Yes, it is part of the footage.

This raises the question I have wondered about with 16:9. If you select 16:9 on the VX models, you end up with a 16:9 signal produced on a 4:3 chip. It looks strained. When I use the 4:3 with the mask method, displaying it on a 4:3 format screen results in a nice picture. If you show the 16: 9 on a 4:3 only screen, it stretches it vertically and distorts picture.

Is the camera actually reconfiguring pixels rather than just adding a bar, as many seem to indicate ?

Why not just film in 4:3 without a mask and just do the stretch to 16:9 thing in Post? It seems like the mask limits what you can do with the footage.

I guess what I am asking follows fropm statements that I have heard that all DV is 720 x 480- whether 16:9 or 4:3 aspect. That confuses the heck out of me.

I am assuming CP is control panel on the camera?

Over-all, performance-per-dollar wise, I find my GY-DV300U to be about as good as it gets for 4:3 SD. From what I understand, it doesn't do as well as the VX2100 in low light (I've never used a VX2100), but I don't know of another area of performance where the DV300U isn't at least on equal footing, and in some regards, offers superior performance (again, from what I have gathered). The cost differance is substantial though.

Yep, the button on the handle. There you can change sharpness.

Marco: actually CP stands for "Custom Preset," but you've got the right idea. There are only a few things you can adjust on the VX as compared to a larger variety on the FX1 and Z1.

Chris: yep, all DV is 720x480. 16:9 is sort of a "hack" that came along as a way to stretch the image a little wider. I guess the thinking was that almost no televisions are capable of showing the full 720 pixels of horizontal resolution, so why not stretch them over a wider surface?

To create 16:9 optically you'd use an anamorphic lens which compresses everything in the horizontal dimension only. Then on playback your TV would stretch it back electronically to the full 16:9 proportion. Instead of doing it optically you can do it electronically (digitally) inside the camera. But to get full quality your CCD's would need a minimum of 854x480 pixels. When writing the image data to tape the vertical pixel value would be the same as its position on the CCD. But you would have to multiply the horizontal value by .84 such that the CCD pixel number 854 is written to tape as 720.

Now a camera like the VX-2100 only has a 720x480 sensor, so the only way to create 16:9 is to letterbox it within that area. This works out to a 720x360 area. Now we must end up with 480 vertical lines in the final image, so have to stretch that image vertical by 33%. The result is "softness" in the 16:9 image because a certain amount of information just isn't there.

Boyd: Thanks for confirmation !!

So by just using the 4:3 image, enlarging it to 16:9, are you getting full res? As opposed to using the in-camera chop.

Nope, that doesn't work very well either. If you think about it, enlarging a 4x3 image to fill the width of a 16x9 frames means some of the image is off the top and bottom of the frame, which means you're back to losing some of your vertical resolution. The bottom line is that it's difficult to get a decent 16x9 image from a 4x3 SD camera, especially if you expect your output to be viewed on a large HDTV display.

The answer to the original question is that the best reasonably priced 16x9 3CCD camera is the Sony FX1.

Marco: the simple answer is that you can't make something out of nothing. You need 480 vertical lines for a full quality 16:9 image. The VX only has 480 vertical pixels in 4:3 mode. No matter how you convert to 16:9, you're going to lose 120 of those lines (60 off the top and 60 off the bottom).

Kevin: I think the word "reasonable" has to be defined before you can answer the question about the best reasonably priced native 16:9 camcorder. I have a Z1, and agree that the FX1 would be a great choice for 16:9 DV. It has much better image adjustment and manual controls and a great LCD screen. However, if you have a limited budget and want the most bang for the buck then I would suggest the PDX-10. It produces great 16:9 DV, has XLR's and the same mike as the PD-170, records in DVCAM plus some other nice things. It's also part of Sony's pro line so you get a much higher level of service than you would with the VX or FX series. I've had one for about 3 years and shot tons of footage which I'm still very hapy with. For $1,700 it's a terrific deal:

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/cont...ughType=search

The downside is smaller CCD's, a tendency to vertical smear with bright point light sources, and slightly worse low light response than the FX1. But considering the price, it's a lot of camera.

What a fun subject to be troubled by, lol. What I am thinking is that it will look better enlarged rather than letting the camera remove the top and bottom. Or would it look the same using either method? I understand that both will give you the loss to 360, BUT which "looks" better?

George, what you don't realize that most of the programming is shot in 16:9 with framing for 4:3. It's then broadcast digitally in 16:9 and side cropped to 4:3 for standard analog broadcast. All of the primetime network shows and most sports events are now available in HD. Most TV stations are having to broadcast both digital and analog at the moment. Eventually, the analog transmissions will cease at which time the FCC intends to re-allocate those frequencies to other radio services. Latest I've been told is 2009.

-gb-

You're true Greg, but that doesn't apply to all locations. Here they have very expensive 4:3 cameras and it would cost a great fortune to replace them all with 16:9 SDs. Therefore they are waiting for another 4-5 years till HD takes over and then they will buy straight HD cameras. Here it is planned to go over to digital television in 2007, but 4:3 will still stay for a while. At least this is what a professional in the national television said to me.

