You’re probably expecting me to follow that title up with “Oh My!” Okay, stupid Wizard of Oz joke. Anyway, when it comes to understanding aspect ratios and CCDs, those ain’t no laughing matter.
The above picture was taken by NASA. It shows a typical CCD, or a charge coupled device. Understanding CCD’s is important in the HD camcorder selection process. And now, I will attempt to explain how a CCD works. That’s without exploding your brain. Trust me, I really could if I wanted to.
A CCD is photosensitive. It takes light and turns it into electronic pulses. Those pulses relate to the color spectrum. Pretty ingenious, huh. Well, if you put 3 CCDs into a camera or HD camcorder, then you get much better color fidelity. I noticed this when I switched to a Panasonic 3 CCD video recorder. The colors really popped off the screen. I hope that makes sense.
Aspect ratio is pretty simple to understand. It’s basically a height and width ratio. The two most common in TV’s are 4:3 for standard and 16:9 for widescreen. There are more, but these are the more common ones. You can easily understand this by looking at a standard TV and an HDTV. One is wider.
Credit: paintonscreen.com
Now, have you ever seen a standard signal that has been stretched to fit 16:9 aspect ratio incorrectly? Yeah, everyone looks about 200 pounds heavier. The thing you need to know is that most camcorders can do pretty good aspect ratio changes – even lower definition camcorders. But hey, and HD camcorder will look better, even if upscaled. So, if you want the best – i would go with the higher resolution. But that’s me.