In 2008, older viewers who have lived their whole lives in 4:3 will initially gawk at a custom interface like 11:15 and feel that the ratio is odd, confining, or forced – but no one is wondering whether or not a widescreen LCD looks awesome ripping HD, because we’ve warmed up to the idea in the movie theater. Widescreen seems like a natural evolution, although just a few years ago we were staring at our moderately hi-res, bulky 4:3 CRTs, and marveling at how crisp the images looked in comparison to a normal television. No doubt you’ll see some of the hip kids reverting to 4:3 for its “vintage” appeal, and there might even be readers out there who have taken that stance already; arguing that the TV ratio they grew up watching Thundercats on will never – EVER – die, regardless of what widescreen is doing at large.

So you can suck it up and follow the crowd – if for no reason other than easing compatibility with the world’s weird formatting preferences – or you could do something completely off-the-wall, and throw budget to the wind. More on that later.