hey guys, i was wondering what you guys think is the best method to convert standard 4:3 footage into 16:9 footage. we all know that in most DV cams the in camera widescreen is garbage..

i wasn't happy with letterboxing because the exported result was still a 4:3 file, just with black bars on top and bottom.

so what i did was i cropped the image, then i stretched it vertically the way your footage would look if you shot with an anamorphic lens and then i told the computer that it was to export a 16:9 file. the finished result was a quicktime file that really was 16:9 so now when i hit "full screen preview" in play back, my movie fills my entire (wide)screen. is it okay that i'm doing it this way?


is there a better way to do this?

That sounds fine, I have done this myself.

But your assumption that "most DV cams widescreen is garbage" is not necessarily true. There is a whole range of quality, depending on the camera. Interestingly, some of the cheaper Canon and Sony DV cameras have high resolution CCD's which can do a pretty decent job of 16:9. If your camera can take megapixel still photos, chances are good that it can also do full resolution widescreen.

nah, i've got the pd170, but it's good to know that my method is alright!

thanks don

Well in that case, I'd agree that the in-camera 16:9 isn't so great. My experience is that you can get results at least as good - probably better - using the technique you describe.

Bryan:

Try this for me. Take your PD 170 and shoot a short scene with 16:9 enabled.

Then capture. Look at your DV result in any player. Doesnt' look so good. Didn't to me either.

Now render to a 16:9 mpeg DVD file. Does it look closer to what you would expect in 16:9 ?? I'm just wondering if someone else has seen that.

but, how can i get 16:9 video into 4:3? Cant crop it. Basically i need 4:3 video and 16:9 footage inside it with bars on top and bottom. Video is originally in 720p.

thnx

In Premiere, I would just open a 4:3 time line, and drop the 16:9 clip on to the time line, and resize if necessary.

Now render to a 16:9 mpeg DVD file. Does it look closer to what you would expect in 16:9 ?? I'm just wondering if someone else has seen that.



Chris, I'll try that tonight, I've got nothing else to do, haha.

That sounds fine, I have done this myself.

But your assumption that "most DV cams widescreen is garbage" is not necessarily true. There is a whole range of quality, depending on the camera. Interestingly, some of the cheaper Canon and Sony DV cameras have high resolution CCD's which can do a pretty decent job of 16:9. If your camera can take megapixel still photos, chances are good that it can also do full resolution widescreen.

When I use my TRV70, I usually shoot 16:9 and it looks sharp.

Post by mistake....

yeah, so i burned some incamera wide footage to dvd, and on the same disc i also put some 4:3 footy,....perhaps the 16:9 shots were a little bit softer and if you zoom in a lot you can see some digital compression but it's hard to say if there's more compression in that one verses the raw 4:3 footage... the 16:9 looked a little more filmic, maybe that was due to the softer image or maybe it was the psychological aspect of having the widescreen framing, haha, i dont know.
either way, footage always looks better on a tv, heh.

Thanks Bryan. I've asked this question in general, a posed a hypothesis regarding this in this new thread. I 'm curious if others have similar experience. See ithttp:

www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?p=637719#post637719 here: