OT - viewing area in viewfinder smaller than actual?
 

I found this with the DXV and my pana 852 - the viewing area in the view finder and LCD is smaller than the actual image being captured - it is almost like the viewfinder/lcd is cropping the SHOWN image, but the image being captured is much bigger! Here is what I discoverd tonigth while transferring some 8mm film. What looked like great cropping of the transferred 8mm film in my view finder, when transferred showed a remarkable difference - I could have zoomed in at least 15% more to avoid the black outside of the film area! Weird...I am going to hook up to a laptop next time to see where the actual crop is. I wonder if this is just pana?

My XL1 does this as well. It may or may not be 15% but it is noticable.

Sorry, but is this a joke? 584 posts. You should know what 'overscan' means by that, no?

No joke Kurt.

Transferring 8mm is when I first noticed this, too. I'm using an XL2... the difference wasn't quite 15%, but annoying to be certain. I could just start to see the shading of the edge of the projected frame when I got ir on the computer. It must be an almost universal issue... I'd wondered if other people had the problem as well.

Kurt, what do you mean by 'overscan'?

'Overscan' is the area in the edge of the frame that all TV sets 'crop'. This is why Premiere has a 'safe area' on its titler.

hehe, going back to my 'Amiga' days now

Yes safe area is usually designated with running ants or dots, sometimes two different areas. On a camera LCD, I have never heard of it intentionally cropping the image. Higher end cameras will show you the safe area, they won't crop it in the LCD only for you to find out later in the capturing process - that is why it was surprising to me.

Mandy,

Nearly all video cameras show you an underscanned image on the LCD. What you see on the LCD is roughly what you will see on TV when you play it back. If the LCD showed you everything, you wouldn't be able to accurately compose your shots for final delivery.

Josh

Interesting, that is news to me. Do all camcorders do this?

Ok, I did some research and found out stuff I already knew and some new stuff.
http://scanline.ca/overscan/
My question is this : if I am going to be putting these 8mm films on DVD, I guess I don't have to worry about it, my problem is that the viewing frame isn't exactly straight, so I have a little bit of a trapezoid (in other words not a 90 degree angle) going for the black frame around the image. Will this matter when I put it to DVD?

Mandy,

If you frame it up so it looks good in the LCD, it will probably look the same on your TV.

Josh

Thanks Josh, I will try that with some of the footage I have already shot and see what it looks like. I would have thought cameras would have the safe area white lines or dashes instead. That makes more sense to me...

Mandy,

Yep, would be a nice option, but few cameras off it. You need a production monitor for that. It does exactly what you are looking for.

Josh

One guy once suggested shinking 16:9 video so the entire video was inside the safe area. Maybe film transferrance could benefit from this also--if you frame the film projection inside the LCD screen like you did you'll be retaining the entire image when you play it back on a TV.

Not on a DVX100(A).