On Wed, 01 Mar 2017 07:06:24 +0000, Brian-Gaff wrote:
> No the aft.
> Here is a challenge for them, lets have oval pictures in future. the
> beauty
> of this is that you cannot measure it in a diagonal fashion as it has no
> corners!
>
A circle is just an oval distorted so that both the major and minor axis
become one and the same value. The original TV Picture tubes had circular
faces (optionally) masked off to create, initially I believe, a 5:4
aspect ratio display before swiftly settling on the 4:3 aspect ratio used
until the novelty of wide screen CRT TVs came along.
Measuring the diagonal (effectively the diameter of a circle
encompassing the modern rectangular picture tubes) provided an
unambiguous metric of screen size, which rather neatly removes the
challenge you propose will arise in the case of 'oval pictures'. The
obvious 'measure' would be to choose the major axis since this represents
the diameter of a circularly faced picture tube masked off to a smaller
oval presentation window[1].
The only question left hanging with an oval screen format is in regard
to the choice of aspect ratio. One would reasonably assume the need for a
defined aspect ratio standard such as 1.618:1 (the Golden Ratio) or a
reasonable approximation to it, say 15:9 or thereabouts.
Once the aspect ratio has been clearly and unambiguously defined for our
'new' oval display standard, the absence of corners by which to measure a
'diagonal' (diameter of a masked off round faced picture tube) becomes
just as meaningless an excuse for not being able to offer a universal
metric of usable picture display size as the singular diagonal measure of
today's conventional rectangular displays which all appear to be based on
a 1.77:1.00 aspect ratio (1280 by 720, 1920 by 1080 and 3840 by 2160 -
the last two being the optimistically named "2K" and "4K" HD and UHD TV
screen resolutions respectively).
Although oval framing of portrait photographs was fairly popular, when
it came to moving pictures (cinematic or broadcast TV), there was *so*
little desire for oval formatting over rectangular formatting that we
were, initially at least, even prepared to sacrifice display area on
circular picture tubes by masking the unused portions. Although the
aesthetics weren't the only consideration, there was, in the case of both
cinematography and TV broadcasting standards, a strong desire to avoid
needless complications.
In the case of cinematography, the extra complications could have been
tolerated if enough desire for an oval format had been demonstrated by
their paying customers but given the movie makers' desire to 'wrong foot'
the TV broadcasters by using wide-screen formats and other weird surround
screen formats, all them based on a rectangular aspect ratio, it would
seem that oval screens aren't at all high on the general population's
'wish list'.
In the case of broadcast TV, there was, until the advent of digital TV
broadcasting, no efficient means of transmitting an oval picture format
so the venerable rectangular format used by artists worldwide over the
past five millennia or more became the format of choice. It fitted both
the public's aesthetics and the technological constraints of the analogue
TV broadcasting system.
Even today, with a digital broadcasting system that's quite capable of
transmitting all the pixels of a TV picture no matter how it is framed
(oval or rectangular at any aspect ratio you care to invent) with equal
efficacy, there's no desire nor need to manufacture oval shaped display
screens. If we wish to watch a movie or TV programme shot entirely in
'oval-vision' it's simply a matter of displaying such material on a
standard rectangular screen. A modern flat panel display with black bezel
in a darkened room will effectively disguise the fact of an 'oval-vision'
broadcast being displayed within the rectangular confines of a standard
TV set's display panel.
All of the above is a long winded way of saying that "oval pictures"
will present no challenge at all in regard of 'measuring their size' and,
with a well defined aspect ratio standard, the absence of corners will be
no impediment whatsoever to measuring the new equivalent of a
'diagonal' (it will simply become the maximum width of our new oval TV
display).
IOW, Brian, I'm afraid your "challenge" is simply a non sequitur lacking
even the imagined beauty of "absence of corners". :-(
[1] Since the underlying display technology has long since moved away
from CRT display technology where some merit in creating oval faced
picture tubes may existed and all current and new TV displays are now
based on flat panel technology (oLED and backlit LCD) which is inherently
rectangular due to manufacturing and pixel addressing logistics, it would
actually make more sense to select the minor axis (the height) of a
hypothetical 'oval' display as our singular metric of picture size.
Any further 'widening' of such oval displays into 'super wide-screen'
formats would embarrass the manufacturers into being forced to either
admit of a smaller screen height or else provide the extra pixels' worth
of extra 'wideness' if they wanted to compete against the metric of the
'old' and 'out of date' existing screens. :-)
--
Johnny B Good