I think @Andrew and anyone hardcore into film might appreciate or understand this, but I'm just going to have a little rant about "4k" in superwide.
So back in the days of DVD 2.35:1 aspect ratio would give us a lot of black bar at the top and bottom, and from memory, if you owned a widescreen monitor at the time when 4x3 was still the norm, then you'd get black bars at the top and bottom of your widescreen monitor as well, and if you were like me watching everything on a computer, when you minimised the window, the 2.35:1 aspect ratio would still have those black bars in 16:9 format. I'm pretty sure that's just how dvds were encoded because superwide I don't think was even a thing in monitors.
might have to skip the bluray generation because I never owned a bluray player for my computer, so I'm not sure how films were encoded but my guess is that they were encoded WITHOUT the black bars and exported in their "full" 2.34:1 aspect ratio so if you shrunk the window on your computer, there would be no black bars, just the wider format film. Superwide monitors were starting to become more of a thing and I THINK blurray displayed properly on those (old technology would have seen super wide film with black bars at the top and bottom of their encoded format, and would have had black bars on the sides as well due to it being a 2.35:1 image, presented in a 16:9 frame, displayed on a 2.35:1 wide format again (it starts getting complicated)
AAAnyway... this brings me to something I've just noticed now, and I'm kind of curious if maybe Andrew knows more about this (maybe this might be better off in technology, i'm not sure because this is a film and entertainment topic as well)
I know cinemas generally have 2.35:1 screens for projection, and if a film is 16:9 it doesn't get any taller, so they bring the curtains in a little so you don't notice the film is not using the entire superwide format.
But I just noticed when looking at some 2.35:1 4k screen grabs, that the image it'self wasn't the same height at a 16:9 screen capture. The image wasn't any wider either to make up for the height.
This makes me wonder if super wide monitors have the same height pixels as other 4k/1080p monitors and add extra pixels to the sides... or if they're the same pixel width as regular 16:9 4k/1080p monitors and just sacrifice the extra height detail.
essentially meaning most "super wide" films in 4k are simply half the height, therefore half the resolution. they don't seem to add anything in width resolution, and simply take away from the height resolution meaning there's actually more picture in a non superwide 16:9 image.
This is something that's just occurred now to me as I'm looking at some Jurassic World Fallen Kingdom stills (first Jurassic movie in superwide) and the height is half the height of the previous films in 4k.
So really, it seems like superwide is a trade off to APPEAR grander in scope than it actually is.
So back in the days of DVD 2.35:1 aspect ratio would give us a lot of black bar at the top and bottom, and from memory, if you owned a widescreen monitor at the time when 4x3 was still the norm, then you'd get black bars at the top and bottom of your widescreen monitor as well, and if you were like me watching everything on a computer, when you minimised the window, the 2.35:1 aspect ratio would still have those black bars in 16:9 format. I'm pretty sure that's just how dvds were encoded because superwide I don't think was even a thing in monitors.
might have to skip the bluray generation because I never owned a bluray player for my computer, so I'm not sure how films were encoded but my guess is that they were encoded WITHOUT the black bars and exported in their "full" 2.34:1 aspect ratio so if you shrunk the window on your computer, there would be no black bars, just the wider format film. Superwide monitors were starting to become more of a thing and I THINK blurray displayed properly on those (old technology would have seen super wide film with black bars at the top and bottom of their encoded format, and would have had black bars on the sides as well due to it being a 2.35:1 image, presented in a 16:9 frame, displayed on a 2.35:1 wide format again (it starts getting complicated)
AAAnyway... this brings me to something I've just noticed now, and I'm kind of curious if maybe Andrew knows more about this (maybe this might be better off in technology, i'm not sure because this is a film and entertainment topic as well)
I know cinemas generally have 2.35:1 screens for projection, and if a film is 16:9 it doesn't get any taller, so they bring the curtains in a little so you don't notice the film is not using the entire superwide format.
But I just noticed when looking at some 2.35:1 4k screen grabs, that the image it'self wasn't the same height at a 16:9 screen capture. The image wasn't any wider either to make up for the height.
This makes me wonder if super wide monitors have the same height pixels as other 4k/1080p monitors and add extra pixels to the sides... or if they're the same pixel width as regular 16:9 4k/1080p monitors and just sacrifice the extra height detail.
essentially meaning most "super wide" films in 4k are simply half the height, therefore half the resolution. they don't seem to add anything in width resolution, and simply take away from the height resolution meaning there's actually more picture in a non superwide 16:9 image.
This is something that's just occurred now to me as I'm looking at some Jurassic World Fallen Kingdom stills (first Jurassic movie in superwide) and the height is half the height of the previous films in 4k.
So really, it seems like superwide is a trade off to APPEAR grander in scope than it actually is.
