Widescreen 1080 vs 1024 – preset changed in CS4?

[Filip Tomaszewski]

I believe it’s something else. On BBC site it says:

Why - and where did the extra 18 pixels come from?

Digital pictures are effectively wider than analogue pictures by 18 pixels but the 4:3 image sits inside the 720 by 576 area. The additional 18 pixels are required for digital processing and it would be perfectly acceptable to leave them black - but if the image is shrunk via a digital DVE, two 9 pixel wide black stripes will be seen at the sides

Widescreen
A widescreen television picture has the same number of vertical lines as a 4:3 picture, that is 576. The aspect ratio is 16:9 making the picture:
(576 x 16) ÷ 9 = 1024 square pixels wide
A widescreen picture "fits" into the same electronic space as a 4:3 image. The 16:9 widescreen (1024 by 576) image is horizontally squeezed to 702 by 576. The picture is distorted to be the correct shape on 16:9 screens only, hence tall thin people when the image is seen on a 4:3 screen. The additional 18 pixels in the 4:3 picture, when stretched to 16:9 become:
(18 x 4) ÷ 3 = 24 non square pixels or 24 x 1.094 = 26 square pixels
When making a 16:9 graphic on a square pixel device for conversion to a 720 by 576 widescreen video picture, the width of the 1024 by 576 image must be increased:
26 +1024 = 1050 by 576 square pixels

It doesn’t seem to make much sense, although it probably does if adobe decided to back this up. Any comments on that?

[Filip Tomaszewski]

It seems to me like a push to break compatibility, force users to move 26 pixels up so they are alone in the new realm ; )
a bit like all the AVCHD business