Assuming the scaling in your NLE is decent, then that will produce a better picture, and you can reframe your shot in post by selecting which region from the 4:3 you blow up to 16:9

Graeme

Nice. I use Premiere Pro 1.5. I am assuming I still start the project as a widescreen project. I'll play around with some footage from my XL1s. Thanks!

I'm currently shooting with a PDX10, and while the smearing issue does occasionally rear it's ugly head, it's not as often as you'd think...and it's very easy to avoid. The poor low light performance, however, is not something you can avoid, unless your needs are like mine (100% outdoor daylight shooting).

As for 'best' 16:9 standard DV camera (non-HD), my answer would be the Canon XL2. But of course it's all subjective, isn't it?

Vx2000
 

With he Vx2000, I have letter boxed by adding matte consisting of the bottom and top bar. I superimpose that over what I am shoooting to come up with a 16:9 letterbox production. The matte is loaded from the memory stick. You do have to reload it every time you turn off the camera. I assume Vx2100 has same capability,

I went from primarily using a VX2000 to using an HVR-A1. I did this mainly for the better quality 16:9, though I am using the HD. I still use the VX2000 for low light shots, but that's about it. The VX2000's 16:9 is not high quality by any standards. There is an absolutely huge difference between the fake 16:9 that cameras like this use and a real native 16:9. I've had a lot of great use out of my VX2000 and have loved using it over the last few years, but I wouldn't buy it or any non-native 16:9 camera at this point in time. Like it or not, 4:3 is a dead format.

16:9 is indeed getting much more popular, but you can't really say that 4:3 is dead. A lot of TV broadcast is still done in 4:3 and there is no reason to produce the shows in 16:9 if the majority of homes have standard televisions, not wide. It would be absolutely pointless to have all the content in 16:9 and then have the whole channel letterboxed all the time. It's simply wasting of the screen space. As much as I've talked to the real broadcast professionals, they say that 16:9 really becomes the standard when HDTV does. And this is about to happen in the next 4-5 years. Remember, it takes quite a while until the majority of people have those new generation TV sets.

As many use the same camera for max. 1-2 years, then I think it's rather safe to get a good 4:3 cam at the moment. 16:9 can be certainly considered dead by filmmakers, but it isn't for documentaries and such.

4:3 probably will be dead, but it is not yet :)

Depends where you live. In Europe, 4:3 has been dead for a while, especially in the UK.

Graeme

You know, documentaries are my main thing as well. One of the best arguments for HDV right now is that you can render both 16:9 and 4:3 high quality versions from the same project. I just finished my first HDV to SD DVD project with both 16:9 and 4:3 versions available on playback. Both aspect ratios look equally sharp.

I find that my VX2000 still gets good use as an indoor dim lighting camera. Outdoors, things like leaves and faces from a distance look really bad with the VX2000 fake 16:9, but indoors with solid walls and head and shoulders closeups, the interpolation looks just fine: much better than the low light grain from my HVR-A1.

Laurence, that is absolutely correct with one major exception.

The framing for 16:9 vs 4:3 is not the same. So one would have to frame for 4:3 to insure the important bits will be in-frame for both aspect ratios. Otherwise it may require pan and scan work to make the 4:3 work if you framed in 16:9.

I would have to agree with Georg, 4:3 isn't dead, just dying -thankfully. There are still people using rabbit ear TV sets that you have to turn the dial to change the channel! Then there is the whole HDCP issue that is causing some trouble for certain folks. Of course you also have many stations not sending full HD signal, but compressed, sometimes badly. Not a majority of people want to stop using their $200 37+" 4:3 to switch to a $600 27" 16:9, beside me. I paid $2000 for my 42" plasma HD. While it was a chunk of change it was worth it to me. But how many people have that money to throw away on a wideHD when their nasty 5 year old projection is still doing fine? It'll take a long while to get rid of the 4:3 standard. Last I checked they still make cassette & VHS tapes too.



Right now my cons for HDw/16:9 outweigh my pros. Me and like 2 other people are the only ones out of a number of folks I interact with that have an HDTV AND HD service. A couple of my friends have the TV and think that's it. I have to explain the service and enhanced cable issues to them. What a waste of a TV, lol.

My budget didn't allow for me to get one of the two Sony HD cams, aside bare bones. Who wants to save for months just to get a decent battery, filter, lens, etc.? All to be one of the only people viewing your footage in full HD glory...

Speaking of VHS. I had to make 50 copies of one of my training tapes and didn't want to wait for a shipment. So I went to the local Costco. They had only 12 packs of 10 tapes each. I bought them all and the clerk said that was the last they would stock because now that DVD recorders were under $200, nobody was buying VHS anything. Decks or tape and certainly not pre-recorded movies.

I haven't been back to see if they restocked.

I now can charge less for a DVD than I do for a VHS tape because I can buy almost 3 printable 2 hour DVD blanks for a dollar. VHS is still more than a dollar a 2 hour tape.

I heard about the Costco VHS thing too! My wife keeps on insisting we reconnect a VHS to our plasma. I finally won that battle when I insisted she give me a list of movies she planned to watch on VHS, when her list consisted of all but ONE movie we already have on DVD -bingo! Get with the times people ( i hear a lot), lol, cassettes have been replaced, what twice now! I don't know a whole lot of people that even use CDs, everyone has a friggin' ipod jammed in their head. I purchased our first 20GB MP3 player like 5 years ago, for less than an equally sized iPod too!

Chris could you explain this process step by step for the mentally challenged such as myself. like the mem card part and what size the bars are I have A.E 6.5 or photoshop 7

Adding 16:9 mask.
 

Below is a url to download the one i use. I am not certain it is exactly accurate, but it is the one I use. You could add this same mask in post, but this method provides a guide during shooting.

I have this file on the memory stick I carry in my vx2k at all times. This what you do on the 2k:

turn camera on, and make sure you have 16x9 should be set to off

with the chip in camera with the file on it, open display door so you use the various buttons. Select memory mix and then use + or - to scroll to the matte. On the 2K, a small representation of the file is in bottomm right coner. To select it on tke 2k, I then just press the rotor button to select matte and it will then overlay on the the screen.

Here is site:http://www.makeyourfilm.net/downloads/DSC00027.jpg

Anamorphic lens.
 

With any 4:3 camera, you can purchase a 16:9 anamorphic adapter to preserve and use all pixels. This type of lens will squish the picture in. WHEN SHOOTING, IT WILL APPEAR DISTORTED. However when you edit, if you edit in a 16:9 mode, it will come out right. In fact, that is how 35mm was turned into wide screen. The adpter was used on the camera, and on the projector too. Adapters are expensive, though.

Century Optics is one manufacturer