16:9 troubles

[K. Forman]

I'm looking for the threads that discuss creating a true widescreen out of footage that is not true widescreen. I am playing with the 16:9 feature on my GL1. I can get it to look right in Premiere, but it comes out squished and full screen when finished and on the TV.
Thanks

[Rob Lohman]

Can you tell us a bit more about what you are doing? How are
you sending the footage to the TV? Keep in mind that a signal
must be embedded for the TV to know it is an anamorphic signal.
Also, your TV must be widescreen, ofcourse.

The best way to send the signal is make a 16:9 anamorphic
DVD.

[K. Forman]

I am working with an NEC 2000 video monitor, and sending the signal via s-vid. My monitor has no problem showing widescreen programs, but they may actually be letterboxed, not sure. I am currently unable to work with DVD, and will need to edit the footage, then send it off to be transferred to DVD.


The ULTIMATE goal, is to be able to encode to DVD, and be projected on a theater screen. The theater I know will show this, is a bit less than a true theater screen, but still far from 4:3.

Should I try shooting the scenes in 16:9 with the GL1, or shoot 4:3, and crop to 16:9 in premiere?

[Rob Lohman]

With my XL1s I shoot in 4:3 and add black bars (letterbox) the
image. Why don't I shoot in 16:9 or create an anamorphic
signal afterwarts? Because I don't believe it will actually increase
quality. It will allow for a better compression distribution but
it also doesn't allow me to move the picture up & down under
the black bars which I use quite much!

To my knowledge the only thing that emits a true signal to
trigger 16:9 mode is a DVD player. I once hooked up my XL1s
to a widescreen TV and switched the camera into 16:9 mode,
the TV didn't do anything. I still had to set it into widescreen
mode manually.

Our DV edit system will not output the signal I think....

[Andres Lucero]

In Canon's 16:9 mode, the image is recorded as you see it on your viewfinder (squished, but using up the entire frame). When you view it on a 4:3 TV you're seeing the *correct* image, because that's what the camera put to tape.

A 16:9 TV will have "widescreen mode" which un-squeezes the picture digitally. You should check with the theatre, but I would assume that they can also do this with their projection equipment.

In short, you're not doing anything wrong - it's your TV that's wrong, so if you want to view the footage on it, you'll have to make a different copy of your video with letterboxes added in post. (Create a 4:3 project, add black bars at top & bottom, and un-squeeze your video to fill up the middle.)

P.S. Rob - you should learn to frame correctly. :)

[Rob Lohman]

Well, I'm trying! <g> But sometimes no-one is behind the camera
and we are all acting in front of (guerilla style!) or I just like
a certain framing better when viewing the shot in the context of
the scene/flow.