Widescreen in the context of "Digital television"

Page orientation is the way in which a rectangular page is oriented for normal viewing. The two most common types of orientation are portrait and landscape. The term "portrait orientation" comes from visual art terminology and describes the dimensions used to capture a person's face and upper body in a picture; in such images, the height of the display area is greater than the width. The term "landscape orientation" also reflects visual art terminology, where pictures with more width than height are needed to fully capture the horizon within an artist's view.

Besides describing the way documents can be viewed and edited, the concepts of "portrait" and "landscape" orientation can also be used to describe video and photography display options (where the concept of "aspect ratio" replaces that of "page orientation"). Many types of visual media use landscape mode, especially the 4:3 aspect ratio used for classic TV formatting, which is 4 units or pixels wide and 3 units tall, and the 16:9 aspect ratio for newer, widescreen media viewing.

Panavision Inc. is an American motion picture equipment company founded in 1954 specializing in cameras and lenses, based in Woodland Hills, California. Formed by Robert Gottschalk as a small partnership to create anamorphic projection lenses during the widescreen boom in the 1950s, Panavision expanded its product lines to meet the demands of modern filmmakers. The company introduced its first products in 1954. Originally a provider of CinemaScope accessories, the company's line of anamorphic widescreen lenses soon became the industry leader. In 1972, Panavision helped revolutionize filmmaking with the lightweight Panaflex 35 mm movie camera. The company has introduced other cameras such as the Millennium XL (1999) and the digital video Genesis (2004).

Panavision operates exclusively as a rental facility—the company owns its entire camera inventory, unlike most of its competitors.

Panoramic photography is a technique of photography, using specialized equipment or software, that captures images with horizontally elongated fields of view. It is sometimes known as wide format photography. The term has also been applied to a photograph that is cropped to a relatively wide aspect ratio, like the familiar letterbox format in wide-screen video.

While there is no formal division between "wide-angle" and "panoramic" photography, "wide-angle" normally refers to a type of lens, but using this lens type does not necessarily make an image a panorama. An image made with an ultra wide-angle fisheye lens covering the normal film frame of 1:1.33 is not automatically considered to be a panorama. An image showing a field of view approximating, or greater than, that of the human eye – about 160° by 75° – may be termed panoramic. This generally means it has an aspect ratio of 2:1 or larger, the image being at least twice as wide as it is high. The resulting images take the form of a wide strip. Some panoramic images have aspect ratios of 4:1 and sometimes 10:1, covering fields of view of up to 360 degrees. Both the aspect ratio and coverage of field are important factors in defining a true panoramic image.

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (Italian: Il buono, il brutto, il cattivo, lit. 'The good, the ugly, the bad') is a 1966 Italian epic spaghetti Western film directed by Sergio Leone and starring Clint Eastwood as "the Good", Lee Van Cleef as "the Bad", and Eli Wallach as "the Ugly". Its screenplay was written by Age & Scarpelli, Luciano Vincenzoni, and Leone (with additional screenplay material and dialogue provided by an uncredited Sergio Donati), based on a story by Vincenzoni and Leone. Director of photography Tonino Delli Colli was responsible for the film's sweeping widescreen cinematography, and Ennio Morricone composed the film's score. It was an Italian-led production with co-producers in Spain, West Germany, and the United States. Most of the filming took place in Spain, notably, though not exclusively, in the Tabernas Desert in Almería; in the Arlanza River valley near Hortigüela; and at the purpose-built Sad Hill Cemetery near Santo Domingo de Silos.

The film is known for Leone's use of long shots and close-up cinematography, as well as his distinctive use of violence, tension, and highly stylised gunfights. The plot revolves around three gunslingers competing to find a fortune in a buried cache of Confederate gold amid the violent chaos of the American Civil War (specifically the Battle of Glorieta Pass of the New Mexico campaign in 1862) while participating in many battles, confrontations, and duels along the way. The film was the third collaboration between Leone and Eastwood, and the second of those with Van Cleef.

