The safe area is a guide to let you know approximately what you will lose while showing on a tv. It is not the same for all tv's so if you scale, some viewers may see a black box or outline around their picture. If you watch it on a computer, you will definitely see it as it is not effected in the same way that tv's are.

A simple answer is to leave it be and take the hit.
A better answer is to take into account for this when you film so that you get the footage you want with space to spare for the safe area.

j razz

Thanks guys ... I'll take the hit ... soon, everything will be square pixels and the sun will come out from behind the dark clouds and all the editors in the land will frolic in the streets...

It's not a matter of pixels aspect ratio but overscanning.

I realize that but if the source is square and the broadcast is square and all the hardware and software in between is square then overscanning is a non-issue. I say we toss out all the obsolete pieces in the chain and pile all the non-square broadcast technology and set fire to it while we form a big circle and sing Kumbaya.

I'm sure that most people would agree with ya as long as they didn't have to foot the bill :)

Dave

Dave ... we're still dealing with TV technology from the 40's and 50's ... you'd think they would have done something by now ... I know it's expensive to change but we do it all the time ... we (me and you) spend thousands of dollars each year upgrading to new software and hardware technologies and it's about time these clowns got off their arses and got with the program ... sure, it's more expensive for them but they also generate more revenues than we do so it's all the same ... the end result is that we can pick up any camera (motion or still), edit and send it out to ANY media without ten thousand formats, aspect ratios, colour models or any other proprietary Druid technology interfering in the process ... it's all possible today.

Yes, it would be nice to get rid of overscanning, but there are hundreds of thousands of hours of pre-existing programming with all kinds of "grunge" in the overscan area. Lots of analog cameras didn't fill the entire frame. Overscanning is a fact of life, just shoot your stuff with overscan in mind. I don't even think about it anymore, it's completely second-nature to me at this point.

John

John, " . .just shoot your stuff with overscan in mind" make it simpler for me - please. Should I shoot BIGGER than the frame or SMALLER than the frame? Sorry ... .

Grazie

Hi Grazie - the way I cover this is to remind myself that content near the edge of my frame may not be seen by some viewers, so keep vital information away from the edge!

(not sure of this is bigger or smaller in terms of your question, but basically regard the "real" frame as being inside the actual camera frame.)

Thanks Peter. And yes you are correct in what seemed, even when I posted it, what was an ambiguous statement by me!

Your, " . . content near the edge of my frame may not be seen by some viewers, so keep vital information away from the edge!" means for me shooting bigger, getting "more" in the frame - no, not meaning closer and therefore BIGGER close-up. Something WOULD appear BIGGER if I was zooming in. Yeah, I do see that.

Actually, having been bitten by my XM2 LCD, I now tend to shoot with a "no-mans-land" around my work. My shooting external 5" or 7" monitors - no. These are quite TV accurate.

Grazie

I use safe areas as a guide when placing captions near the edges or for picture in picture / quad.

Yeah Grazie - I see the sense in which you mean "shoot bigger".

And of course, this doesn't mean that it doesn't matter about the stuff near the edge - quite a few viewers WILL still see it - so keep that mic well clear!!