made primarily for viewing on TV sets, or the latest generation of 2:1 smartphones?” I know what I’d rather stare at, but I think what I’m really angry about isn’t so much the rise of 2:1 as it is the prospect of, for the first time in my life, being the dinosaur in the room.
The man in the picture
(above) looms ever larger.
