Question: When Can Your Video Become a Postage Stamp ?

Answer:  When you incorrectly mix aspect ratio.

Yesterday I shared some info and thoughts about the different aspect ratios of video/TV, the 4:3 and the 16:9 (or wide-screen).  Now on most contemporary TVs (and in conjunction with modern DVD players) you can playback a video in it's original aspect ratio using one of the many viewing options (Aspect or 1:1, Stretch, Zoom, etc).  My favorite and recommendation to others is to view your movies/videos in their original aspect ratio -- and if that means a different aspect ratio than your monitor you will have matte (black borders) added either at the top and bottom or left and right sides (see yesterday's post for more on this topic: Video Aspect Ratios: Understanding Pillarboxing & Letterboxing )

Today our topic is what happens if someone processes/edits a video, employing aspect ration correction but then that video is played incorrectly -- here is an explanation and some illustrations that detail the undesirable effects that could occur...

Postage Stamp

One of the undesirable possible effects is called window-boxing or the postage stamp effect.This occurs when an image appears centered in a television screen, with the black matte (borders) on all four sides of the image. This diagram will show the resulting effect.

First - we have a 4:3 (standard) video

• At far left with have the original 4:3 video
• In the center image, the 4:3 video has the pillarbox effect added to correctly view on a 16:9 monitor
• In the right image, the pillar-boxed video (16:9) now has letterbox effect added to view on a 4:3 monitor but with the previously added Pillar-box effect we now have a window-box or postage stamp effect.

 This next row shows a 16:9 (wide-screen) video with similar results

• At far left with have the original 16:9 video
• In the center image, the 16:9 video has the letter-box effect added to correctly view on a 4:3 monitor
• In the right image, the letter-boxed video (now 4:3) now has pillar-box effect added to view on a 16:9 monitor but with the previously added letter-box effect we now have a window-box or postage stamp effect.
  

Ultimately, you want your audience to use the version that fits the aspect ratio of their TV - if they are using wide-screen, hopefully they will access a wide-screen original and not the letter-boxed version.  And your audience viewing on a 4:3 monitor should access your standard aspect ratio work from the original (not pillar-boxed) version.