By the way, it looks like Torino 2006 olympics are also at least broadcasted in 4:3. And as far as I could find from the web, all the clips are 4:3 too. Looking at http://video.msn.com, their website player is designed for 4:3 and so are most of the shows they have up on the site. Same goes for Fox News, Deutsche Welle, Reuters etc... So I am wondering why they do not convert their websites to show in widescreen?

One country that seems to be going especially towards 16:9 is United Kingdom and CNN website really does show videos in wide and so seems to be doing BBC. But if looking at the clips then big part has been filmed in 4:3 and is squeezed into wide by CNN.

Isn't it so that 4:3 footage squeezed onto wide display doesn't really look that bad and it's up to the watcher how he/she prefers to watch it? I think that here we arrive at another little point - the computer users. A lot of people nowadays watch TV programmes via computers and wide monitors are rare and not very useful either. Are they happy if all the videos they watch in full screen are wasting 25% of their monitor space?

Just my thoughts. Feel free to argue ;)

Two things are happening in the US, very soon, that may kick-start a considerable acceleration of mainstream adoption of HD.

The first HD-DVD players from Toshiba will start shipping this month, and apparently Hollywood will produce content to play on it.

Second, beginning this summer, ALL new television sets sold in the US, larger than 25", MUST have ATSC tuners. That will start putting large numbers of HDTVs in living rooms that actually have HD content easily available to display on them (significant numbers of people in the US already own HDTV "ready" sets, but without anything connected to them to provide HD content).

As HDTV becomes mainstream, widescreen is going to become mainstream as well (probably on the net too).

But look how many people live in the US! :) That's a hell amount of TVs that have to be bought if at least 50% of US homes want to be HDTV ready. So as the pro's say, also in the UK, HDTV is at least 4-5 years away. But that's true, digiTV is going to be pushed. Here they are mostly focusing on the digital TV tuners than TV sets with tuners built in and currently there are not many sets in the shops that have the tuner built in. However, they still want to go digital in 2007 so will see how they plan to supply homes with the digital tuners. They are rather expensive, at least today.

It won't be 4-5 years here in the US. Our Congress finally set the hard-limit. Analog broadcasts will be turned off on February 17, 2009. No more analog at all. That's three (3) years (almost to the day) from now. In the meantime, new televisions being sold here, will be required to be able to receive the digital broadcasts much sooner than that. The US is the land of consumerism. It won't be long until most living rooms here have real HDTVs, receiving real HD broadcasts.

Congress did not mandate HD television, they mandated digital transmission of television, a far different thing. A cheap set top box will be able to receive the digital transmissions and convert them to the older analog form.

There will be no need to go out a buy a new televison.

What Mike is saying is what I also exactly meant. Digital TV is being pushed here just as in USA, maybe even harder. Much different from HD though. I saw a local TV programme talking about all kinds of electronics and they went to a shop to look what they have to offer regarding to TV sets. When the reporter asked about HDTV support, the salesman answered that most of the available TVs don't support it, but the very expensive large LCD screens do so that the buyer can consider it a longer term purchase and that it will be ready for the newer formats when they arrive. I think the salesman himself wasn't too smart either, but at least it is showing how far HD is here on the consumer level. However, in the same show they introduced digital TV very thoroughly and explained all kinds of aspects people have to know about. It's easy to see what is close and what isn't.

Like Mike said, HD and digital are two different animals. 4:3 won't die ANY time soon. You have to take into consideration the non production or non broadcast uses as well. CC cams, security cams, specialized imaging systems, public educational institutions, etc. Most of those won't need or afford 16:9 or HD until it's dirt cheap. Who's going to put an HD 16:9 security cam in when their b&w 9" 4:3 model still shows a perfectly usable image? How many public schools are rushing to dump their 4:3 cams and televisions? How many security companies want to dump their high end 4:3 equipment just for a few inches on the sides?

It's like VHS vs. DVD. I still know numerous people who have yet to even purchase a DVD player and here we are about to see the next gen come out as HD-DVD....

One thing I have learned about americans, they don't like to give things up easily...

This sounds like a reference to the fact that many HDTVs are shipped without a built-in HD tuner, but that's something many people will simply rent from their cable/satellite TV provider -- so paying extra to have this built in isn't necessarily a good thing. And I saw a DVD player recently with an HD tuner for around $250, so this isn't a big deal compared to the cost of a good HDTV.

Actually, to get the best 16:9 from the VX you should just letterbox it (put a black bar above and below the image inside a 4:3 frame). People with 16:9 TV's can use the "zoom" function on their remotes which will fill the screen with the letterboxed area in the 4:3 image. The hardware scalers on most widescreen/HD TV's will do a better job than the VX built-in anamorphic mode.

I will probably go that route, start in 4:3 from the cam and then do 16:9 in post NLE. What would NOT including the bars at the top and bottom cause?

