DV to Cinemascope
 

Hi everyone,

I have some queries on transferring DV footage to 35mm (Cinemascope ,2:35:1) . I have shot a feature on the DVX-100 and transferred to 35mm flat and I liked the results , Wanted to check on the results of shooting with the anamorphic adaptor with the DVX-100 or any other DV camera and projecting on cinemascope .How does the result look?, Could someone who has tested this please send me some feedback .

Cheers!

Preetha Jayaraman

I don't think you're going to find anyone who has actually done that, for several reasons...

No one makes an anamorphic adaptor that will give you 2.35 and also fit on the end of this particular camera. The anamorphic lenses made for 35mm squeeze the image 2x. If you use such a lens shooting video the resulting aspect ratio will be 2.66:1.

It would be possible to get close to 2.35 (2.37:1) by using the Panasonic anamorphic adapter and the camera's squeeze mode. The trouble is that you're losing resolution when using that mode and you're going to need every ounce of resolution, especially when you see that print stretched out on the big screen.

I wish I had better news for you, but I've been looking into this, myself, and have yet to find an acceptable solution. Perhaps you'll have better luck.

Hi Kenn, from another "Medford" :-) A member here, Martin Munthe, has been doing something like this but using a PAL PD-150. He posted some interesting stills here. Do a search using his name and you will find several threads where he discusses the technique. But I agree that you're pushing the envelope to stretch 720x480 across a cinemascope screen with a film print.

Look for a cylinder lens with the proper specs. You'll be able to shoot full CCD 2.35.

I disagree with the idea that your degrading the image by stretching out the pixels on a anamorphic film projected print. That would be true if the screen was getting physically wider i length when you project anamorphically - not just changing its aspect ratio. Squeezed or not your still dealing with film and a movie screen that is the same physical width in size. If the screen is the same width (anamorphic & 4:3) - the only difference is the height. Your 480 pixels will look a hell of alot better if they dont have to fill the taller aspect ratio of 4:3. Its a matter of perspective.


Also you or your film out guys can uprez your video before doing a film out.

Then their the Mini35, and anamorphic lenses adapted to video projectors with full CCD shot footage and the list goes on and on. Some are more viable then others.

Good luck. Im always pushing the limits and in fact Im working on similar things right now so keep me informed and I'll do the same.

-Brett Erskine
Premiere Visions Cinematography
www.CinematographerReels.com

<<<-- Originally posted by Brett Erskine : . Squeezed or not your still dealing with film and a movie screen that is the same physical width in size. -->>>

I think the whole idea of Cinemascope was to create an image that was wider, not an image that was shorter. But perhaps this concept has been lost over the past 50 years? http://www.widescreenmuseum.com/widescreen/ac3.jpg

Brett, yes the image is degraded. With video you have, let's say, 720 pixels on a line. If you squeeze an image onto those pixels at 2x, each pixel can only average twice the information effectively blurring the scene.

Then when you unsqueeze during projection, you don't get the original image but an averaged 'blur'. In addition, the pixels now become a stretched horitzontal line.

This effect does not occur as badly on film since film can capture all the squeezed information. Even then there are instances where you can see the stretched image when it's projected, but at least all the data is there.

Trying to do anamorphic on dv and transferring to 35mm for projection and then hoping for a decent image sounds like a big stretch to me. (Stretch, get it?)

Boyd your right if the horizontal size of screen is expanded when a movie theater plays a 2.35 film and I believe I've seen the curtains open even more to allow for that. On the other hand I've also seen theaters bring down the curtain on the top and not change the sides at all to create a 2.35 aspect ratio. In this case I believe I would be right in saying you'll get a better quality image.

So it depends on how the theater is allowing for the 2.35 image. I would be interested in hearing which method most theaters/festivals currently use.

-Brett

follow up question:
 

Hello All,

I just joined this forum moments ago and I was very interested in this topic for my own work. I am wondering if you all could weigh in on my question:

Would there be too terrible a resolution hit taken by using the tactics mentioned by Kenn Christenson (DVX100 using LA7200g 16:9 lens AND the 16:9 mask option on the camera itself to get a near-Cinemascope aspect ratio) if the final output was not film but DVD?

I understand completely the argument that blowing up a optically squashed DV image after lopping off several rows of pixels on the top and bottom for 35mm projection would be a losing proposition. Film is chemical, and some of the squeezed info can be drawn out during projection with Cinemascope so long as the original footage was film, but DV is strictly pixels--stretching them to twice their normal length gives you no extra information. Just blurry summaries of what the DV footage captured.

But DVD is a different matter, isn't it? Don't the 2.35 : 1 aspect theatrical DVD releases still live with 720 pixels as a width? And just write black on the top and bottom to get 2.35 :1? The reason that trade-off works is that when encoding the DVD with a multi-pass VBR compression, more data and detail can be written to the actual movie frame because the black bars require almost no data to render. Yes, you have a net loss of horizontal resolution by cropping the top and bottom, but the better encoding should make up some of the difference, right?

I love my DVX100 with the 16:9 lens. Using it in conjunction with the camera's 16:9 black bars might make a cool looking, Cinemascope-aspect DVD even if it makes for a poor 35mm print.

What do you think?

That method will give you the highest-quality CinemaScope aspect ratio you can get on your DVD.

2.35:1 movies are transferred to DVD just like you said: as 16:9 video with black letterbox bars. So if you shoot with the anamorphic adapter and letterbox mode, you'll be getting the best quality 2.35:1 that you can.

Sweet. I am going to do a 2 minute demo to test this theory out and I'll report back when I have watched the DVD on a standard player.

OK... I just did it. It works amazingly well. I was worried that the dual letterboxing would give it away, but there is no indication of it. The whole thing looks like a theatrical release.

Wow. I'm shooting everything this way from now on.

Another idea
 

I tried using Compressor to crop down the mpeg2 output file from the stock 480x720 to 372x720 so I wouldn't have to waste any data drawing the bars, hence giving even more of the "bitrate budget" to the remaining image. Seemed to work, but I haven't burnt it yet to see what it will do in a player.

I found that when I cropped it in Compressor that the 16:9 banding on the camera takes 54 lines from the top and bottom. The resulting aspect, after pulling it wide anamorphically, is indeed 2.37 to 1.

Fascinating stuff.