480 & 576 both 4:3, how does that work?

[egparadigm]

I'm getting the feeling that Wii is displaying things too wide in 4:3 (I have a 16:10 monitor and the choices I have are either far too tall or slightly too wide.) But I digress... This got me thinking: how can 720x480 and 720x576 both be displayed in the same aspect ratio of 4:3? Surely the PAL video is a bit taller?

I'm probably misunderstanding something here. I had a little look see on Google, but there's no specific answer I know how to find.

Solve this conundrum for me, please!

[Brats]

It's simply that the PAL lines are thinner. The 'pixels' in any given resolution don't have to be a perfect square.

[Lyris]

It's very possible that your 16:10 monitor is displaying things too wide. That's a common fault with those screens.

Brats said it though - neither of them have square pixels. Most people are familiar with the concept of an "anamorphic" DVD, where the picture is on the disc "squashed" and the widescreen display device "unsqueezes it". In fact, all SD digital video formats are "anamorphic" in this way, just not always to the same degree.

The only video formats that use square pixels are some of the HDTV ones (720p and the 1080 formats) but even then there are exceptions.

[egparadigm]

Ah, thank you Misters.

[Profit]

PAL pixels are almost square. NTSC pixels are tall rectangles.

This is why direct NTSC to PAL ported games have black borders on the top and bottom.