4:3 into 16:9 question..

[Bryan Wilkat]

hey guys, i was wondering what you guys think is the best method to convert standard 4:3 footage into 16:9 footage. we all know that in most DV cams the in camera widescreen is garbage..

i wasn't happy with letterboxing because the exported result was still a 4:3 file, just with black bars on top and bottom.

so what i did was i cropped the image, then i stretched it vertically the way your footage would look if you shot with an anamorphic lens and then i told the computer that it was to export a 16:9 file. the finished result was a quicktime file that really was 16:9 so now when i hit "full screen preview" in play back, my movie fills my entire (wide)screen. is it okay that i'm doing it this way?


is there a better way to do this?

[Boyd Ostroff]

That sounds fine, I have done this myself.

But your assumption that "most DV cams widescreen is garbage" is not necessarily true. There is a whole range of quality, depending on the camera. Interestingly, some of the cheaper Canon and Sony DV cameras have high resolution CCD's which can do a pretty decent job of 16:9. If your camera can take megapixel still photos, chances are good that it can also do full resolution widescreen.

[Bryan Wilkat]

nah, i've got the pd170, but it's good to know that my method is alright!

thanks don

[Boyd Ostroff]

Well in that case, I'd agree that the in-camera 16:9 isn't so great. My experience is that you can get results at least as good - probably better - using the technique you describe.

[Chris Barcellos]

Bryan:

Try this for me. Take your PD 170 and shoot a short scene with 16:9 enabled.

Then capture. Look at your DV result in any player. Doesnt' look so good. Didn't to me either.

Now render to a 16:9 mpeg DVD file. Does it look closer to what you would expect in 16:9 ?? I'm just wondering if someone else has seen that.

[Andzei Matsukevits]

but, how can i get 16:9 video into 4:3? Cant crop it. Basically i need 4:3 video and 16:9 footage inside it with bars on top and bottom. Video is originally in 720p.

thnx

[Chris Barcellos]

In Premiere, I would just open a 4:3 time line, and drop the 16:9 clip on to the time line, and resize if necessary.

[Bryan Wilkat]

Originally Posted by Chris Barcellos

Now render to a 16:9 mpeg DVD file. Does it look closer to what you would expect in 16:9 ?? I'm just wondering if someone else has seen that.

Chris, I'll try that tonight, I've got nothing else to do, haha.

[Robert M Wright]

Originally Posted by Boyd Ostroff

That sounds fine, I have done this myself.

But your assumption that "most DV cams widescreen is garbage" is not necessarily true. There is a whole range of quality, depending on the camera. Interestingly, some of the cheaper Canon and Sony DV cameras have high resolution CCD's which can do a pretty decent job of 16:9. If your camera can take megapixel still photos, chances are good that it can also do full resolution widescreen.

When I use my TRV70, I usually shoot 16:9 and it looks sharp.

[Chris Barcellos]

Post by mistake....

[Bryan Wilkat]

yeah, so i burned some incamera wide footage to dvd, and on the same disc i also put some 4:3 footy,....perhaps the 16:9 shots were a little bit softer and if you zoom in a lot you can see some digital compression but it's hard to say if there's more compression in that one verses the raw 4:3 footage... the 16:9 looked a little more filmic, maybe that was due to the softer image or maybe it was the psychological aspect of having the widescreen framing, haha, i dont know.
either way, footage always looks better on a tv, heh.

[Chris Barcellos]

Thanks Bryan. I've asked this question in general, a posed a hypothesis regarding this in this new thread. I 'm curious if others have similar experience. See ithttp:

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthrea...719#post637719 here: