Mixing 16:9 and 4:3 on same timeline in PPro 1.5

[Matt Vanecek]

I have some footage from two cameras--FX1 and GL2. FX1 footage is 16:9 SD, where the GL2 footage is 4:3. What I would like, on the final DVD, is when I cut between the two views, that the TV would present the different aspect ratios. I.e., when the 16:9 footage is playing, the TV would display 16:9, and when the 4:3 is playing, the TV would display 4:3. I've seen DVDs that do this, as well as TV shows, but I'm not sure how to achieve the same effect. Any thoughts or pointers? Is this something that can be done in the editor, in producing the final video for import to Encore?

Thanks,
Matt

[John Miller]

Originally Posted by Matt Vanecek

I have some footage from two cameras--FX1 and GL2. FX1 footage is 16:9 SD, where the GL2 footage is 4:3. What I would like, on the final DVD, is when I cut between the two views, that the TV would present the different aspect ratios. I.e., when the 16:9 footage is playing, the TV would display 16:9, and when the 4:3 is playing, the TV would display 4:3. I've seen DVDs that do this, as well as TV shows, but I'm not sure how to achieve the same effect. Any thoughts or pointers? Is this something that can be done in the editor, in producing the final video for import to Encore?

Thanks,
Matt

It depends on your TV. If it is a standard 4:3, then what you need to do is take the FX1 footage and convert it to letterboxed 4:3 footage. You can do this in Premiere 1.5 quite easily by rescaling the footage by 75% vertically (see attached image for effect settings).

Depending on your system, this conversion can be quite slow. Our beta DV processor will do this conversion on the fly (either at the point of capture or on existing AVI files). If you are interested, please PM me for more info.

[Matt Vanecek]

So I guess I can either have 4:3 picture switching between 4:3 fullscreen and 4:3 letterbox, or a 16:9 picture with the 4:3 cuts having the blank area on either side of the screen, but not both....I was hoping to be able to get roughly the same effect on wide screens TVs as on 4:3 TVs, only on widescreen the 16:9 cuts would be full screen and the 4:3 cuts wouldn't be...and on 4:3 TVs the 4:3 cuts would be full screen and the 16:9 would be "letterbox".

Thanks,
Matt

[John Miller]

Originally Posted by Matt Vanecek

So I guess I can either have 4:3 picture switching between 4:3 fullscreen and 4:3 letterbox, or a 16:9 picture with the 4:3 cuts having the blank area on either side of the screen, but not both....I was hoping to be able to get roughly the same effect on wide screens TVs as on 4:3 TVs, only on widescreen the 16:9 cuts would be full screen and the 4:3 cuts wouldn't be...and on 4:3 TVs the 4:3 cuts would be full screen and the 16:9 would be "letterbox".

Thanks,
Matt

I think that's right (sadly). You'd need two versions of the final video - one for 16:9 TVs and another for 4:3 TVs (much like DVDs that have both widescreen and non-widescreen versions).

[Matt Vanecek]

I think that's right (sadly). You'd need two versions of the final video - one for 16:9 TVs and another for 4:3 TVs (much like DVDs that have both widescreen and non-widescreen versions).

Thanks for the input. I reckon since most of my target audience is going to have 4:3 TVs, I'll go that direction, and re-release a "special edition wide-screen release" at a later date. The "import project" function in PPro will be handy for that...just re-scale the 16:9 clips back to 100%.

Thanks,
Matt