Capturing Widescreen MiniDV Tapes at DVinfo.net

Cherylin Pauly · February 16th, 2014, 05:01 PM

Hello,

I'm running into some weird problems as I'm trying to help out a colleague. She asked me to digitize 10 miniDV tapes for her. I have them captured and they are letterboxed as widescreen in a 4:3 box. I captured using a SONY miniDV tape recorder GV-D1000 NTSC with a DV capture format (HDV wouldn't work). I haven't captured tapes in a long time nor did I capture a lot, so I don't remember if there is a way to capture the footage without the letterbox. I've been playing around trying to see if I could just crop out the letterbox. When I open the file in Premiere, the video is stretched horizontally. I've played around with the sequence settings, DV NTSC Widescreen, Standard, even made a new sequence based on the clip, and everything is still stretched. Nothing looks like the original file when I play it outside of premiere.

I exported some samples and inspected their ratio.

The format for the original footage I captured is this:
DV, 720 x 480 (640 x 480), Millions
16-bit Integer (Little Endian), 4.0 (L R _ _), 32.000 kHz

The format for the sample I took from Premiere with clip matched sequence settings is this:
DV, 720 x 480 (853 x 480), Millions
16-bit Integer (Little Endian), Stereo (L R), 48.000 kHz

I'm aware the audio doesn't match, but why are the actual sizes different from the format?

Is there anything I can do?

Thanks in advance.

Ann Bens · February 16th, 2014, 05:34 PM

Footage is probably interpreted as 4:3. Set it to 16;9 and drop it in a widescreen sequence.
See if that will work.

John Wiley · February 17th, 2014, 06:40 PM

First of all you need to find out what camera the mini DV tapes were recorded on. Many miniDV cameras did not record a full widescreen image - rather they recorded a 4:3 image with black bars at the top and bottom, so you need to check that what you're trying to record is actually a full widescreen image with anamorphic pixel aspect.

If you know the footage was recorded as full-screen 16:9, the problem is obviously coming later in the pipeline. I know my old Sony HDV camcorders had the ability to down convert HDV to SD through firewire as either anamorphic widescreen or a letterboxed 4:3 image, so perhaps the gv-d1000 has a similar setting which you have missed?

The different sizes in the sample exports you did come down to interpreting the footage as widescreen in Premiere. Because SD widescreen has a non-square pixel aspect ratio, this needs to be corrected in your NLE. So for the original file, your browser reports 720x480, which is the exact number of pixels in the file. The version you exported from Premiere has now had the widescreen flag checked in the metadata to it now reports as 853x480 because that is the equivalent size of the image once it has been stretched out to correct for the non-square pixels. In your case though, because you are starting with a letterboxed image, you don't want Premiere to be stretching the image like this.

You either need to be sticking to a 4:3 workflow or cropping the letterboxes to fit a 16:9 workflow (if it turns out the original footage is 4:3 letterboxed SD), or re-capturing the tapes with the correct widescreen setting on your playback device (if you find out your footage is in fact full-screen SD 16:9), then bringing the footage into your NLE in a 16:9 sequence.

Salvatore Privitera · February 24th, 2014, 10:13 AM

Right click the footage in the film bin. Select modify, interpert

Taky Cheung · February 24th, 2014, 10:27 AM

Are they standard def minidv or HDV? The quality difference is huge.

SD is always 720x480. It intreprets as 1 to 0.9 pixel aspect ratio on standard 4:3 TV or interpret as 1 to 1.12 pixel aspect ratio on wide screen. Just think of, it stretches each pixel wider to fit the wide screen. It squeezes each pixel 10% narrower for standard 4:3 screen because 720x480 is not 4:3. 640x480 is.

For HDV, It is 1440x1080 with pixel aspect ratio 1 to 1.33

Paul R Johnson · February 24th, 2014, 12:13 PM

You're going to find that (using UK specs) you have a 720 x 576 pixel frame, and this could be displayed as 4:3 or 16:9, plus people like JVC offered a 16:9 format that letterboxed the 720x576 image. I'd just bring it into your editor and then sort it there.

February 16th, 2014, 05:01 PM	#1
Cherylin Pauly Tourist Join Date: Feb 2014 Location: TONAWANDA, NY Posts: 1	Capturing Widescreen MiniDV Tapes Hello, I'm running into some weird problems as I'm trying to help out a colleague. She asked me to digitize 10 miniDV tapes for her. I have them captured and they are letterboxed as widescreen in a 4:3 box. I captured using a SONY miniDV tape recorder GV-D1000 NTSC with a DV capture format (HDV wouldn't work). I haven't captured tapes in a long time nor did I capture a lot, so I don't remember if there is a way to capture the footage without the letterbox. I've been playing around trying to see if I could just crop out the letterbox. When I open the file in Premiere, the video is stretched horizontally. I've played around with the sequence settings, DV NTSC Widescreen, Standard, even made a new sequence based on the clip, and everything is still stretched. Nothing looks like the original file when I play it outside of premiere. I exported some samples and inspected their ratio. The format for the original footage I captured is this: DV, 720 x 480 (640 x 480), Millions 16-bit Integer (Little Endian), 4.0 (L R _ _), 32.000 kHz The format for the sample I took from Premiere with clip matched sequence settings is this: DV, 720 x 480 (853 x 480), Millions 16-bit Integer (Little Endian), Stereo (L R), 48.000 kHz I'm aware the audio doesn't match, but why are the actual sizes different from the format? Is there anything I can do? Thanks in advance.

February 16th, 2014, 05:34 PM	#2
Ann Bens Major Player Join Date: Jun 2007 Location: The Netherlands Posts: 710	Re: Capturing Widescreen MiniDV Tapes Footage is probably interpreted as 4:3. Set it to 16;9 and drop it in a widescreen sequence. See if that will work. __________________ ACE Premiere Pro CC Adobe Community Professional

February 17th, 2014, 06:40 PM	#3
John Wiley Trustee Join Date: Oct 2008 Location: Byron Bay, Australia Posts: 1,155	Re: Capturing Widescreen MiniDV Tapes First of all you need to find out what camera the mini DV tapes were recorded on. Many miniDV cameras did not record a full widescreen image - rather they recorded a 4:3 image with black bars at the top and bottom, so you need to check that what you're trying to record is actually a full widescreen image with anamorphic pixel aspect. If you know the footage was recorded as full-screen 16:9, the problem is obviously coming later in the pipeline. I know my old Sony HDV camcorders had the ability to down convert HDV to SD through firewire as either anamorphic widescreen or a letterboxed 4:3 image, so perhaps the gv-d1000 has a similar setting which you have missed? The different sizes in the sample exports you did come down to interpreting the footage as widescreen in Premiere. Because SD widescreen has a non-square pixel aspect ratio, this needs to be corrected in your NLE. So for the original file, your browser reports 720x480, which is the exact number of pixels in the file. The version you exported from Premiere has now had the widescreen flag checked in the metadata to it now reports as 853x480 because that is the equivalent size of the image once it has been stretched out to correct for the non-square pixels. In your case though, because you are starting with a letterboxed image, you don't want Premiere to be stretching the image like this. You either need to be sticking to a 4:3 workflow or cropping the letterboxes to fit a 16:9 workflow (if it turns out the original footage is 4:3 letterboxed SD), or re-capturing the tapes with the correct widescreen setting on your playback device (if you find out your footage is in fact full-screen SD 16:9), then bringing the footage into your NLE in a 16:9 sequence.

February 24th, 2014, 10:13 AM	#4
Salvatore Privitera Regular Crew Join Date: Mar 2013 Location: Middletown, CT Posts: 46	Re: Capturing Widescreen MiniDV Tapes Right click the footage in the film bin. Select modify, interpert

February 24th, 2014, 10:27 AM	#5
Taky Cheung Inner Circle Join Date: May 2007 Location: Los Angeles, USA Posts: 2,114	Re: Capturing Widescreen MiniDV Tapes Are they standard def minidv or HDV? The quality difference is huge. SD is always 720x480. It intreprets as 1 to 0.9 pixel aspect ratio on standard 4:3 TV or interpret as 1 to 1.12 pixel aspect ratio on wide screen. Just think of, it stretches each pixel wider to fit the wide screen. It squeezes each pixel 10% narrower for standard 4:3 screen because 720x480 is not 4:3. 640x480 is. For HDV, It is 1440x1080 with pixel aspect ratio 1 to 1.33 __________________ LA Color Pros Blog RODE Authorized Reseller . Comer LED Camera Lights . TakyBox HTML5 Menu Generator

February 24th, 2014, 12:13 PM	#6
Paul R Johnson Inner Circle Join Date: Nov 2005 Location: Lowestoft - UK Posts: 4,015	Re: Capturing Widescreen MiniDV Tapes You're going to find that (using UK specs) you have a 720 x 576 pixel frame, and this could be displayed as 4:3 or 16:9, plus people like JVC offered a 16:9 format that letterboxed the 720x576 image. I'd just bring it into your editor and then sort it there.