Need Help - Can HDV be played back to tape in letterbox?
 

i have a project shot in HDV. i want to play it back to tape letterboxed, not fullframe. but i don't want to crop or lose info. nor do i want to downconvert into an SD format in the NLE because it will be transcoded from HDV to several different SD flavors, and i prefer for it to go through one compression from HDV to SD, instead of two different compressions, HDV to SD to SD.

i can play back to tape on an FX-1, XH A1, or HV10.

any ideas about how this can be accomplished?

would purchasing the sony deck accomplish this?
does the MXO unit do this?

i'd rather not spend the money, but i will if i can be sure that it will work. the specs seem to support it, but has anyone here actually done it?

I am not sure if I am understanding the question, but here goes my response. If you do not record the film full frame, then it seems to me that you are going to SD.

You can do an HDV project, finalize it, and export it back out to tape. It will of course still be HDV, which will show on TVs as 16:9 format. Depending on your connection, the output will either be HD (HDV) or SD. Now when you play that tape back, you can select on a lot of cameras, what the TV type is. If you select a 4:3 TV type, the camera in showing it will letterbox the signal out.

i did select the 4:3 TV Type in the FX-1, hoping this would supply me with a letterbox version, played it back and it laid it to tape in full frame 16:9 HDV. wonder what i am doing wrong?

Meryem:

Are you going out to the TV with S-Video or AV ( Yellow plug) ? When I do that with my FX1 it will change from letter boxed to stretched and vice versa by changing between 16:9 and 4:3 tv type. This is through the yellow av plug to a standard def tv with video line in.

As far a BNC component, it does appear to be selectable. You are stuck with 16:9. I have an LCD TV 4:3 with component in, but it cuts of sides.