Hello - I recently purchased the Z1 (fairly impressed by it). However I keep learning from my mistakes and here is one for whic I need your help to fix it: I filmed in DvCam mode but without turning off the wide screen option in the menu. When I transfered the footage on the computer Premiere 6.5 read it as 4:3 but squized.
Is there a way to un-squize the footage with Premier 6.5, or do I need extra software/equipment to do it?

Thank you,

Raul

If this issue was discussed before, I apologize and please indicate the thread

You probably captured in the wrong format. Before capturing, go to the IN/OUT REC section of the menu, scroll to DOWN CONVERT and change it to EDGE CROP (assuming your Premiere project is in 4:3).

Every time you capture in SD, make sure you're down-converting in the right way.

Mark, he recorded in DVCAM mode, so I don't think he can use the "Edge Crop" function - or letterbox for that matter..

Premiere 6.5 is very silly about pixel aspect ratio (A.R.). You can each clip to have a pixel A.R. suitable for DV widescreen (1.2 in NTSC?), under advanced options and have the project AR be suitable for 4:3 - and then click "Maintain Aspect Ratio" under video options. However on our set up it ignores this setting and the images stay the same. However that might be becuase we have Matrox RTX DV cards installed which are overiding and forcing standard pixel aspect.

The Matrox cards have a filter for converting 16:9 to 4:3, either by squish&letterbox, or stretch&crop. Maybe, Raul, yours has something similar.

I don't know about Premiere 6.5..(does this import 16.9??)..

Premiere Pro handles 16.9 very nicely...

if you have the Z1 you can downconvert your 16.9 to 4.3 in camera...(my FX1 won't do that)

I faced the same problem of using PAL 4.3 footage shot on a TRV950 with PAL 16.9 footage from an FX1. All in SD naturally.

Our work round that looked fine on DVD, was to import the 4.3 (1:1) into a 16.9 (1:4) project... interpret 1:1 footage to > 1:2 and to scale to 110%. Now this did cause mild destortion, but due the way the 16.9 tv's are used (people watching 4.3 stuff on either 16.9 or Smart 4.3) it really was hardly noticeable. It avoided picture cropping, and scaling also was minimal...on a 4.3 tv set it letterboxed fine...

Purists might throw their arms up and go 'You did what?' but next to the native 16.9 clips it looked fine.

Regards
Gareth

Thank you all for your replies - I still couldn't get an un-squeezed picture. Probably I will upgrade to Premiere Pro from 6.5 and that will solve the issue. However I just found in the manual, page 90 :"To dub to a DVCam device". I will try to follow the instructions in order to "freeze" the original shooting settings and simply dub the footage on another camera (a PDX 10) that handles 16:9. Maybe it will work.
If not - PremierePro.

Thank you again for all your feedback,

Raul Dudnic
Independent TV Producer for OMNI TV - Toronto

Raul, dubbing to another camera won't make any difference. The PDX10 and the Z1 cameras "handle" 16:9 DV the same way; the 16:9 is is squeezed into a 4:3 frame. Your options in P6.5 are to set the project as a widescreen project and set the clips' pixel aspect ratios to 1.2, then at least you have widescreen clips in a widescreen timeline. If you open a new DV 16:9 project, it will probably flag up all the clips as 16:9 automatically as they're imported (have to say I've never tried it.)

Alternatively you could adjust the shape of every clip manually using the motion tool. (very slow, lots of renders!)

Or you could use a tool like VirtualDub to pre convert your DV avis. Virtual Dub can import DV avis if you have a VFW DV codec installed (there's a free Panasonic one around, google for it.) Just resize to 960x480 pixels, then, in a null transform, crop 120 pixels off of each side. You'll need obviously enough Hard Disc space for all the new clips. Sound will be direct sctream copy.

Another option is you could edit your project in Widescreen, export it wide, then crop the finished project in vDub.