this post was submitted on 21 Oct 2023
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Mildly Interesting
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It's such a shitty experience if content can only be consumed on certain platforms, which is what it sounds like you're proposing.
Watching portrait footage on a TV sucks, dude.
But the fuzzy bars on the side make it great?!?
Watching portrait footage that's been padded out to landscape on a portrait device is even worse!
I'm proposing that the web designer writes a responsive webpage when they are sent a portrait video to include, so that if it's viewed on a portrait device it fills the width, and when it's viewed on a landscape device it fills the height. If it's actually for telly, there's usually no harm in cropping a bit at the top and bottom and at that point, feel free to put whatever you like down the sides, but there's no need to throw away the portrait original for the portrait view of the website.
Like I already said, the technology for writing a webpage that looks different depending on the orientation of the device being used to view it is neither complicated nor new. There's no need to treat every medium the same in 2023.
And yet most videos on websites are still proper horizontal. You can maximize and turn your phone. Everyone wins.
Yes, and that's great, it really is, but when the footage you have is portrait, don't pad it out to force landscape orientation on it irrespective of the orientation of the viewer's screen, just let portrait content be full size portrait when viewed on a portrait screen. That is the beginning, the middle and the end of my point. It's all I'm asking for.
Or just don't film in portrait.
And when anyone films in portrait, make sure to punish anyone trying to watch the footage with a similarly criminal portrait orientation, by putting borders round the side of the portrait content to force it to be landscape, thus shrinking the content to roughly a ninth of their screen, unless they switch to the blessed landscape orientation when it will fill a glorious third of the screen. Let no one watch it full size for the creator thereof has sinned against the gods of landscape.
This is the right and proper punishment for content creators who break the landscape law: let no one see this video fullscreen, for they have sinned against landscape. https://ibb.co/x2MQQG2 let the borders of landscape wrath descend and pad, and let fullscreen be disabled for all, for if landscape viewers are denied fullscreen EVERYONE MUST SUFFER.
Oh, or you could just skip the fuzzy bars in portrait mode if you're feeling more accommodating to phone users.
Or just film in landscape and everyone wins.
Alright, you win, I'll never use my phone in portrait ever again, especially not to film my dog in a storm. I'll make sure I turn that baby right to your preferred orientation and I'll stop complaining about pointless bars at the side of other people's portrait content.
If you want, I can go back through my canara roll and delete everything that's in portrait just in case I'm ever tempted to sell it to a news organisation. I'll make sure to only ever post landscape content to whatsapp, signal and especially tiktok and instagram, because otherwise some relative, friend or random Internet user might share it in portrait.
You're right. That's definitely a better solution than not putting annoying fuzzy bars on portrait content.
Glad you've seen the light. Go in peace.
Someone note this moment in history. The war has finally been won