3 ms·

I agree, when they first demoed it I was pretty shocked. For games, I can kind of understand, they can likely work around it...but for video? No videos are reco

I agree, when they first demoed it I was pretty shocked. For games, I can kind of understand, they can likely work around it...but for video? No videos are recorded with the thought of the left side of the screen being cut off.

ovao 9y ago
Not necessarily true. There's still quite large amount of video (or film) content adapted from wider aspect ratios that has been thoughtfully framed with the expectation that it will eventually be squeezed into a consumer device-friendly 16:9 aspect ratio. I don't expect the area encompassed by the notch to be meaningful to a lot of video content (possibly most). I think there are scenarios where it would be a minor problem, though.
cbhl 9y ago
Pretty much all professionally recorded content pays attention to safe zones, and has done so since the CRT days: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safe_area_(television) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safe_area_(television) Phones historically have been weird for not cutting off part of the image that CRTs and even flat screen TVs have been known to do.
- boondaburrah 9y ago
  Annoyingly, my TV won't let you turn it /off/. Not only that, but it won't accept it's own panel's native resolution of 1366x768, only 1280x720 which it then scales up to crop off a bunch of pixels. It's like they were dedicated to making a 720p television look like blurry bigfoot butt.
  - romwell 9y ago
    I was pissed off at my projector doing that (same problem with a different native resolution), but then it was a $90 projector. Sorry for your TV.
  - mortenjorck 9y ago
    And this is the true irony of the persistence of title-safe areas: Broadcast switched over to digital nearly a decade ago, analog set-top boxes haven't been produced in large quantities in years, and thus the concept of overscan should be completely dead by now. Yet TV manufacturers, for some reason I cannot wrap my mind around, continue to implement it, often by default (or in the extreme case, as you mention, with no way to disable it). And so title-safe areas continue to be an issue long after the obsolescence of the technology they were invented to work within.
- lacaza 9y ago
  Tvs historically have been criticized by filmmakers for cutting off part of the image. Safe zones are only useful when using analog film cameras and movie projectors, not with digital video. Of course, you will never place the face of an actor on the edge of the frame, but that doesn't mean that space is useless for the director or the cinematographer. Every filmmaker has a rectangular frame in mind when composing. And even if you don't care about watching the film in the right conditions, isn't it annoying to know there's something you're missing behind that notch? It's like having somebody's head in front of you when you go to the movies. Also, there are many films that have a 2.35 aspect ratio, which is wider than 19.5/9. Sure most of the videos are not films and you wouldn't use a phone to watch films in the first place, but for that price I expect those little details that make the difference. I think Apple has lost that in the recent years.
boondaburrah 9y ago
Honestly the video producers are already used to this bullshit, and have recorded expecting it already. Why? Tube TV. Just when I thought we were going to be able to kiss overscan-safe area goodbye (I mean it's 2017 come /on/), we now have to keep it. Maybe it'll be called "funky phone safe area" now.
chuckdries 9y ago
I've also heard the screen itself is slightly wider than 16:9, though in which direction I don't know. Hopefully, wide enough for native 16:9 to naturally black bar the notch

ovao 9y ago

Not necessarily true. There's still quite large amount of video (or film) content adapted from wider aspect ratios that has been thoughtfully framed with the expectation that it will eventually be squeezed into a consumer device-friendly 16:9 aspect ratio. I don't expect the area encompassed by the notch to be meaningful to a lot of video content (possibly most). I think there are scenarios where it would be a minor problem, though.

cbhl 9y ago

Pretty much all professionally recorded content pays attention to safe zones, and has done so since the CRT days: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safe_area_(television) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safe_area_(television) Phones historically have been weird for not cutting off part of the image that CRTs and even flat screen TVs have been known to do.

boondaburrah 9y ago
Annoyingly, my TV won't let you turn it /off/. Not only that, but it won't accept it's own panel's native resolution of 1366x768, only 1280x720 which it then scales up to crop off a bunch of pixels. It's like they were dedicated to making a 720p television look like blurry bigfoot butt.
- romwell 9y ago
  I was pissed off at my projector doing that (same problem with a different native resolution), but then it was a $90 projector. Sorry for your TV.
- mortenjorck 9y ago
  And this is the true irony of the persistence of title-safe areas: Broadcast switched over to digital nearly a decade ago, analog set-top boxes haven't been produced in large quantities in years, and thus the concept of overscan should be completely dead by now. Yet TV manufacturers, for some reason I cannot wrap my mind around, continue to implement it, often by default (or in the extreme case, as you mention, with no way to disable it). And so title-safe areas continue to be an issue long after the obsolescence of the technology they were invented to work within.
lacaza 9y ago
Tvs historically have been criticized by filmmakers for cutting off part of the image. Safe zones are only useful when using analog film cameras and movie projectors, not with digital video. Of course, you will never place the face of an actor on the edge of the frame, but that doesn't mean that space is useless for the director or the cinematographer. Every filmmaker has a rectangular frame in mind when composing. And even if you don't care about watching the film in the right conditions, isn't it annoying to know there's something you're missing behind that notch? It's like having somebody's head in front of you when you go to the movies. Also, there are many films that have a 2.35 aspect ratio, which is wider than 19.5/9. Sure most of the videos are not films and you wouldn't use a phone to watch films in the first place, but for that price I expect those little details that make the difference. I think Apple has lost that in the recent years.

boondaburrah 9y ago

Honestly the video producers are already used to this bullshit, and have recorded expecting it already. Why? Tube TV. Just when I thought we were going to be able to kiss overscan-safe area goodbye (I mean it's 2017 come /on/), we now have to keep it. Maybe it'll be called "funky phone safe area" now.

chuckdries 9y ago

I've also heard the screen itself is slightly wider than 16:9, though in which direction I don't know. Hopefully, wide enough for native 16:9 to naturally black bar the notch