There might be something here that will do what you want.

http://www.ambery.com/hdcovitovgco.html


Dave T2

Thanks for replies. That said, looks like it is a bit of a lost cause for I probably could find something but it would cost way more than its worth.

If your TV has a height adjustment you might be able to reduce the height enough to get it to 16:9.

Well, the height is fine, Bob, it's the width that's the problem - that's where the 4:3 cutting off of the 16:9 is occurring. So even if this were possible, I'd just end up with fatter subjects, but still lose part of 'em :o)

While not as large a screen, what I'll probably do is go get my old Pentium 4 from a friend, hook up the old Sony 19" CRT monitor I have in my closet, build something with casters so I can roll 'em around the place. Not particularly professional or sexy, but it should work.

Not familiar with the menus on that camera... Is there a menu where you select your analog SD output as 'Squeeze | Letterbox | Crop' ? - I have something like this in the menus of all my Sony cameras. Or is it always set to 'Crop' by default?

"Well, the height is fine, Bob, it's the width that's the problem - that's where the 4:3 cutting off of the 16:9 is occurring. So even if this were possible, I'd just end up with fatter subjects, but still lose part of 'em :o)"

You've got something seriously messed up then.
If you feed 16:9 video over composite to a 4:3 TV you get tall skinny people. Nothing will be cutoff. We've got an older broadcast HD CRT monitor with a 4:3 tube and when it's switched into 16:9 it simply reduces the height.

I've got an old 4:3 monitor here and it does the same thing, fed 16:9 I get tall skinny people, nothing is cutoff apart from the usual overscan.

Bob.

http://www.camcorderanswers.com/manuals/canon_hv30_manual.pdf

p38 p40 - does that help?

...Jerry

Maybe, because maybe what Soniclight has done is to set that camera setting to 4:3 and it is pillarboxing the image being sent to the TV. If he switches it to 16:9 then he will get the whole frame sent to the TV.
That'll give him the tall skinny people I was talking about. Then adjusting the height of the TV display will give him full frame monitoring with correct aspect ratio.

Some of the Sony kit has selections for Pillarbox or Letterbox.

Bob.

Hopefully the above illustrates what I'm encountering, and Bob was right in that I get the "skinny" effect and that maybe what I'm dealing with is just a "the way it is" situation -- "usual overscan" as he put it. That is:

--- The red area that is not shown in the HV30's LCD or its equivalent on the 4:3 TV version; I made both the LCD and TV Monitor images by eyeballing what I saw so it's not 100% exact but very close to it. This the first time that I've realized that it's not a WYSIWYG.

Now, I did go back to the manual as Jerry suggested and the only mode that is proportional on the TV Monitor is the "DV Wide" setting in the HV30, but that's no-go for I need the HDV 60i since I shoot low-light/interior stuff in "Spotlight" mode (which eliminates grain due to removal of gain).

Maybe it's this Spotlight Mode that's causing this not-quite-WYSIWYG difference between actual footage and LCD view. I'll go and test it out when I can but Spotlight is an exposure setting, so it shouldn't affect image resolution or ratio.

Or maybe this is just standard "overscan"/built-in safe zone type of thing in all camcorders? If so, please let me know.

"Now, I did go back to the manual as amendegw suggested and the only mode that is proportional on the TV Monitor is the "DV Wide" setting in the HV30, but that's no-go for I need the HDV 60i since I shoot low-light/interior stuff in "Spotlight" mode (which eliminates grain due to removal of gain). "If I read the manual correctly, this setting is for playback only - not recording. Therefore, it should not affect your "Spotlight" mode requirement. That said, manuals are notoriously confusing and my suggestion would be to try changing the settings and see if it improves your output.


Good Luck!
...Jerry

Jerry,

Well, maybe I'm blind or the manual is off, but all I have in terms of play-out options (3rd icon down in main menu) is "Play/Out Setup" and in that there are only 3 options:

AV/Phones
Phones Vol.
Comp.Out.

Comp. Out has only:

480i - 480i
1080i - 1080i/480i

My hardcopy manual also includes similar stuff to your screenshot but under the option of "DV Output" (not "Play/Out Setup") after the "Comp. Out." "Comp. Out" options are to-computer options, not PlayOut options. But however worded, there is no such option in the list.

And I don't see anything like it in the LCD when using the Set botton joystick (i.e. the 4 Camera icons of which the 1st, 2nd and 4th are grayed out in your screenshot and my manual). Those look like they should show up as all the other various settings icons that are accessible in the row on the bottom of the LCD when using the joystick up and down the left side settings menu on the LCD.

Maybe I'm being really dense here and if so, please accept my apologies... but where is this PlayOut stuff supposed to show up?

"Maybe I'm being really dense here and if so, please accept my apologies... but where is this PlayOut stuff supposed to show up?"SonicLight, I took that screen shot from p40 of the pdf version of the HV30 manual I linked above. Did you move the switch on your camera from "record" to "play" before you accessed your menu?

Good Luck!
...Jerry

Edit: I must say I do not own a Canon HV30. I do have a Canon HG21 - the menus are similar, but not exact.

