urgent:shooting 16/9 with gl2
 

i'm about to shoot a hip hop video and i was wondering if using gl'2 16/9 mode was worthwhile for i can't tell since everytime i play with that mode on on my tv the picture is stretched(as a matter of fact how do you unstretch, is it something you do on post or what?)

thanks

How are you measuring "worthwhile"?

what i mean by that is do you actually get a wider picture or it's just totally fake. plus since the 16:9 can only be played on widescreen tv does it mean it will automatically render a stretched picture on 4/3 screens?

Read-up on the subject at Adam Wilt's site. It's a pretty good, basic primer on the subject.

already read that but still can't make a decision. if i shoot 4:3 and then letterbox i'll loose vertical resolution. and since i'm shooting with frame mode i guess it makes a huge amount of resolution loss, doesn't it?

Don't get hung up on the old "resolution loss" yang-yang. Experiment. Learn. Then select the format that represents the best fit between your subject matter, you aesthetics, and your primary viewing venue.

Yohann,

The "stretched" picture that you see on a regular (4:3) TV is what's supposed to happen when you shoot in 16:9 mode. Widescreen TV's will know they have to "unstretch" the image to fill the full screen width and things will look correctly proportioned. That's just the way anamorphic video works - very few 4:3 TV sets are "smart" enough to automatically letterbox it.

So if you shoot in 16:9 mode and want to watch on a 4:3 TV there are basically two choices:

1. Letterbox it using your NLE software. See your manual for how to do this.

2. Burn to DVD and then the DVD player will automatically letterbox it when the disk is played on a 4:3 TV. This has the advantage of letting viewers with 16:9 TV's watch the video at full quality. See your software manual for instructions on making anamorphic DVD's.

Yohann,

The image is not wider. The top and bottom are cropped off so you get a narrower vertical angle. The resoltuion loss is there but not as bad as on Sony cams.

Whether it will appear letterboxed depends. If your ultimate medium is DVD, then when you play it on a 4x3 set it will be letterboxed (not squished), but if you play it on a 16x9 set it will be perfect. The only reason it looks squished on your TV is because Canon, rather short-sightedly, did not include an "output 16x9 composite as letterboxed" option. But it's perfectly normal and will look fine on DVD.