Century anamorphic and the HD10u
 

Has anyone tried the century anamorphic adapter for the hd10u. I believe it is the completely focusable ds-ws1358 (not the partial zoom 1608 older model). It goes for about $1,500.00, and I wanted to get some feedback before I made such a purchase. I think it is a 58mm and requires an adapter. Any comments (especially first hand experience) is greatly appreciated.

Why would you want it? The HD10 is already 16:9. Putting an anamorphic adapter on there will give you a squished 16:9 image that won't display properly on any HD or SD television.

He wants cinemascope. Putting an adapter on is still better than just cropping it, especially in wide shots. I thought about something like this with an SD camera and a cinemascope adapter , it should still retain more resoultion than just cropping a 16x9 image. Even if you are eventually going to squeeze it into its proper ratio you are still packing in more pixels.

But...

that still doesn't make any sense. For any delivery medium (be it HDTV, widescreen SD, an anamorphic DVD, etc) you're going to end up with a certain # of pixels active, and a certain # of pixels blank (letterbox bars, because there are no 2.35:1 TV's, so you *must* letterbox if you want it to display at 2.35:1 on a TV).

Using a 16:9 camera and cropping to 2.35:1 is going to get you the most resolution you can have, in the cleanest frame. If you use an anamorphic adapter, you will RECORD more pixels, yes, but they'll be optically squeezed, and you'll then have to digitally unsqueeze/stretch it out, and then to fit it on a 16:9 screen you'll have to digitally squeeze your frame down into the EXACT SAME pixel space as if you'd just cropped it in the first place. Only, instead of having a raw 2.35:1 patch of pure pixel data, you'll have an optically-compressed/digitally-stretched/digitally squeezed block of data that takes up the same pixel space.

Can't possibly imagine how that would lead to an overall better picture than just keeping it simple and letterboxing it in the first place, which is what you'll end up doing as your last step anyway.

I am looking to test some of the footage by going back to film (just a few minutes). And cinemascope is what I am after. I have a couple of feature projects coming up and I am trying to determine the suitability of the various ratios in film transfer.

Okay, transfer for film starts to make more sense, as at least there the full picture could be used. BUT: you still have two big problems. First, the HD10 picture would be a 1.78X1.33 squeeze, whereas the film frame is a 1.2x2.0 squeeze. I don't know if any transfer houses even offer that as an option.

Second, the 30P frame rate on the JVC has at least some, if not all, film transfer houses just plain ruling it out as an option. DVFilm, for example, says that they simply cannot convert 30P to film's 24fps rate. I know Les did some tests with Twixtor or whatever which may look okay, but will it survive the blowup process?

Maybe there are other film transfer houses that get better luck with 30P footage. I haven't heard of any yet, but it'd certainly be worth your time to call around and ask, there are probably a couple dozen or more out there, maybe someone can handle both scenarios (the squeeze and the frame rate). If so, I'd very much like to see the results, that would be a fascinating test to run.

Actually when I spoke to the people at Dvfilm, the rep (Elizabeth is I believe her name, but I could be wrong) said that they have done 30p conversion to 24 using masks and got good results. But, she added, because it is a very involved process they do not prefer to do this type of transfer, and recommend that people not shoot in 30p.

Transfer houses have also had little need to pioneer this. The HD10 is essentially the only cam stuck at 30p. And so far there hasn't been hords of HD10 users pounding on conversion houses doors begging for film transfers. What they are suggesting you do is convert your 60i material to 24p and not 30p.
They will not have any problem accepting your 24p project. Just do the work your self. It is your job not theirs.
Algolith software has a frame rate convertor that claims to convert any frame rate to another. They list SD, HDTV, and film. They also offer weekly rentals to keep the price down. A good idea considering most people need the software once.

Barry,

It definitely does work, according to DVFilm, a video-to-film transfer house.

heath

I suppose another approach to using the anamorphic adaptor on the camera might be to put an anamorphic lens on the projector as well and optically stretch the full res image to 2.35:1. Last I checked there were some home theatre products to do this, including a large self-contained lens that sat in front of the projector of your choice.

I would tend to agree this all might be a lot of trouble for very little image improvement, plus the additional issues related to anamorphic adaptors might be limiting in themselves.

Heath, I don't know where you are getting that info from the link you provided. It seems to state the opposite.

Ken,

According to DVFilm owner and chief engineer Marcus van Bavel's book, "Shooting Digital," it actually is:

"Shooting Scope on Video

It is also possible to shoot Cinemacope format...on video by using a special lens or combination of lenses. The Scope format has a final aspect ratio of 2.35:1...To efficently shoot video for this format, you have to use either a 1.75x anamorphic lens on a regular video camera, or use a 16:9 adapter with a native 16:9 camera...

The Scope image when played on a regular television monitor will look highly squeezed. The squeezed image is squeezed even further onto the 35mm Scope print (which has a 2x anamorphic squeeze ratio) and then stretched back out to 2.35:1 by the projector."

(Pgs. 66-67, "Shooting Digital," Marcus van Bavel, (c) 2004. Published by Dominion Pictures Press, Austin, TX.)

It's actually quite a good book, and you can order a copy from DVFilm's website. I'm doing a review of the book for DV Info Net.

heath

Heath, I think Ken was thinking your response was WRT transfering HD-10 30p material to film. See their FAQ #34 at http://www.dvfilm.com/faq.htmThere's another thread here on this topic.

Yeah, two different subjects being talked about.

But it does sound like Marcus is saying that they could handle a 1.78x1.33 to 1.2x2.0 squeeze conversion. That's good news. Guess that just leaves the frame rate question to be solved.

For transferring to film, check this thread out. It talks about how the HD10/1 can go to film.

heath