Widescreen on 4:3 TV's

milhouse wrote on 11/25/2002, 6:20 PM
I'm using a demo so forgive me if this is explained in the manual. Before I buy I wanted to know if the following was possible.

If I either record in 16:9 or crop to 16:9 to view on my widescreen TV can I make it so that on a 4:3 TV it is letterboxed instead of compressed. My Sony TRV11 doesn't do a true 16:9, but if I film regualar then crop to 16:9 I seem to get a non-letterboxed compressed picture on 4:3. So long question short, can you have a 16:9 movie that looks correct on 4:3?

Comments

nolonemo wrote on 11/25/2002, 7:40 PM
I did this with a TRV-18 (shoot 16:9 with cam, render and author to 4:3 letterbox), rendered in VV3, authored in DVD Workshop. It worked fine. Unfortunately, I can't remember what I did, though.
milhouse wrote on 11/25/2002, 8:50 PM
Knowing it works is my main concern. I'll deal with "how" when I buy the software.

But if you have 4:3 letterbox, does the letterbox disappear on a 16:9 TV or does the letterbox actually become part of the shot? I'd read some old posts where people were just making the "black bars" as an overlay. If I do that on a 16:9 TV it will be stretched.
nolonemo wrote on 11/25/2002, 9:18 PM
No, this was not an overlay. I believe I was able to set it up so that it would have shown 16:9 on a widescreen TV, since I was thinking about shooting the home videos at 16:9 in anticipation of going widescreen in the future. But, like I said, I can't remember exactly what I did . . .
milhouse wrote on 11/25/2002, 9:18 PM
The more I think about this the less I seem to think it is possible. I guess to get a letterbox look on 4:3 I'll have to fake it with black bars? And stuff I make widescreen will only be viewable on widescreen TVs?
vx2000b wrote on 11/25/2002, 10:02 PM
No problem man..
You say the TRV11 does not do true 16:9. That's probably correct, but
it might do a fake 16x9. You will know it because if you shot in your 16x9 mode
and view on a standard 4:3 set, people will look squished horizontally (thin).

If you do have some form of 16x9, here's all ya have to do.

There are two settings that must be made within VV3.

First setting:
Select NEW under file and choose .9091 NTSC DV (unless you're PAL).
Make sure render quality is set to best.

Once you're finished capturing, import your media file just saved under file.
Once imported into the project, right click on the imported file and select properties. Now a media window appears. Choose 1.2121 NTSC DV Widescreen ... unless you're PAL.
So essentially, to letterbox, there are two settings.
The properties setting (which you set to .9091 NTSC DV (standard 4:3), and the
media settings, which you told it that the particular media was 16x9 (1.2121).
Steve
milhouse wrote on 11/26/2002, 6:36 AM
That makes sense to me (in theory) but I've been using the demo for all of 45 minutes so I'm not exacty sure what you're talking about. But, I appreciate the answer and the knowledge that it's possible. I'll be ordering the software today.

It still seems to me I'll need to do what you said for 4:3 TV. Then do another rendering with properties at 1.2121 and media at 1.2121 for widescreen TV's. That shouldn't be a big deal. (I hope)

Thanks again.
milhouse wrote on 11/26/2002, 12:14 PM
Great! The problem I was having with the demo is that you can't burn to CD. I was rendering back to tape then watching the tape and it was compressing the widescreen to fit 4:3. Does this work with VideoCD or just DVD?