GL2 Widescreen mode
 

As I understand it there are two modes for shooting in 16:9 on the GL2. One has the white lines framing the 16:9 area and the other stretches the frame into 16:9. When going into the latter mode my old Sony would letterbox the picture so that I could see it without distortion on the LCD. The Canon makes a distorted image. Isn't there a way to activate the letterboxing on the LCD? The canon video ad on the web site shows the bars. Thanks for your help.

Howdy from Texas,

Unfortunately the 16:9 image is not letterboxed in the GL2's LCD screen or viewfinder. There is no option to activate such a feature. In my opinion this is an oversight on Canon's part. I have not seen the image you refer to on the Canon website and would appreciate a direct link to it.

One option available to you is to use the GL2's "mix to tape" function on the media card. Create a 16:9 matte in PhotoShop or some other image editing program. Upload it to the MMC/SD card via the USB cable. Choose "mix to tape" from the card menu, and the letterbox matte is recorded to tape with the video signal. This is an easy way to accomplish an in-camera letterbox look. Hope this helps,

Howdy,
1) Years later, any answer to this?

Besides directly relating to on camera monitering (screen or vewifinder):

2) What are the advantages of using 16:9 mode vs using the letterbox lines or matte and dealing with it in post?

3) Since the 16:9 mode would lose resolution, and the lines would have you effectively crop a picture, which solution provides the higher quality?

4) Any thoughts on how frame rate would effect either "widescreen" results?

Any help would be appreciated. New here and going over old posts, and this topis seems worth revisiting.

Chris's solution is basically the only one.

As for your other questions, hardware anamorphic mode on the GL2 is better than post because it records a full 720x480 frame for you using 75% of the CCDs' pixels. The CCDs have more than 480 lines of resolution, so you're still getting a better image than if you, in post, only used 360 lines to stretch to a 480 line image.

As for frame mode, some people swear that frame mode is lower resolution but I have never observed this at all. On the contrary, I think frame mode stills are sharper than watching interlaced stills. Maybe interlacing is slightly sharper on video but I for one don't see the advantage, so I wouldn't think frame mode should have any effect on this.

One thing to note though, if you use frame mode you'll have a harder time converting to 24p if you ever want to.

The best quality of all would be to use an anamorphic adapter. If you intend to show the movie on 4x3 TVs, though, simply matting the normal 4x3 image with black letterboxing is probably the best quality, but if you want to show it on 16x9 TVs eventually, use the hardware anamorphic mode and live with the stretching in the viewfinder (it should not affect your shots in any way).

As far as resolution is concerned the best resolution is an anamorphic lens attachment, followed by in camera 16:9, followed by letterboxing either in post or using the title mix function.

The Century Optics Anamorphic adapter is $800 and will give you focus problems on zoom in because it is not full zoom thru. The good news is that a fully zoom thru adapter is coming from Century. The bad news is that it will be $1500.

Century also makes an anamorphic LCD screen magnifier for the GL-2. Its $250 if I remember correctly.

Try the in-camera 16:9. I think you may be pleasantly surprised by the quality.

-Tom-

<<<-- Originally posted by Peter Moore : As for frame mode, some people swear that frame mode is lower resolution but I have never observed this at all. On the contrary, I think frame mode stills are sharper than watching interlaced stills.-->>>

This is currently being discussed in several other threads. I think the issue is not whether frame mode is sharper than interlaced, but whether you can acheive sharper footage by using an "intelligent" de-interlacer in post. From everything I've read, deinterlacing in post offers some slight advantages (at the cost of rendering time). Take a look at these other threads, there's some good information including links to examples and technical details....