I have a couple of small ad-insert cable companies that still want 4:3 commercials...otherwise, not so much anymore.

I don't have to miss it. The local cable station where I work part-time is all 4:3.

I still shoot 4:3 for the spots that I feel would creatively benefit from it.
A 4:3 spot upscaled to HD by the broadcaster airs full frame with "sidebars' and can look really good, even in an HD stream.
Ken

I agree with Dave. I find widescreen composition to be a lot more challenging. I'm used to from times past turning the 35mm camera on it's side to photograph "portrait" mode. Now when shooting someone standing up it's hard to get much beyond their head & shoulders in without losing them in a vast see of background stretching far from left to right.

If i had my way, we'd be moving more towards 1:1 instead of farther from it.

I have to say i really miss having a taller screen on my laptops too. I've got a nice new 17" screen on this laptop with an amazing 1600 pixel wide resolution, but vertically it's only 900. I'm used to having at least 1024 to play with. Losing those hundred or more vertical pixels is quite annoying.

The thing I miss about SD 4:3 is that it was simple, not millions of possible formats to deliver/edit in. Editing in DV was also faster then HDV.

No...4 computers and 3 TV's all 16x9. 4x3 looks like old days at the movies.

I'll tell you one thing I don't miss, and that's PAR's being different. Almost everything I cut these days is 1.0 PAR, and I do like that.

There are some times though, that i frame up a shot and think, ugh, why can't we be 4:3 anymore :).

And yes, 16:10 monitors are nicer than 16:9 for work, IMO.

Like the rest of the world, I've not completely embraced 16x9. Since I've been thinking about it, I've discovered how uneven the conversion has been.

1) On many Sunday mornings, my wife reads the paper and watches the Flying Nun in 4x3 on my 16x9 plasma panel. This ensures that any Blu-ray I watch in 16x9 that evening will have uneven color from burn-in.

2) I have started shooting stills on my Canon G9 camera in widescreen (4000x2248) but the video from that camera is 4x3 (1024x768 or less). Cropping for 5x7 or 8x10 is probably a little more risky but my stills are often used in video so it balances.

3) At work, all the monitors that I use are 4x3, even the flat panels and they work better for me. For the life of me I can't figure out how Microsoft came up with the "Ribbon" in Office just about the time everyone moved to displays that are wide and squat.

4) My local TV affiliates don't seem to have gotten the memo on 16x9. Most of the commercials on many of the stations are 4x3. I find that major national chains like Target have commercials in 4x3. Maybe they are being reformated by the ad department to meet the ad department's workflow?

A big plus 1 on the PAR comment.

I wish they went to 2.35 x 1 so I could miss 16 x 9.
JJK

"I wish they went to 2.35 x 1 so I could miss 16 x 9."

After watching a theatrical Blu-ray, the full screen 16x9 looks so...boxey.

I miss 4:3 when idiots insist on playing back 4:3 stretched out to 16:9. However I derive great enjoyment at shops baiting sales-weasels who can't even understand what I'm on about !

"Doesn't that car run funny on those oval tyres ?", and "Can this TV pick up non-dwarf sports channels ?".

geoff

Monochrome was neat.

geoff

"Stretchovision" is a disease that has permeated into the entire human race.
JJK

Not that I can really think of. I was pretty much working in 16:9 from the start.
I've used 9:16 in the 16:9 frame for a talking head, a bigger canvas is a good thing.
I would like to see wider adoption of 2.35:1, it's a better match to how our vision works.

Bob.

As long as the content holds my attention, I couldn't care less what the format is.

Now, to answer your question, once in a while a client/project will require 4:3. I still shoot on HD 16:9 (1080) composing and cropping in post for the 4:3 (1436x1080), or there 'bouts.

ah, 4:3 in 3d - that'd be something ;-)

ah, 4:3 in 3d - that'd be something ;-)

Leslie, go back to your '60s sex, drugs and rock n' roll :)

Mike

The 4:3 from my digital still cameras matched up well with my 4:3 DV videos, and my 4:3 CRT monitor.

Now I have a 3:2 DSLR and a 16:9 HD video cam and a 4:3 monitor. That's progress.

mike - wouldn't 3d in 4:3 take me back there? ;p)

I do not miss 4:3, but I do not think they went far enough with 16:9. What they did was multiply 4:3 by 4:3 and got 4*4:3*3. This is wider than 4:3, obviously, but nowhere near what is needed for filmmaking, nor for showing movies on TV in their proper dimensions. So now we have vertical black bars for old movies and horizontal black bars for new Blu-ray movies!

I wish they multiplied it by 4:3 one more time. That would gives 4*4*4:3*3*3 = 64:27 = 2.37, which would finally get rid of the horizontal black bars.

Leslie, it probably would - with your trusty 8-track supplying the groovy tunes :)

Mike

Black bars aren't such a problem if your TV chassis is also black.

Gash as hell with a silver or white surround !

geoff