Century makes one model for larger camcorder lenses (around 55 to 58 mm) which is rather expensive, maybe $700. There is a smaller version that has 37mm threads and it's much cheaper, around $300. What size are the filter threads on your camera?

NTSC TV is 525 lines, though less are visable. miniDV can play back 540 lines, PAL and NTSC. The video effective CCD pixels in the VX2000 are the same as the VX2100's, I recall; the VX2000 was tested to play back 500 lines.

The PDX10's resolution is higher than the VX2100's, and probably has the best affordable widescreen.

The MX500 already has good widescreen, if widescreen is what you're after, Shane.

The MX500 filter thread size is 43mm.

Frank, you've got to be careful when you say NTSC is a 525 line format, and follow that by talk of playback of 500 or 540 line. The two sets of lines we're talking about here run in different directions. NTSC has 486 (DV uses 480 of them) lines visible, out of 525 total. These are horizontal lines and measure vertical resolution.

The measured 500-540 lines on playback are vertical lines measuring horizontal resolution.

Graeme

I have a question about that 500 to 540 horizontal resolution figure. Is that inherent to DV, or just camcorders? In other words, If I import a photo from Photoshop will it effectively lose 180 to 220 pixels of horizontal resolution? The reason I ask, is I wonder if there wouldn't be an advantage to routinely turning off sharpness on the camcorder and then sharpening the footage in the NLE.

DV/miniDV is capable of 540 playback lines. Most cams don't reach that.

http://www.dvfreak.com/res.htm

"lines" is a terrible way of measuring the resolution of digital video. DV is 720 x 480 pixels, and that, atleast, is accurate and without ambiguity. "Lines" is an old method of expressing resolution with regards to analogue video .

Graeme

You're confusing playback resolution with pixels.

I just a Pdx10 from B&H. I havent had a chance to play with it too much but I am excited to see what results I will get once I start some serious shooting.
Regaurding the anamorphic adapters, I was wondering what would happen if i were to add one to my Pdx10 and still use its native 16x9?

If you add an anamorphic on top of the 16:9 you'll get cinemascope.

Graeme

"I was wondering what would happen if i were to add one to my Pdx10 and still use its native 16x9?"

There's been a lot of interest in how this will work out, but so far nobody seems to have to have taken the plunge. If you try this, a number of people in here (especially me) would love to see some screenshots.

Refresh me on cinemascope.

<<<-- Originally posted by William Beltran : Refresh me on cinemascope. -->>>

http://www.widescreenmuseum.com/widescreen/wingcs1.htm

After achieving cinemascope what would you do?
Can you still edit as you would 16x9?
What would you play it back on?

Well I think you've cut right to the heart of the matter. If you want to stay with DV then you're pretty much forced to letterbox the 2.35:1 image in the 1.78:1 frame. And if that's the case, well you would achieve pretty much the same results by just cropping a 16:9 image. Of course this negates anything you may have gained by the anamorphic compression which preserves all 480 scan lines.

If you want to watch on a computer monitor you could render at 1128 x 480. You can render DV at any resolution you want, but from my own experiments it's interesting that the files don't get any larger. So you're just spreading the same data over a larger area evidently.

Another approach might be to leave it anamorphically compressed and digitally project as 16:9 but also add an anamorphic lens to the projector. Might be a bit difficult to find the right lens for this.

Otherwise I think you'd need to upconvert to HD and letterbox within a 1280x720 frame. That's what Martin Munthe has done with a movie he's discussed here. Do a search for his name and you will find someinfo on his techniques.

Also, you will be viewing a "squished" anamorphic image on the camera's LCD and viewfinder as you shoot. A possible solution to that is to use a program like BTV Pro. It allows you display and capture DV via firewire on a Mac laptop, and you can set any size/proportion frame that you want. Again, I believe Martin discussed this as well.

So there are definitely a number of issues to consider with this, not the least of which is the conceptual one: Cinemascope was conceived as a way to fill huge theatre screens (something that DV isn't so ideally suited for), and not just an unusual aspect ratio.

Nevertheless, I'm also intrigued by the whole thing myself. Perhaps when I have some time this summer I'll spring for the $300 37mm version of the Century anamorphic lens that fits the PDX-10 and see what I can do with it...

I shot some frame mode (30p) video in DV widescreen on the DV953 then brought it into Vegas. I then rendered it in WMV 9 HD 1280x720. This gives a look like 2.35:1. If you would like to see this video, click here. It is the first video on the lower left of the album page. You will have to download the clip to see it better in WMP.