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Concept
Display aspect ratio
Summary
The display aspect ratio (or DAR) is the of a display device and so the proportional relationship between the physical width and the height of the display. It is expressed as two numbers separated by a colon (x:y), where x corresponds to the width and y to the height. Common aspect ratios for displays, past and present, include 5:4, 4:3, 16:10, and 16:9.
To distinguish:
The display aspect ratio (DAR) is calculated from the physical width and height of a display, measured each in inch or cm (Display size).
The pixel aspect ratio (PAR) is calculated from the width and height of one pixel.
The storage aspect ratio (SAR) is calculated from the numbers of pixels in width and height stated in the display resolution.
Because the units cancel out, all aspect ratios are unitless.
The size of a television set or computer monitor is given as the diagonal measurement of its display area, usually in inches. Wider aspect ratios result in smaller overall area, given the same diagonal.
Most televisions were built with an aspect ratio of 4:3 until the late 2000s, when widescreen TVs with 16:9 displays became the standard. This aspect ratio was chosen as the geometric mean between 4:3 and 2.35:1, an average of the various aspect ratios used in film. While 16:9 is well-suited for modern HDTV broadcasts, older 4:3 video has to be either padded with bars on the left and right side (pillarboxed), cropped or stretched, while movies shot with wider aspect ratios are usually letterboxed, with black bars at the top and bottom.
Since the turn of the 21st century, many music videos began shooting on widescreen aspect ratio.
As of 2016, most computer monitors use widescreen displays with an aspect ratio of 16:9, although some portable PCs use narrower aspect ratios like 3:2 and 16:10 while some high-end desktop monitors have adopted ultrawide displays.
The following table summarises the different aspect ratios that have been used in computer displays:
† The aspect ratio is approximate.
Until about 2003, most computer monitors used an aspect ratio of 4:3, and in some cases 5:4.
Official source
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