SOT: HDV aspect ratios and conversions

smashguy37 wrote on 10/25/2009, 5:38 PM
This isn't a Vegas question, but I want to hear from some other people before I go back to work.

We cut weddings on Final Cut 6 and we're starting to do some HDV weddings here and there. We normally don't ever do jobs this basic, but we filmed a 6 hour, one camera wedding. I'm the opportunity to experiment with this one before I move into larger scale HDV projects.

I quickly learned compressing into regular MPEG2 looks awful (because HDV is MPEG2), so I did a quick test with ProRes it and it looks better but I'm still figuring it out (it's all downconverted to SD of course)

Anyway, my main question is super basic, but I don't own a widescreen TV so I'm unsure. When I burn the DVD, the computer DVD player (on a Mac) shows the 16x9 frame but when I pop it into a DVD/VHS combo player set up on this Panasonic Plasma (2-3 years old maybe) it shows 4:3, but I think it's cropping the sides. I don't know where the remote is to check the settings, but I know the TV is normally set for 4:3 as we play our material for clients that way (no stretching out) and it doesn't look anamorphic.

Do I have to change TV settings to 16x9 for DVD playback? I would imagine so. It's one thing to eventually get clients with inproperly set up TV's, but I need to be sure if they have a 4:3 TV it's letterboxing and if they have a widescreen TV, it's filling the screen. Thanks, sorry about the dumb question.

Comments

farss wrote on 10/25/2009, 5:53 PM
"Do I have to change TV settings to 16x9 for DVD playback?"

Probably Yes assuming it's a 16:9 TV. It will also pay to check the setup of the DVD player so it knows it's connected to a 16:9 display. Both should be setup correctly and things work much, much better.

There is another complication though.
There is a flag in a video stream that should tell the display what the aspect ratio is. As far as I can find none of the authoring tools from any of the usual vendors are capable of creating a DVD that includes this flag in the vision stream. The Hollywood DVDs do. I've compared the signals coming out of our DVD players and you can see ths difference. The control signal is the "Format Descriptor Bit", part of the SMPTE spec.

Mind you even then some TV manufacturers get it wrong as the standard is a tad rubbery and it defines more than just 16:9 and 4:3!
Some Panasonic TVs manage to get it completely backwards we've found.

Bob.
TheHappyFriar wrote on 10/25/2009, 8:14 PM
this has come up a few times this year I think. :)

If you know the DVD is 16:9, double check the TV's setting then the DVD players. Both can override whatever the DVD actually is if you tell it to. My TV also has the option to change only the OTA AR, which I found out after a month.