HDV for broadcast
 

What's the best way to shoot then crop if you intend to distribute to 4:3 SD TV?

Any links? Tricks?

You can edit it in any video editing program.

Most times, KOAM uses my clips straight as a letterbox. Other times, they'll use a program like Adobe Primiere to crop the video.

My Fx-1 does't allow cropping but the cameras like the Z1 and A1U will squeeze the picture or crop the edges for you and you won't even have to mess with any editing program.

If you are shooting for HD, frame the pict for HD, but if you're shooting for SD, then think along the lines of centering your image for the 4:3 image for cropping, when shooting.

Turn on the 4:3 safe area in the display, frame the shot to stay in the safe zone, drop the clip in the NLE and crop it. This will give you actually a little bit of room to simulate camera moves in post.

Paolo's advice is good. I would certainly not crop in camera. HDV is native 16:9, so frame for 4:3 as best you can and ARC and correct with Pan/Scan (well, just Pan really) in your NLE. It does no harm to have more picture than you need!

In the UK, 16:9 FHA SD broadcast has been the norm for a while. We also have to 'shoot to protect' for 14:9 so that all 16:9 footage can be aspect ratio converted (simple centre cut/crop - not Pan/Scan, of course) simultaneously on broadcast for those receiving 4:3 analogue transmission. They get 4:3 with a 14:9 letterbox so that 4:3 television sets sacrifice less screen real estate. Bizarre but true... Framing for 2 possible aspect ratios takes a bit of getting used to but if I can do it anyone can!

Duh, I didn't even look for it. It's right there in the menu settings. Dials in a nice 4:3 grid for you. Paolo saves the day again! Viva Italia! Viva Baggio! (or is it "Vive"?)

:), it's "viva", you got it right.

letterboxing
 

If I shoot and edit in HDV but I still want to broadcast in SD for the time being, can I just drop the HDV timeline into an SD timeline? If there is no cropping, will there be black bars if displayed on a 4:3 TV? The question is, do I have to crop? If I do, then why? Sorry for the dumb questions but we are just now switching to MAC systems, HDV, and 16X9, big learning curves. The easier the process the better. We really do want to just keep the 16X9 in 4:3, hopefully there aren't too many steps involved.

Thanks,
Brian
www.drivingtelevision.com

Pretty much yes Brian. You have to choose one or the other... simply, an HD 16x9 aspect ratio is wider than standard SD 4x3. So your choice is to either crop the sides of 16x9 down to to fit 4x3 or keep the width and in turn show the letterboxing at the top/bottom. Make sense?

When you shoot 16x9 wide you do so with the intention of either:

- Showing it on a 16x9 wide screen display, as actual 16x9 content.
- Showing it on a 4x3 display as letterboxed content (still looks wide but with black bars above/below.
- Showing it on a 4x3 display with the sides cropped so that you fill the whole display as "full screen".


It's a matter of preference, no right or wrong here (except stretching of course), unless it is specified by the customer, station, production house, etc..

Stretching out a 16x9 image to fit 4x3 is going to look VERY wrong and everything stretched tall. I hope this helps.

Hey Bri, out of curiousity, what mode do you intend to shoot in for SD broadcast? HDV-SD60p? DV60I?

720/30p
 

We want to shoot in HDV720 30P and later in HDV 720/60P when the HD200 is available. Hopefully the 200 will allow us to do slo mo and possibly eliminate some of the frame strobing in 30P. We will then master a copy in HDCAM and also downconvert one in SD Betacam as well. As for now, we will just be archiving the HDCAM version until further notice from our broadcaster.

We haven't tried any of this out yet, we just ordered a couple of MAC's yesterday, like I said, we're totally new to MAC and HDV. This forum has been such a huge help with this process, thank-you everyone for posting such great information.

Brian