Quick question, how many actually hand your customers cropped videos of their events?

compared to NTSC uncropped, PAL cropped is virtually indistinguishable... your looking at 432 VISIBLE lines as opposed to 480. Wooptido...
Shooting progressive scan, and these figures are alot more accurate. Shoot interlaced, and your working with compromised footage..

So Peter then handing my customer a cropped video is ok? It shouldn't be a problem? The reason I asked was (I didn't notice it) I accidently turned on the date recod on the sony pd and the only way to work around it is to crop it, but then I had to crop the entire production (I did turn it off immediately once home). I'm asking is it generally ok my customer may or may not like it, but just trying to get a feel.

If you mean letterboxing the footage or like a fake widescreen, we do this quite often. The video quality is the same as un-letterboxed there is just less image there. If you are talking about cropping the edges and then making the whole image bigger so it fill sthe frame, such as making it 105%, this can often be done to a small degree with very little noticeable difference on a standard TV, but more then 3-5% and you can notice it easier.

You better hope it's okay. Otherwise you get to explain your mistake which will be attached to every single comment they make about your services. "Yeah, our videographer was great, but..." I would definitely try the letterbox look first.

Patrick that's what I was talking about a letterbox (fake widescreen). So people out there do offer that. Thanks for letting me know. David I know the severity of what took place which is why I'm honestly trying to fix it the best I can. I don't need to be reminded thank you.

Monday.....at my company, we always do the letterbox cropped thing for wedding videos and our clients like it. We shoot in a way to compensate......always keeping in mind that we will letterbox in post. It looks really sweet so I cant imagine your client having an issue with it. If I were you....I would not let the your client know about the date marked video issue.
good luck...joe

ps. be sure to adjust the verticle position of your video if adding the letterbox cuts off any video source you wish not be cut....I do it often (minor tweaks here and there) and its not an issue.

Thanks Joe,
I dropped off the preview disc today and said nothing about the date record issue and they really enjoyed the progress of the video. They didn't mind the letterbox, infact I said nothing about it. Over all I'm relieved on this one especially knowing what other people are doing. Thanks man

Cool, glad it all worked out for you.

Where are you in Baltimore....I used to live in Perry Hall. I grew up in MD. most of me life, then moved to Cali.

David I know the severity of what took place which is why I'm honestly trying to fix it the best I can. I don't need to be reminded thank you.

Sorry... but to me there is only one option. So the question is a little silly unless a reminder was given.

dude...chill out. there is actually more options than just "the one" as you stated but who gives a poo now....she got it handled, all is good so your non-helpful remarks.....do just that.....they dont help.



Sorry... but to me there is only one option. So the question is a little silly unless a reminder was given.

Joe, I live very close to Perry Hall. I live in Hamilton and have actually considered moving to California or Texas as well. There's more money out there but I'm not ready for that. Still young and the business is going good.

Monday
Oh yeah, I'm a guy. LOL!!!

dude...chill out. there is actually more options than just "the one" as you stated but who gives a poo now....she got it handled, all is good so your non-helpful remarks.....do just that.....they dont help.

Enlighten us... what would you do in that situation other than crop it?

And I don't find it in bad taste to remind someone of the consequences of their actions. If I haven't run into someone who made those types of comments about a videographer or photographer, then I wouldn't have said anything. So my remark was there to help just as much as anyone elses.

David that's enough. Thank you for commenting, and I wish you the best of luck. I've done this for 4 years and made a simple honest mistake anybody could easily make. You probably had a gig where you forgot to record something or turn on a mic. No one has bashed you for that. It's over your point is heard. I wish you would give more grace in this type of situation.

You guys are missing my point. I'm not trying to bash anyone. I'll leave it at that.

sorry monday....the other day i referred to some guys little boy as a girl.....but he had long hair in a pony tail....couldnt tell the difference.
i know where hamilton is, well cool...good luck out there.

David the way you wrote your response could easily be taken the wrong way. I'm sure you didn't mean it to be as abrasive as it came off- and Monday was just seeking insight and support for an issue he was dealing with. Which would subsequently make him more sensitive to such a response.

Truth is everyone make mistakes, if you haven't then you haven't been in event video long enough. The best part about making mistakes is it forces us to find creative ways around the obsticles the mistakes create. Now I'm not "endorsing" mistakes but I know I wouldn't have the same editing prowess if it HADN'T been for those difficult edits trying to fix things. Often times that leads to changing something in your style or workflow which leads to experimentation.....which then leads to discovery. Believe it or not some of my best edits were ones with obsticles (ie mistakes) I had to improvise to overcome.

David was making the point that cropping is probably your ONLY option at this point and that it's somewhat moot to ask if it's "ok". Don't worry though, as long as it's not cropping which stretches the existing content to fill the entire screen (ie Interpolation) and just some faux 16:9 you should be fine.

In fact a lot of my earlier work I did this by choice because I simply liked the look of a 16:9 composition. Best of luck with everthing and I'm sure it will all work out fine for you. One sure thing- you'll probably never make that same mistake again! Best Regards.

Under the circumstances I'd say you did the right thing, but I wouldn't recommend this as a normal procedure for creating widescreen video. The problem is that if someone plays it on a good HDTV and zooms in to fill the screen with such letterboxed video, it probably won't look very good. Lots of people have been doing it anyway, but it's not as good as producing proper widescreen (anamorphic) DVDs.