Ah, you're a freaking genius, Jerry -- yes, I was viewing it in record mode.

Switching to play mode shows the options and so I'll go study those now. Maybe I missed this since like most, I don't read the manual wall-to-wall and use it as reference to look up things. However, I also didn't see any warning note in this section of the manual saying "Hey, dude, you have to be in

I was obviously incorrectly assuming that the main menu was a global one irregardless of what mode one is in.

But then thank heavens for people like you :o)

'Hopefully the above illustrates what I'm encountering, and Bob was right in that I get the "skinny" effect and that maybe what I'm dealing with is just a "the way it is" situation -- "usual overscan" as he put it. That is:"

No, that's NOT overscan, the TV simply doesn't "know" anything about 16:9.
Now that we have that sorted out I'll say again. All you need to do is adjust the Height setting of the TV. It maybe an easily accessible user adjustment. It maybe accessible with a small long bladed screwdrive through a hole in the back of the TV. All of those options are perfectly safe for you to twiddle with.

You may have to take the back off the TV to get to it. Without the service manual I cannot say for sure. Certainly taking the back off and adjusting anything while the TV is On is a tad risky if you're not used to working around live electronics. There's around 20,000 volts inside there and although it's protected to some extent.....


Other alternative is to just ignore the problem. You are seeing the whole of the frame, you can judge framing, lighting and colour with it the way it is.

Bob.

Bob & Jerry

I partially solved the problem through Jerry's advice on where to find the Play/Out settings = I now do have black letterbox showing up in the TV monitor and everything is proportional for I chose the HV30's Play Out as 4:3. However...

... there is still the overall not-quite-WYSIWYG going on illustrated in the second image above: footage does not exactly match LCD view (red areas dropped/cropped out) which I had thought was a HV30>TV 4:3 issue but it's not.

Meaning that footage has a bit more than what the flip-out LCD and the TV monitor show.
Is this normal?

"... there is still the overall not-quite-WYSIWYG going on illustrated in the second image above: footage does not exactly match LCD view (red areas dropped/cropped out) which I had thought was a HV30>TV 4:3 issue but it's not. Meaning that footage has a bit more than what the flip-out LCD shows. Is this normal?"Pardon me for being obtuse, but I don't quite understand what your getting at. Can you take a digital picture of what your seeing and post it here?

That said, I don't think you will ever see the exact image as you see on your flip-out LCD due to overscan issues.

...Jerry

Jerry

Just compare the first and second images on black background in the 3-image .jpg above. The red areas (which I added in the image manually while making that 3-image thing) do not show on the LCD screen or the TV, but do show up in Sony Video Capture and as the .m2t footage recorded in Video Capture. Stuff is getting cropped out, so to speak.

Point being that if I want something to fill the screen exactly as I want in the recorded footage I shoot, I can't do it because I'm missing visual data: I'm not seeing everything the camera will record in either the LCD or on the TV monitor.

Again, this may just be the way-thing-are and if so, I have to deal with it.
But I was expecting an No crops.

Let me illustrate it this way:

Shot of a person lying down, side view: soles of the feet are exactly at left edge of LCD and head exactly at right edge, and butt, head and body are perfectly aligned with the bottom of the LCD (you can't see what he or she is lying on).

But actual footage will add several inches of "air" on each side beyond sole of foot and top of head -- and also show a sliver of the bed he or she is lying on (that is not viewable in the LCD).

Again, maybe I'm being the obtuse one here expecting too much...

Yes, it's overscan and it's normal. All TVs overscan but to different degrees. You shouldn't be shooting so tight as to put critical stuff in your shot at the edges of the screen anyway, loosen up your shot a little bit.

John,

OK, I can understand the TV overscan but am I also asking too much that the camcorder LCD show exactly what the camera shoots and records?
Again, this may just be a fact of life in the digital age of which I am simply ignorant, but it seems that these two should match 1:1 exactomundo...

Whatever the case, loosening the shot is good advice, and/but that will also mean doing some cropping in Vegas which does snip off some resolution.

"am I also asking too much that the camcorder LCD show exactly what the camera shoots and records?"

Generally yes. The high end cameras tend to be pretty good in this respect but not the cheaper ones.

As John rightly says though you need to loosen the shot up a bit and do not crop vital element right to the edge of the frame. You can find out down the track you might need to crop a bit or something out of your control will crop it a bit, even with web delivery.

Bob.

Some professional monitors have an "underscan" button which will let you view the entire frame. Very few camera and camcorder monitors have an exact 1:1 ratio. This has been a fact of life since day one.

Why do you need to have your shots extend to the edge of the frame? Everyone I know shoots a tad loose and keeps critical image information inside the "safe action" area.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safe_area

What John_Cline said!

"OK, I can understand the TV overscan but am I also asking too much that the camcorder LCD show exactly what the camera shoots and records?

Probably not on a consumer camcorder, but someone who has a Canon HV30 can confirm (or deny) this.

...Jerry

Edit: Whoa!! Lots of overposting here, but I think we're all in sync.