The Natural Philosopher wrote:
half_pint wrote:


Nature chose a circular image for human visual perception,

Ah, but that is where you are completely wrong.

depending on teh species, there are huge variations in visual
perecp[ion. Cats for example have vertical irises,which allow
extermely shapr vision in teh horizontal plane, less so in teh
vertical, at night.

Horses have near 360 degree vison horizontally, but only 180
vertically.
And precious little binocular.

We as tree and plains dwellers, have good binocular, and about 120
degree horizontally and about 90 degree vertically peripheral vision.

Wrong our field of viable 20/20 vision is about 20 degrees IIRC, look it up.
You *cannot* effectively use peripheral vison to watch TV.




do you think
your cinema proprietor knows better.
I think he is more influenced by the the economics of audiance
seating, a wide
seating area allows him more 'bums' (pun intended) per unit volume,
hence greater profits. With a taller screen you cannot seat people
in vertical space
required to show the film.


Er, you can. Old formay 35mm screens worked juts fine on seating, but
more and more they only got the film projected in teh middle bit. So
the newer cinemas are a bit lower. Wide screen - e.g. cinerama - has
been
around a while. The main driver has always been te ability to show
more sideways. Its so happens that teh majority of pictures do not
featire a single talking head, and things like car chases benefit
from gerater horizontal stuff.

Thats a bit garbled. It is a fact the the taller the picture the less people
you can seat per unit area, a 10 year old child could work that out.
( You may find tha maths a bit taxing presumably)


Economics not "how the director intended" ( thats so pretentious
phrase)


Both, but not your ecomomic argument. Most films are really mde for
DVD/video these days. Only teh really big blockbusters make cinema
money.
And most are not even WS, I seem so many complaints about it from
pretentious 'purists'


Its an artistic and practical thing. And the equipment makers follow
fashions

to help obosolete old kit.

The fashion of economics and profit, not good picture making.






--
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regards half_pint

--
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regards half_pint