Anamorphic format is a cinematography technique that captures widescreen images using recording media with narrower native aspect ratios. Originally developed for 35 mm film to create widescreen presentations without sacrificing image area, the technique has since been adapted to various film gauges, digital sensors, and video formats.

Rather than cropping or matting the image and discarding visual information, anamorphic capture employs cylindrical lenses to horizontally compress or "squeeze" the image during recording. A complementary lens is then used during projection to expand the image back to its intended widescreen proportions. By utilizing the full height of the film frame or sensor, this method retains more image resolution than cropped non-anamorphic widescreen formats. Anamorphic lenses have more complex optics than standard spherical lenses, which require more light and can introduce distinctive distortions and lens flares. However, these artefacts are sometimes deliberately embraced for their aesthetic appeal.

Sleeping Beauty is a 1959 American animated musical fantasy film produced by Walt Disney Productions and released by Buena Vista Film Distribution. Based on Charles Perrault's 1697 fairy tale, the film follows Princess Aurora, who was cursed by the evil fairy Maleficent to die from pricking her finger on the spindle of a spinning wheel on her 16th birthday. She is saved by three good fairies, who alter Aurora's curse so that she falls into a deep sleep and will be awakened by true love's kiss. The production was supervised by Clyde Geronimi, and was directed by Wolfgang Reitherman, Eric Larson, and Les Clark. It features the voices of Mary Costa, Bill Shirley, Eleanor Audley, Verna Felton, Barbara Luddy, Barbara Jo Allen, Taylor Holmes, and Bill Thompson.

Sleeping Beauty began development in 1950. The film took nearly a decade and $6 million (equivalent to $64,719,178 in 2024) to produce, and was Disney's most expensive animated feature at the time. Its tapestry-like art style was devised by Eyvind Earle, who was inspired by pre-Renaissance European art; its score and songs, composed by George Bruns, were based on Pyotr Tchaikovsky's 1889 ballet. Sleeping Beauty was the first animated film to use the Super Technirama 70 widescreen process and was the second full-length animated feature filmed in anamorphic widescreen, following Lady and the Tramp (1955).

CinemaScope is a cinematographic technique which used an anamorphic lens to produce widescreen pictures. Crucially, these could be shown in theatres using existing equipment (and an adapter). CinemaScope pictures were produced from 1953 to 1967, and less often after.

When 20th Century Fox began using CinemaScope this marked the beginning of the modern anamorphic format in 2.55:1, almost twice as wide as the previously common Academy format's 1.37:1 ratio. Although the technology behind the CinemaScope lens system was made obsolete by later developments, primarily advanced by Panavision, CinemaScope's anamorphic format has continued to this day. In film-industry jargon, the shortened form, 'Scope, is still widely used by both filmmakers and projectionists, although today it generally refers to any 2.35:1, 2.39:1, 2.40:1, or 2.55:1 presentation or, sometimes, the use of anamorphic lensing or projection in general. Bausch & Lomb won a 1954 Oscar for its development of the CinemaScope lens.

Phase Alternating Line (PAL) is a colour encoding system for analogue television. It was one of three major analogue colour television standards, the others being NTSC and SECAM. In most countries it was broadcast at 625 lines, 50 fields (25 frames) per second, and associated with CCIR analogue broadcast television systems B, D, G, H, I and K. The articles on analogue broadcast television systems further describe frame rates, image resolution, and audio modulation.

PAL video is composite video because luminance (luma, monochrome image) and chrominance (chroma, colour applied to the monochrome image) are transmitted together as one signal. A latter evolution of the standard, PALplus, added support for widescreen broadcasts with no loss of vertical image resolution, while retaining compatibility with existing sets. Almost all of the countries using PAL are currently in the process of conversion, or have already converted transmission standards to DVB, ISDB or DTMB. The PAL designation continues to be used in some non-broadcast contexts, especially regarding console video games where it is referring to the markets other than North America and Japan.