Nigh all media is 16:9. What’s this obsession people have with 16:10? Isn’t it inconvenient to have black bars along your videos and pictures?
Nigh all media is 16:9. What’s this obsession people have with 16:10? Isn’t it inconvenient to have black bars along your videos and pictures?
I’m not a 16:10 zealot, but I can understand why some people like it. Firstly, no, it’s not inconvenient to have black bars along the top and bottom of media. I don’t see why it would be. That used to be the most common experience for watching widescreen media, and it still is the experience with some ultra-wide screen media for anyone without an ultra-wide screen display. I don’t see anything that would be inconvenient about it and can even see the convenience if you, say, need to pull up a status bar on the top or bottom and don’t want it to obstruct the media playing.
But the biggest argument I’ve heard is for people using the display at least partially as a workstation. A lot of UIs on production software are cramped for space, trying to give you as many tools as you need on screen at once. Yes, these are somewhat customizable, but screen real estate can be critical in some of these. I never thought about it until someone mentioned 16:10 and how it can help, but there are a lot more times when I could have really used just a little more vertical space to make things more convenient than horizontal. The example that really made me think about looking at 16:10 the next time I get a monitor is that I do video editing sometimes, and they mentioned that a 16:10 will give you an extra channel or two to work on compared to a 16:9 display.
Does that mean 16:10 is better? Not inherently. It’s going to be better for some people. Maybe for most people. But not everyone is going to need it, not everyone is going to use it, and not everyone is going to even want it. I grew up with SD TVs watching VHS tapes with big black bars on the top and bottom because I wanted to see the whole movie and not a pan-and-scanned half-frame re-edit, so I don’t see any problem with having black bars on the top and bottom of my screen. That’s just normal. But you kind of called it an inconvenience, so to you it’s bound to be weird. So for you, maybe a 16:9 is better than a 16:10 could ever be because it fits your use case better, fits your tastes better.