When people create videos using their cell phones, they usually do it in portrait mode. Not being someone who whips out a camera and records things, I am not sure why the portrait mode is the one that people prefer. Is it something to do with the ease of holding the phone? But whatever the reason, the net result is curiously dissatisfying to watch, apart from the black bands that appear on each side when you play it back on YouTube or a video player.
Rob Beschizza digs up a paper from NASA that suggests that there may be a physical reason for our preference for landscape mode videos and that is that the field of vision for human eyes correspond roughly to an aspect ratio of 16:10, close to the widescreen format in films.
But while landscape is easier on the eye for watching vides, why is it different for reading? A random check of the books on my desk reveals that they are close to the portrait mode aspect ratio of about 10:15.
Is it that the ways our eyes scan when we sequentially read text is different from the way we watch videos?
Fast readers read with less muscle movement. Reading long lines is quickest done if you can hold your head still and your eyes almost still, and kind of just move your focus from one side to the other. It’s even easier to read short lines of ten words or so without moving your eyes at all, which is why magazines and newspapers usually use a multi-column format. The same isn’t true of videos, where you are not reading but viewing.
I’m sure that the reason most people take “vertical videos” with their phones is that the vertical is the “normal” orientation for holding a cell phone and they just activate the camera while holding the phone like that without giving it any thought. It drives me nuts, though, and I try to suggest that people turn their phone to landscape mode when recording videos if I think I can do so graciously.
As for books, I suspect that the key difference is that the reader’s eyes must scan back-and-forth across the page and that this is simply easier to do across a shorter distance.
My moderately educated guesses are as such:
When reading, one of the most problematic parts (in terms of efficiency) is when you get to the end of a line. There are two things that slow down the reader at this point: 1- your eyes have to travel all the way across to the left side of the page, and 2- you have to find the correct line to continue on. If the width is too large, it becomes easy to get lost during the trip back to the left margin and land on the wrong line. This makes landscape mode a pain for reading cause its just too wide and you waste a lot of time trying to find what line you are supposed to be reading. (On the other hand, if the text is too narrow, finding the right line is easy, but your eyes have to travel to the left margin too often.)
Why do people make videos in portrait orientation? My guess is because they are used to holding their cell phones that way (majority of phone operations are performed in portrait) and just don’t think to turn it sideways. Your average user doesn’t think about what the end result will look like. They just want to capture a video.
badgers daughter and OverlappingMagisteria,
What you both say sounds eminently plausible. Thanks.
Another factor may that you can’t really hold a larger smart-phone in landscape with one hand, look at the product on screen keep it steady. You will either need both hands, get a shaky video, or risk covering the camera with your hand while trying to keep it steady. the Galaxy s3 is big enough to be wobbly.
The next question is why isn’t there a setting for your video recording app that prevents you from taking vertical video?
I did find one app on Android that when used to record in vertical video mode painted a great curving red arrow across the display.
It’s kind of awkward to shoot a video on your phone horizontally while not blocking the camera (depending on where the camera is). The instinct is to use two hands horizontally. Vertically it’s balances easily in one hand.
When we’re reading, we’re looking for fine detail, for small text. Moving the eyes horizontally makes it easier to lose one’s place. It’s easier to read and keep one’s place when the text width is no wider than one’s head, about 14 cm. That’s one thing I’d change about FtB’s layout if I could.
Speed readers don’t move their eyes and don’t scan. They’ve trained their eyes and brain to read entire lines without moving the head. Some can read entire paragraphs or pages with one glance and not move the head.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_reading
When we’re viewing landscapes, we’re not looking for detail. We’re land mammals, so we’re looking for movement in the horizontal plane for food and threats, which matches our peripheral vision. Birds aren’t usually a threat, so we didn’t develop peripheral vision for the third dimension.
As for reading; if the lines are too long you tend to lose your place.
Holding the phone vertically is easier for mechanical reasons: the center of mass of the phone will be above the base on which it’s resting with reference to gravity, which in an accelerated frame of reference (e.g., gravity) means it is in a stable configuration. When held horizontally, the center of mass is outside the base on which it’s resting, making it effectively a cantilever; like holding a phone book at arm’s length at shoulder height, it becomes tiring much more quickly, as muscle power must be used to counteract the cantilever effect, while holding it vertically requires only holding up the mass of the phone without the leverage of the cantilever.
Yes!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eye_movements_in_reading
If you look at a traditional print newspaper, it’s long thin columns for a reason. You can take in a single (or multiple) line(s) in one glance at a time. See also, traditional two-column scientific papers.
If you have to scan a long way horizontally to the right, you tend to lose which line you were reading and have to fumble up and down the left hand side to work out where the next line starts, which foxes the brain …