Turning the world on its side!

[AstroBlue]

Tate is a Japanese word meaning vertical. However, to the SHMUP community it means one thing, and one thing only... flipping your TV on its side.

Almost every vertical scrolling shoot'em found in the arcades uses a 3:4 aspect ratio. This means the screen is 33% longer than it is wide, allowing for a more extensive view of what is in front of your ship.

But when porting these games to home videogame consoles, the developers generally reduce the game area by 0.75 to fit the game on a standard 4:3 aspect horizontal screen.



This reduction creates large borders on the lateral aspects of the screen, which combined take up almost half of the screen area; and worst of all, it degrades the quality of the graphics significantly.



Almost all resized games use the "pixel resizing" method to fit the game on the screen. This method resizes the image by doubling or removing whole pixels, which leads to a very jagged warped looking image. "Resampling" on the other hand creates the new image by creating pixels which reflect the average colour of the pixels they replace. For example, say a picture two pixels large (one red and one blue) was reduced to one pixel using both methods; the "pixel resizing" method would remove either the blue or red pixel leaving the other behind, but the "resampling" method would find the average of those two colours (purple) and create a pixel of that colour. Developers use "pixel resampling because it can be done in real time, "resampling" on the other hand requires a lot of processing power and memory.

So, how do you not play games with shitty borders and "squished graphics? Well by flipping your TV on its side of course!

Before you start, I suggest you understand the basics on how a television works:
http://entertainment.howstuffworks.com/tv.htm

Now, there are two big problems with flipping your Television: one, you may damage the insides of your TV in the process of flipping it; and two, the changes in magnetic fields may make the picture appear discoloured. You can avoid the first problem by simply being very careful when you flip it, the second is easy albeit technical.

You may remember that the television creates a raster by using magnets to steer and bend the stream of electrons. You may also remember that a shadow mask ensures that a specific colour of electron beam will only hit the corresponding colour phosphor. Well... magnetic fields that build up on the screen may bend the beams after they pass through the shadow mask, causing them hit the wrong coloured phosphors, thus creating a colour shift.

Have you ever pugged your TV into an electrical outlet and heard a strange thumping sound? Well that is the sound of your Televisions "degaussing coil" purging all of this magnetic build-up and replacing it with a nice uniform field. And that is how you are going to battle the magentic field change created by flpping your TV.

I would not recommend you rotate any TV over 20'', since anything over that is probably far too heavy and unstable; or with sides less than 30% of the TV's depth, since anything less won't provide enough area to rest on safely.

Ok, so enough with the techy shit, it's time to get to the point.

1. Unplug your Television from the wall.
2. Carefully rotate it onto its left side, making sure it is stable. It may be a good idea to support the sides with pillows or heavy books, or to rest the TV on the floor instead of in an entertainment centre or ontop of a table.
3. Plug it in and turn it on at the power point, but do not switch the actual TV on for a couple of minutes (leaving it in "Standby"). This will allow for the "degaussing coil" to do its stuff and the magnetic field of the screen to settle.
4. Turn it on and "Destroy the core!"

Now, if you have any visible discolouration, it's most likely from "shearing" caused by the earth’s natural magnetic field. So get out a compass and try facing your TV due north or south.

Corrections, additions, discussion welcome! It would really be great if some of you could supply pictures of turned TVs, or lists of games which have tate options. I'm hoping this will be the foundation of something better/nerdier.

[Bonestorm]

this should be the first sticky here!

[Cheebs]

Great post. So get flippin' folks. You know Ikaruga deserves it.

[Videodrone]

Great faq.

[Mzo]

My 27" vega weighs like a bitch. I want to flip it over, though

It's really sensitive to magnetic fields, too. But damn it looks good.

[Matt]

1. Unplug your Television from the wall.

Might as well note that you don't really have to unplug your TV. As long as you leave the TV turned off long enough for the degaussing coil to reset, and turn it on after it's flipped, you'll be OK.

[Nomi]

Pity I can't flip my TV... Damn projections. Education anyway, and now I feel a tad bit smarter. Props.

[SmoothCriminal]

My self thing where my TV is about 2 inches too small to flip it over.

Plus it weighs a shitload.

I wanna play Ikaruga tate though.....

:<

[ChaoofNee]

Awesome.
I definitely have to try this with Strikers 1945 II.
Sticky this shit! Thanks, Astro.

[AstroBlue]

Might as well note that you don't really have to unplug your TV. As long as you leave the TV turned off long enough for the degaussing coil to reset, and turn it on after it's flipped, you'll be OK.

Excellent point. I just thought it would be safer to tell everybody to do that, since for some TVs the coil is activated when it's first put in "standby" and for some TVs it's activated when the TV is actually turned on. Plus it's a little safer to turn your TV while it's not live