How good is Vegas 16:9 stretch?

Laurence wrote on 8/22/2005, 7:54 PM
For quite some time now I've been using Vegas's 16:9 stretch either from Ultimate S or by using the free "match aspect ratio" script found on the VASST site. Now, as it is becoming quite obvious that 16:9 is well on it's way to being the new standard, I'm wondering how much quality I'm giving up generating 16:9 this way verses shooting 16:9 with an FX-1 or Z-1. Frame grabs never seem to do this kind of comparison justice since computers always have a 1:1 pixel aspect ratio, and the benefit of shooting 16:9 is lost when played back on a PC.

So my question is this: Is 16:9 shot video enough of an improvement over 4:3 to 16:9 converted footage to justify giving up the low light sensitivity and extra cost of upgrading my trusty old VX2000 for this feature alone?

Comments

filmy wrote on 8/22/2005, 10:49 PM
Almost anything shot in *native* 16:9 is better than blowing up 4:3 footage. Some cameras, the DVX100 being one, have a "squeeze" mode and there has been much talk and discussion about if that is better than 4:3 blown up to 16:9. To a degree the in camera "Squeeze" mode is doing the cropping and up rez in camera. It isn't any more real 16:9 than doing it in post. The Panasoinc PV-GS400 has a real 16:9 whihc is kind of ironic - the higher end DVX100 that is aimed at film makers does not have it but the lower end GS400 does have it.

Having said that if your only choice is to take the 4:3 footage and crop it and blow it up for 16:9 than you can try various methods. Supersample comes in a bit handy here for example. If you do a search you can find a lot of various methods for doing the 4:3 > 16.9 conversions.
FrigidNDEditing wrote on 8/23/2005, 1:58 AM
where's the advantage of running it 16:9 as the output from 4:3 footage, or just running a Mask on regular 4:3 footage? - I know it's gonna look better if you have a 16:9 chip, but if you're running a regular chip shouldn't it be basically the same? Or is it just the fact that it's going to be a better compatibility with ED and HD TV's?

Dave
filmy wrote on 8/23/2005, 6:14 AM
Masking to 4:3 footage,or "letterboxing", would be better than cropping the footage, blowing it up and than "letterboxing" it however I get the impression that the end result needed is not a 4:3 letterboxed image but as full on anamorphic 16:9 aspect ratio image. In which case, to answer the question "shouldn't it be basically the same?" - real 16:9 footage has a wider field of view than 4:3 and it will have better resolution than 4:3 cropped and up scaled to 16:9. So no, it is not the same.

*edit for spelling
Laurence wrote on 8/23/2005, 6:17 AM
Well 4:3 footage with a 16:9 mask doesn't format properly on a 16:9 TV. It just gets stretched artificially wide, bars and all.
DJPadre wrote on 8/23/2005, 9:56 PM
this subject has afew misleading tangents throughout numerous forums..

to clarify, cropping DOES NOT deteriorate the image. in fact, all your doing 9In vegas at least) is cropping the top and bottom (ie the "loss" of resolution) so you lose the top and bottom.. if ur masking in post, youre gettin teh same effect..

In Vegas, all you have to do is -
1) set your project to 16:9
2) go to your media pan crop tool, and turn off maintain aspect
3) select the 16:9 preset and thats it

if ur shooting wiht a dvx 100 in squeeze mode, all you need to do is
open a 16:9 project, and change the aspect of your strecthed footage.. and thats it..

i jsut dont know why its such a big deal considering this techniqu e has been used for broadcast for many years.
your not zooming in or anythign, although it looks that way simply due to the change in aspect

Laurence wrote on 8/24/2005, 8:31 AM
Well the cropping doesn't hurt the image, but expanding the cropped 360 lines up to the 480 required to fill the anamorphic frame sure does. Now there are several ways to do this. You can do it in camera while you're shooting, or you can do it in Vegas. The in camera stretch of the VX-2000 is not that great, and some people swear by the DVX-100 stretch mode. What I wonder is how the Vegas stretch in post compares to these in camera stretches. My own feeling is that the Vegas stretch looks better than the Sony stretch, but compared to the DVX-100 stretch, I simply don't know. Theoretically it should be about the same.

I know that on a regular 4:3 TV, simply masking the top and bottom of the frame and not stretching the image anamorphically looks better, but on a 16:9 TV, footage that is merely letterbox masked does not format correctly and anamorphically stretched footage looks better in this case.
DJPadre wrote on 8/24/2005, 7:44 PM
this is where interpolation comes into play, however there is very minial use of this as your actually cropping a frame, and only changing an aspect ratio to FIT the frame...
the "fill the gap" situation youre talking about is actually not really occuring (although it may seem liek that when your working), as that stecthing is only the manipulation of the frame to fill those gaps (hence that vertical shift)..
in the end, you still end up with a cropped image, and that vertical shift is re-corrected by the playback device.

The DVX squeeze mode looks SLIGHTLY sharper than the Vegas crop, but you still have to change the aspect to correct itself in Vegas, whereas the cropping method adusts the frame automatically for you.
.
For me, i prefer to do everythign in post and have the option of reframing a shot when i need to (i do alot of events, so sometimes u dont have the luxury of 10seconds to set the shot up on a tripod)
filmy wrote on 8/25/2005, 6:30 AM
>>>to clarify, cropping DOES NOT deteriorate the image. in fact, all your doing 9In vegas at least) is cropping the top and bottom (ie the "loss" of resolution) so you lose the top and bottom.. if ur masking in post, youre gettin teh same effect..<<<


This has been a topic of disscussion for a long time around here...and unless your concept of "Crop" is different than mine you are wrong in your comment. You are cropping, or cutting, off parts of the full resolution frame and blowing the remaining part up to refill the 4:3 frame. This *DOES* degrade the image. Further more if you output the full frame for 16:9 playback it is *not* the same thing, or even the "same effect" as masking /letterboxing a 4:3 image. When you play back a cropped 4:3 > 16:9 on a 16:9 monitor it will be the correct aspect but it you play back a letterboxed 4:3 image you will have a squished image with black bars at the top and bottom.

Reolution wise, and I am pretty sure I answered that question a few times now, you will not really lose any if if keep the 4:3 and letterbox it however if the point is to have 16:9 footage for playback on widescreen sets than you have to crop and you *will* loose some resolution in the blow up.

The "Squeeze" modes on cameras are mostly doing the same thing in camera - taking a 4:3 image and cropping it. As I pointed out there has been a lot of talk about qulaity of image doing it this way verse qulaity of image if you do it in post vs shooting trye 16:9 from the get go. The frame is not just simply coppped in a true 16:9 aspect image, the field of view is wider. You do not get this, obviously, if you just crop and blow up a 4:3 frame.