I hate widescreen!!

mel58i wrote on 8/25/2004, 6:51 AM

Oh, how confusing - not too long ago you made everything in normal 4:3 format.
Now it's such a headache knowing what format to churn out!
I do mainly wedding stuff, but now when I take a booking I find myself asking if they want a normal or widescreen version on dvd. Then, do the families own a 4:3 or 16:9 tv?
I shoot with a XM2 and generally use normal (with 16:9 guides) mode so I can at least try to avoid losing the top and bottom of the picture if I have to crop for widescreen.
Fine, you may say, just churn out 4:3 and then do a crop if necessary on the renderered file for 16:9.
One main drawback with this is that I use "frames" to box off stills etc, and these frames tend to be in normal aspect ratio, so the crop to 16:9 distorts these frames so I lose symetry on the things. I don't really fancy making up two projects, one for each aspect ratio!
Which way to go? Do I make a widescreen project but maintain the original 4:3 ratio so it gives a normal picture in the middle of a widescreen tv? Then do I make a normal 4:3 project to suit a "normal" tv for those sensible people who own a proper tv set?
I know that most customers are not too critical, but I am a perfectionist and it must be right.
Let's shoot the beggers who invented the "fish tank" telly!

Any thoughts would be more than welcome.

A distressed Mel.

Comments

farss wrote on 8/25/2004, 7:42 AM

A couple of considerations here.

You don't own a true 16:9 camera so shooting 16:9 or doing an ARC in post means loosing resolution. Secondly as wedding usually mean a bit of hand held shooting this doesn't sit well with 16:9, horizontals are more critical in 16:9.
Given that, I'd stick to 4:3, 16:9 TVs will display it OK anyway, the reverse is problematic. If you really like the 16:9 look you could do what a lot of broadcasters and TVCs do, use 14:9! This works well on both 16:9 and 4:3 sets.
It is a nightmare, TV stations with real time ARC gear cannot get it right so we don't really stand a chance.
One trick that's used a lot is to create pseudo 16:9, you fill the 16:9 frame with a zoomed in and blurred copy of the footage and then drop the original 4:3 in the middle, this avoids the black bars on the side for 16:9 viewing. If youve got enough space you can fit two versions on the one DVD is another option but still more work.

BrianStanding wrote on 8/25/2004, 8:20 AM

In a perfect world (is there such a thing?) I'd shoot in 4:3, but try to compose it so it would look good letterboxed into 16:9 as well.

Then make two veggie files, one in unaltered 4:3, the other cropped or masked to letterbox into 16:9.

tailgait wrote on 8/25/2004, 8:29 AM

It's easy to convert 4:3 into 19:9--but you will lose part of your 4:3 picture. Bring your 4:3 video into a timeline set to "widescree" in the preferences menu. Then, with every different clip or still, right clik on the FIRST FRAME (this is important) go to pan/crop and click on "Match output aspect." You will see a dotted line screen take the shape of 16:9 in your pan/crop window. You can move this screen to any position you want, even crop it, and whatever you see in the first frame will translate through the entire clip. When you output it--render or PTT--use the "insert 2-3 pulldown" mode in the drop-down window. Everything will render out in 16:9 format with the black bars on the top and bottom. Next, if you want to get a bit crazy, print the output to DV tape and then re-capture it and put it on a regular 4:3 timeline in Vegas. Now you will be able to put text inside the lower black bar which enables you to use subtitles without interfering with the picture. Neat.
Burt

mhbstevens wrote on 8/25/2004, 10:17 AM

If you look straight ahead at a wall you will see that our eyes being side by side with better vision to the side give a natural 16:9 frame rather than a 4:3. 16:9 always looks better and it is not before time we got there. I suggest you turn this to your advantage and be aventgarde and start making 16:9 still prints. I do and they look great.

And a PS, for anyone looking to buy a new camera never consider anything other than a TRUE 16:9.

mel58i wrote on 8/26/2004, 5:00 AM

Thanks all for your replies.

I have worked out my strategy now (hopefully) - that is to shoot in 4:3 mode using 16:9 guides, then to render in 4:3 mode. In the dvd top menu I will provide a test circle advising the client to adjust their picture mode to obtain a perfect circle.
I'm not going to lose any more sleep over it. If the customer has got provision to adjust the aspect ratio, then why should I have all the worry over it! It does save the hastle of either producing two dvd's or try to cram both aspect ratios on one dvd.

I'm happy now, until you tell me different.

Mel.

Chienworks wrote on 8/26/2004, 5:14 AM

Tailgait, just curious, but why bother going through the time and effort of printing to tape and recapturing, and possibly suffering dropped frames and data loss along the way? Just render it to a DV file and then place this file on a 4:3 timeline. No tape necessary.