Wide or full

williamk wrote on 6/9/2005, 5:14 PM

A quick question about which is a better way to format a film. We are going to submit to festivals and on DVD with Vegas 5. What is a better format. Wide screen or Full screen. We want it to look the best in both theatre and television versions. Any suggestions or opinions welcome

Thanks
Williamk

Comments

filmy wrote on 6/9/2005, 5:56 PM

When you shoot just use to old saying "Frame for TV, shoot for film". In laymans terms it means your Camera Op will frame for TV safe but will also keep the 16:9 frame in mind. It normally meant you were shooting something for TV, or for video only release, but wanted to keep that film feel just "in case". However, and some will discuss this more I am sure, it is hard to do this with video all the time simply because, unlike film cameras, you do not have the guides in the glass. However if you have a camera that will shoot "true" 16:9 you can always display it on a monitor that does have the guidelines.

And if you have no other choice than to "fix it in post" and shot 4:3 there are lots of threads that dela with this and how bad/good a "blow up" will be.

PeterWright wrote on 6/9/2005, 6:57 PM

The Z1 HDV camera has Markers - two vertical white lines - which can be enabled to show the 4:3 frame within the 16:9 on viewfinder and LCD screen.
I am new to widescreen shooting and have found this very useful for shooting in the way Filmy describes - framing for 4:3 but keeping the 16:9 screen in mind.

williamk wrote on 6/10/2005, 6:39 AM

We shot 16:9 with the HDR-Fx1 but are curious about which way to render in post in Vegas 5. What is the best quality when we blow up. We can always rerender later for DVD but want the best blow up quality for now.

Thanks

PeterWright wrote on 6/10/2005, 6:49 AM

Highest quality is to capture and output HDV back to tape.

For ease of editing on a modest PC, edit using a proxy avi file then replace with HDV for output to tape.

This can then be played from camera or HDV deck through a projector.

Early reports described good results on a 60 ft screen!

Spot|DSE wrote on 6/10/2005, 6:51 AM

I'd be converting to 4:2:2 from the start, and never touching the RGB colorspace or 4:1:1 space unless you're using this as a proxy. You can always scale DOWN from the YUV, but for keeping quality, this is the best final output available from Vegas.
Where in the US are you? I'll be showing this workflow on the Sony HDV Solutions Tour, which starts in Orlando this Monday, then to Atlanta, NYC, Chicago, LA, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Sydney, Melbourne, and we've not announced the fall schedule yet.

As Filmy suggests, shoot for TV but frame for widescreen. If this is going to a film fest, most will require the widescreen format anyway. It's easy to crop for television, provided your framing is appropriate and you're not working action at the far edges of the frame. If you do this, it's still not too big a deal to pan/crop for SD delivery, losing zero quality. Just be sure that you don't have one actor at far right of the frame, and another at far left of the frame.