encoding the true wide screen?

[Reas Conner]

Hi I have used pro coder for some time with my xm2, now swapping to the 720x1024 wide screen how is the best way to encode this?

at the moment I have been encoding with the resolution of 720x576 wide aspect ratio.

but how would one encode true wide screen as it still comes out 720x576?

do i continue with this setting or try and encode at 720x1024 1:1 aspect ration?

if you get my drift.

[Jarrod Whaley]

There is nothing wrong with your widescreen footage rendering out at 720x576 (for PAL)--it is just anamorphically compressed. This is the only way in which DV codecs are equipped to handle widescreen images.

1024x720 is HD resolution, and so to fit your XL2 images within it, you'd need to stretch the image out to fill the screen. This would likely not look very good, as all you're doing is basically making your pixels look bigger. There are ways to up-rez XL2 footage to HD without it looking too bad, but my impression is that you're not trying to do that here.

Note that you can encode to widescreen at native resolution, but that you cannot do so as long as you're encoding with a DV codec. For most applications, you're going to want to stick to DV (if you need to go back to tape or to DVD, to give two very common examples), but I suppose that encoding to uncompressed at 873x576 might possibly have its uses.

[Reas Conner]

strange that. I have been checking a few things and I am more confused.

Procoder when importing a wide screen DV file captured with the xl2 reports the resolution as being 1024x576 16x9 non interlaced. not the usual 720x576 (I got the resolution wrong in previous post)

when checking the same file in G-spot (A video file checker) it reports as being 720x576?

the question I had was do I encode this file, unlike most DV cams the xl2 records true wide screen. using all of its wide format sensore (if I am not mistaken)

this is all confusing stuff (can u tell I am new to this)

thanx for any help you can give

[Jarrod Whaley]

The XL2 does record a true 16:9 signal. The DV format, though, only supports a 4:3 signal. So the XL2's 16:9 video is "squished" horizontally to fit into a 4:3 frame--because it can't be done any other way in the DV format (unless the 16:9 is down-rezzed to fit into a letterboxed 4:3 frame, which is far from ideal).

This is basically the same way that the majority of major feature films are shot; standard 35mm film has a 4:3 ratio, so cinematographers use an anamorphic lens to squeeze their widescreen compositions into a 4:3 frame.

You can encode DVD's to play your video in it's proper 16:9 shape (the DVD player will automatically add the letterbox mattes for you without wasting any resolution).

All of this has been covered many, many times in this XL2 forum--do a little searching and a little digging if this still isn't quite making sense. You'll find plenty of info on this topic.