Newbie 16:9 Question (fcp w/ pdx10)

[Jonathan Downs]

i've been reading and learning about the pdx10's widescreen...and if i'm correct, it retains it's resolution in 16:9 mode, instead of blowing up the image horizontally or chopping it vertically.

so if this is true, what i'm wondering is this: could i shoot and edit in 16:9 mode, and then before output, use the "Aspect Ratio" slider in the "Distort" menu of the the "Motion" tab to shrink the video vertically (-33.3%) to correct the aspect ratio, and therefore shrinking the vertical pixels and creating a sharper-higher-quality image? does this make any sense?

[John C. Chu]

You don't want to do that...

If your final destination is DVD, the DVD player will automatically squash the 16X9 video for display on 4:3 sets...giving you the "increase in vertical sharpness" you are talking about.

[Jonathan Downs]

ahhh...so the dvd player does the aspect ratio correction by itself. i get it now...so if the dvd is viewed on a 16:9 television, it will fill the frame...but if it's viewed on a normal 4:3, it will be automatically be squished down and be letterboxed. i get it.

thanks for the response.

[Tom Hardwick]

Worth doing a test using your camera settings, using your editing programme, using your DVD authoring set-up, your DVD burner, playing it in your DVD player into yout TV. Nothing like testing before the big day.

tom.

[David Heath]

Originally Posted by John C. Chu

If your final destination is DVD, the DVD player will automatically squash the 16X9 video for display on 4:3 sets...giving you the "increase in vertical sharpness" you are talking about.

Almost, but DVD players should give two options for 16x9 material on a 4:3 display. One is as above ("letterbox"), but the other fills the entire 4:3 frame of the display with the centre of the widescreen image - this is known as "centre cut". In practice letterboxing will lose resolution, not increase it - the DVD player will reduce the 576 (480 for NTSC) lines vertically down to 432 (360) - then add 144 (120) lines of black to regain the standard PAL (NTSC) signal.

Much material is now produced 16:9, but 4:3 safe - nothing vital, especially captions, graphics etc, happens outside the centre 4:3 area of the frame.