Native Aspect Ratio

Nearly every projector or display today will support multiple aspect ratios; however, each manufacturer must decide who their intended audience is and optimize the projector for that audience. This means each device has a native aspect ratio that is optimized for specific viewing material.

Aspect ratio is the fractional relation of the width of a video image compared to its height. The two most common aspect ratios in home video are 4:3 (also known as 4x3, 1.33:1, or standard) and 16:9 (16x9, 1.78:1, or wide-screen). All the older TVs and computer monitors you grew up with had the squarish 4:3 shape--only 33 percent wider than it was high. On the other hand, 16:9 is the native aspect ratio of most HDTV programming; it is 78 percent wider than it is tall, or fully one-third wider than 4:3.

Images shown in native aspect ratio will utilize the entire resolution of the display and achieve maximum brightness. Images shown in other than native aspect ratio will always have less resolution and less brightness than images shown in native aspect ratio.

There are currently two commonly manufactured native aspect ratios available for fixed display devices like DLP and LCD projectors, and Flat Panel TVs. Those two aspect ratios are 4:3 format (like the televisions and monitors most of us use) and 16:9 (also known as widescreen) format. An excellent native contrast ratio of 4000:1 can extend to 12000:1 through the in-built iris technology.