Consumer 16:9 -> 4:3 aspect ratio

nolonemo schrieb am 01.04.2007 um 18:10 Uhr
I'm doing another convert video with parent-shot video, and this time one of the parents, bless him, shot the thing in 16:9 on his consumer camcorder. So I think what I have are letterboxed 720x480 video, at least in the vegas preview, the image is letterboxed.

To get 4:3 aspect ration to match the rest of the footage, do I use pan and crop and crop out the middle portion of the image? I'll render to an avi. before editing in with the other footage. Should I use the "best" setting on the render because I'm cropping into the image, or will it not make much difference from using "good?"

Thanks

Kommentare

Chienworks schrieb am 01.04.2007 um 18:28 Uhr
You don't have letterboxed video. You have a full 720x480 frame of data, but the aspect ratio has been set to make the pixels wider. In order to fit the widescreen material in the frame Vegas shows it smaller. Pan/Crop is probably the preferred way to handle this. Simply right-mouse-button click in the cropping frame and choose "match output aspect".

You won't be resizing much. The horizontal resolution will be unchanged. In fact, you'll be resizing it less than you would if you left it as 16:9. Would Best be better than Good? Maybe. Maybe not. Try it and see. It should only take you a few moments to render out a few frames both ways and compare them. My gut feeling is that while Best will technically do a better job, it may soften the image more than it preserves it. You'll have to decide which looks better.
nolonemo schrieb am 01.04.2007 um 19:46 Uhr
Chienworks,

As I said, the preview window is not a 16:9 aspect ratio window, it is the normal 4:3 aspect with black bars at the top and bottom. I don't know if this is significant or not.

If I go into pan/crop and right click in the cropping area, and choose match output aspect, the preview window doesn't change. If I grab the corner of the cropping frame and drag up, the image enlarges to fill the preview window. (I did this and rendered a chunk to avi using best, and there was noticable image degradation. Part of this might be that the original image quality was worse to start with, part also is probably because I had to rotate the image a couple degrees because the parent's tripod was tilted.)

The project properties are set to 720x480 w pixel A/R .9091. (If I change the pixel A/R to 1.2121 (NTSC DV widescreen), the image in the preview window is the full 720x480, but the people are squished in from the sides)

I had thought that the consumer cams didn't do a true 16:9, but instead just put black bars at the top and bottom of the image....

Any futher words?
Thanks,
Nolo
Ehemaliger User schrieb am 01.04.2007 um 19:50 Uhr
Some consumer cameras have a fake 16 x 9. They just letterbox the image, some have an anamorphic 16 x 9 where it is a true widescreen. It sounds like your camera has the fake 16 x 9.

My Sony Digital 8 does both.

Dave T2
JohnnyRoy schrieb am 01.04.2007 um 20:35 Uhr
> It sounds like your camera has the fake 16 x 9.

I agree with Dave, it sound like his camera does fake 16:9 which actually looses resolution as you have seen (i.e., the letterboxing is burned into a 4:3 image). My old Panasonic GS200 did that. Totally worthless.

What you did with Pan/Crop is as good as it gets. That is the proper procedure for dealing with this. Tell the parent to not use that mode in the future because it produced inferior video (as you have seen).

You might try cropping without rotating and see if that looks a bit better. A little dutch tilt might be better than bad video. Good luck,

~jr
farss schrieb am 01.04.2007 um 21:02 Uhr
Some consummer cams such as the Panny 500 do real 16:9.
Why not leave it as 16:9 and use a 16:9 project?
You need to R-Click the preview window and select Simulate Device Aspect Ratio to see 16:9 correctly.
Also when rescaling, it not only requires rendering at Best, you also need to specify a De-Interlace method in Project properties.
Bob.
nolonemo schrieb am 02.04.2007 um 00:03 Uhr
>>Why not leave it as 16:9 and use a 16:9 project?<<

That's a good idea, and would work fine for the general shots of the orchestra, but I have a lot of tight shots of the soloist that are framed for 4:3, and if I crop those to 16:9, I'm going to end up cutting off part of the head and part of the hands on the keyboard.

I'm going to have to use pan/crop to enlarge the 16:9 to fill the 4:3 aspect, and see whether good or best rendering to avi gives me the best look, and how much rotating the frame degrades the resized image. I may just live with the tilt.

I think for the next concert I may to get some local high school or college kids who are studying video/film to man the cameras for a few bucks. I couldn't be any worse that what I'm getting from the parents....
farss schrieb am 02.04.2007 um 07:07 Uhr
Just a thought but you could creatively use 4:3 inside a 16:9 frame, you could leave the black bars on the side or find many creative ways to fill them in. The 4:3 frame doesn't have to be in the middle of the 16:9 frame either.

For example leave the 16:9 wide shot, add a little GB and have the tight 4:3 shot on the side or centre of the frame. Should work a treat.

Bob.