Display Standard - Veritas et Visus

Veritas et Visus Display Standard February 2009
and XGA (1024x768) emerged in 1990. UXGA (1600x1200) emerged in 1996, and SXGA+ (1400x1050) emerged
in 1998. The vast majority of the displays used in notebook PCs and PC monitors adopted the 4:3 aspect ratio for
almost 20 years starting from the late-1980s.
At the high end of the PC market, monitor makers implemented a 5:4 aspect ratio, for both CRTs and LCDs – at a
1280x1024 pixel format. In the 1980s, high-end computer enthusiasts quickly recognized that for intensive graphics
applications, 640x480 was simply inadequate – they needed displays at a higher resolution. So, monitor designers
dusted off an advanced display developed in the early 1970s for the TV industry to showcase “high definition” – it
was in the 5:4 aspect ratio that was common for TVs at the time with a pixel format of 1280x1024. From this
legacy, the “high-end” 5:4 graphics format was created.
The 16:9 aspect ratio for the TV market: The original HDTV aspect ratio of 15:9 was drawn up by NHK (Japan
Broadcasting Corporation) in the late 1970's. NHK’s choice of 15:9 (1.67) was based on a series of perception tests
they conducted, which tried to identify an optimum aspect ratio for the viewers watching small-screen TV sets.
Starting in the mid-1980s, the TV industry in the US, through the Advanced Television Systems Committee
(ATSC), proposed a transition to an all-digital television broadcasting system in a 16:9 aspect ratio (1.78). The U.S.
Federal Communications Commission (FCC) formally adopted the ATSC recommendation in December 1996,
mandating the new broadcasting standard into law, to be fully implemented by 2006, (a timeline that has been
delayed several times). In addition to the United States, as of January 2004, the governments of Canada, South
Korea, Taiwan, and Argentina formally adopted
the ATSC standard. Most other nations have
since followed suit.
Interestingly, when the 16:9 aspect ratio was
established by the ATSC, there was not a single
display in existence that was manufactured in a
16:9 form factor and there was not a single
camera in existence that capture movie or TV
images at a 16:9 aspect ratio.. The ATSC 16:9
format was simply a compromise solution, which
was not being produced by anyone at the time –
either in terms of displays or content. The 16:9
compromise was developed by Kerns Powers,
one of the ATSC members who identified a way
to encompass all of the existing aspect ratios,
(see graphic to the right).
The Kerns Powers compromise solution of 16:9 enabled all
existing film aspect ratios to fit and was adopted by the ATSC,
even though no displays or devices existed at the time in this
aspect ratio.
Wide aspect ratios in the PC market: Several years ago, my job at Dell was to lead the company’s strategy
related to the displays used in notebook PCs. One of my efforts was to shift Dell’s notebooks to wide aspect ratio
displays. I personally spent literally hundreds of hours in meetings with LCD manufacturers to identify the best
wide aspect ratio solution. The discussions included considerations about the human visual system, optimal sizes
for notebook PC designs (especially considering the keyboard layout), optimization of PC software on widescreens,
PC/TV convergence possibilities, driver and graphics card considerations, and substrate optimization. Unlike the
Kerns Powers’ 16:9 compromise solution for the TV market, the 16:10 aspect ratio was developed based on a rather
rigorous analysis of the pros and cons of various alternatives.
Although Dell with three LCD makers to produce 15.4-inch panels in a 16:10 aspect ratio, and preliminary plans
were put into place to shift Dell’s notebook offerings entirely from 15.0-inch in a 4:3 format to 15.4-inch in a 16:10
format, ultimately Dell’s management decided not to proceed with the program, stating that “Dell’s customers were
not asking for wide aspect ratios…” Well, about a year later, Apple came out with their first wide aspect ratio
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