16:9

16:9 (1.77:1) (16:9 = 4²:3²) is an aspect ratio with a width of 16 units and height of 9. Since 2009 it has become the most common aspect ratio for televisions and computer monitors, and is also the international standard format of HDTV, Full HD, non-HD digital television and analog widescreen television. It is also used inversely (9:16) as the ratio for mobile phone screens.

History

Dr. Kerns H. Powers, a member of the SMPTE Working Group on High-Definition Electronic Production, first proposed the 16:9 (1.77:1) aspect ratio at a time when nobody was creating 16:9 videos. The popular choices in 1980 were: 1.33:1 (based on television standard's ratio at the time), 1.66:1 (the European "flat" ratio), 1.85:1 (the American "flat" ratio), 2.20:1 (the ratio of 70 mm films and Panavision) and 2.39:1 (the CinemaScope ratio for anamorphic widescreen films).

Powers cut out rectangles with equal areas, shaped to match each of the popular aspect ratios. When overlapped with their center points aligned, he found that all of those aspect ratio rectangles fit within an outer rectangle with an aspect ratio of 1.77:1 and all of them also covered a smaller common inner rectangle with the same aspect ratio 1.77:1. The value found by Powers is exactly the geometric mean of the extreme aspect ratios, 4:3 (1.33:1) and 2.35:1, √47/15 ≈ 1.770 which is coincidentally close to 16:9 (1.77:1). Applying the same geometric mean technique to 16:9 and 4:3 yields the 14:9 aspect ratio, which is likewise used as a compromise between these ratios.

Murder of Victoria Stafford

Victoria "Tori" Elizabeth Marie Stafford was an eight-year-old Canadian girl abducted from Woodstock, Ontario on April 8, 2009, sexually assaulted and murdered. She was last seen on security camera footage walking with Terri-Lynne McClintic.

Her disappearance and the subsequent investigation and search were the subject of massive media coverage across Canada. The search for her body ended on July 19, 2009, when a child's remains were found in a wooded area in rural Ontario and were immediately believed to be those of Tori Stafford. This was confirmed in a news conference held July 21, 2009. The police response to the situation as it developed and their failure to announce an Amber Alert has been criticized by the public, and has recently been the focus of a review of the Amber Alert system in Canada. The circumstances of her death were unknown to the public until a publication ban was lifted in December 2010.

Abduction and murder

She was seen for the last time at about 3:32 pm Wednesday, April 8, 2009, on Fyfe Avenue, walking past a high school up the street from Oliver Stephens Public School. She was wearing a black Hannah Montana jacket with a white fur-lined hood, a green shirt, denim skirt, black and white shoes and carrying a purple and pink Bratz bag.

David Rock

David Rock may refer to: