What project settings to use for fake widescreen?
 

When shooting in "16:9" that just places black bars (like on a VX2100) what project settings in Premiere would I use? Widescreen or standard?

If it just places black bars over a 4:3 frame, standard would probably look best. Alternatively, you could do widescreen and adjust the scale of the clips accordingly.

If you shot in widescreen anamorphic then use DV widescreen preset. IF you make a DVD from this you will get the proper flags that will allow 16x9 playback on 16x9 TV's and letterbox on 4x3 TV's. IF you want to create a fixed letterbox image to tape then choose standard 4x3 preset, make sure properties for the clip are 16x9 anamorphic and you will get a letterbox image in the 4x3 frame.

Ron Evans

Does the VX2100 shoot in true widescreen though?

The VX2100 shoots wide screen like most DV widescreen. It is anamorphic and created by altering the pixel aspect ratio. There is the same number of pixels as standard DV 720x480, which is why you need the flag to instruct the playback to display properly otherwise the 4x3 screen will be filed as normal but the image will be squeezed. Things will look thinner a taller!!!!! So instruction from previous post will work.

Ron Evans