Hi Douglas SE

I see from one of your posts you recommend shooting wide and converting later..to a guy wanting 4:3 from an Z1/FX1

Well I have a format problem and am seeking the best option.

This year I shot a Promotional DVD made up of 24 short clips. These were authored onto the disc.. All were shot in 4:3 using a TRV950.

This year I will be shooting with the FX1 and obviously would like to shoot HDV and downconvert.. a) to have better archives and 2) to use the camera's potentiel as much as poss.

My question is this: What would then be the best way to compile the 2005 DVD, bearing in mind I will have to use some of last years clips again in 4:3 and will need to add the new versions from the FX1, thus somehow mixing formats.. or converting one or other..

I use Prem Pro to edit.. what sort of convertion would give me the best results?? .. it seems pointless to shoot HDV, downconvert and then rip it to bits to make a 4:3...
What option do I have?


I thought I might be able to simply author the disc, as all the clips are individual Mpeg2 files and let the tv's or DVD players work out the format.. I don't really know..

Any ideas for this would be gratefully received...

Regards

Gareth

Gareth, the best thing to do is run tests yourself. Shoot with the
different modes of the camera and see how the footage mixes
with your TVR950 footage. Test the different work flows in Premiere
as well and see what you can or cannot do in Prem etc.

Cheers Rob,

I don't want to actually mix the footage.. each clip will be a separate film in its aspect ratio, saved as a separate Mpeg2 file. Some will be in 4:3 and some the recetn stuff in 16:9 off the FX1.

It's the DVD authoring bit I'm having problems finding a solution to... i've tried various things and any cropping or resizing dramatically reduces quality... not much point in shooting with an FX1 if I'm going to down res even more the 16:9 footage ..

perhaps this is not the right section to post this query...

cheers

Gareth

I have used several DVD authoring apps in the past, and altho I can't remember which ones, I know some of them will let you use 4:3 and 16:9 on the same DVD. The player detects if the video should be played widescreen or fullscreen. Just like when you watch a hollywood movie on DVD that is widescreen and then watch "the making of" in fullscreen. I'd recommend checking on www.videohelp.com. Sorry that I cannot remember exactly which application! But anyway, just so you know it is possible.

Another solution, would be to shrink your 16:9 footage into 4:3, to make it letterboxed with black bars. Of course that would mean losing quality and it seems you have already tried it.

Wheter a film is shown in 16:9 or 4:3 is a property of the MPEG 2 stream, not of the DVD disk. So you will have to encode the FX1 footage to 16:9 anamorphic MPEG 2 and the other footage to 4:3 MPEG 2.

I don't know what your are using to author the DVD, but almost every package should accept straight MPEG 2 streams. You can use another encoder to encode the clips if your authoring package doesn't support 16:9 MPEG 2.

Hi Ben

I usually output the clips directly from Prem Pro... which has no problem rendering an Mpeg2 in whatever aspect the original material is in.

The guys who has been doing the Post on our DVD's is using Encore...

I've personnally messed around with DVDlab Pro which lets you add two menus... one for each aspect ratio... but you can't mix them both in the same submenu...

Not sure if Encore allows this..

Regards
Gareth