Somebodt else jump in, if I got this wrong, but you will end up with distorted video. The editing program will not crop if you bring footage into a 16:9 project. It will be squished. You will have to resize

Workflow I would use in premiere pro if you want add bars in post is:

1. acquire 4:3 footage and open it in a 4:3 project.

2 Edit your project as you normally would, keeping in mind you will eventually add the mask.

3. Now add the mask. See the one I have shown in this thread at #21 I just key the blue part of the mask out, and that lets the video show through.

4. Now you can go back to individual clips and move video around to adjust framing.

5. Now render entire file to DV and you have your 4:3 version with a mask. This will give you a great letterbox production on any 4:3 output

6. If you have to have 16:9, you can open a 16:9 project, import the finished DV 4:3 version, and then resize until bars disappear. Then output to a new 16:9 DV file.

I have to confess I don't have a single 16;9 TV, so I am not sure if the 4:3 project renered to DVD will be read by Tv and made to fill screen.

I was thinking the same thing. But doesn't that show the bars when you watch it on a 4:3 TV? I was thinking to it all in 4:3. Then import the finished product to a 16:9 project, THEN add the bars. Would that work?

Marco:

You got to remember that when you open a widescreen project in your editor, the frame you will be working with is the 16:9 frame. When you drag you 4:3 DV file into 16:9 project, it will initially show up in the project monitor with bars on each side, or will be squished in some editors. You will have to resize everything to make it fit in the 16:9 frame. But it is another way to go.

Yes when I import 4:3 into a 16:9 project it has the bars on the side. I didn't realize you were talking about bars on all 4 sides at that point. I'm I correct with that statement? Because if there is already a mask on a 4:3 on the top and bottom and you then bring that into a 16:9 you will have mask on 4 sides at that point, right?

When you have a complete 16:9 video, then it will by default not show bars on 4:3 TV, but it will look stretched. This is the DVD player now that will have to letterbox the video for your 4:3 TV. When you import 4:3 footage to 16:9 project in PPro there is an option so that all the clips imported will be automatically zoomed into the 16:9. If you have it turned off the clips you put to the timeline will have black bars on the sides. Then you will have to zoom manually.

The letterboxing of 4:3 footage in post sounds rather interesting. Can Boyd or someone please tell me whether it is good to use such workflow with professional DVD projects too? Do some pro's actually do like that?

Something I've recently noticed when watching Finland television is that when they show 16:9 programmes or films, they now put the channel logo and subtitles also over the video and the black bars are left completely empty. This is probably because of the same thing - to allow widescreen TV owners to use the zoom function.

Well I'm a little confused about exactly what you're trying to do...

But you could just shoot straight 4:3 but frame the shot such that it will also look good when cropped to 16:9 - you could use some sort of overlay on your LCD screen for example. Then just burn a regular 4:3 DVD. However, when you watch it on a 16:9 TV, use the "zoom" function on the TV which will crop the top and bottom off the image and make the 720 pixel width fill the screen. From my own experience, this will give you the best looking widescreen footage from the VX. And of course, anyone watching the DVD on a regular 4:3 TV will just see a normal full screen version. But you won't have made a widescreen DVD, and it will be up to the user to figure out how to do this on their own 16:9 TV.

I do this all the time when I watch 4:3 broadcast TV on my plasma screen. It's interesting, because some footage is definitely shot so it will look good when cropped to 16:9, but for other programs you end up chopping off people's heads ;-) Quite a lot of Hollywood films are shot like this as full frame 35mm. This allows them to make two versions - a full frame one for 4:3 TV's and a cropped widescreen version for the theatres and widescreen TV's.

Interesting side note: take a look at the DVD's of Kubrick's films - specifically The Shining and Eyes Wide Shut. They were shot this way - full frame 35mm. But the theatrical version was cropped to 1.85:1. However the DVD's are the 4:3 full frame version, and there's a note on the package saying that's the way Kubrick wanted them released. However, if you watch them on a widescreen TV and use the "zoom" function as discussed above, they will look fine (just like the theatrical version). So basically, I'm suggesting that you could do the same thing.

Yep Hollywood does use such technique. In one of the King Kong Production Diaries it can be clearly seen how they have set up the camera monitor. The footage is shot in 4:3 and they have a widescreen guideframe on the display. They will then probably cut out that part from the full frame for cinema use.

This is getting to be a long thread. The question that started this thread was basically asking if a VX2100 was "the best" 3 CCD camera for shooting 16:9.

The short answer is a clear no.

The VX2100 is a camera with many excellent attributes and can shoot great images, but it is really a 4:3 camera. There are quite a few consumer cameras I would choose first, for shooting 16:9. Some of those megapixel consumer cameras have the pixel count needed, even when cropped on a 4:3 CCD, to resolve a 480 line image, wheras, the VX2100 simply does not.

Oooh yeah this is going to be a long thread ;)

And it depends whether you need 16:9 or not. I would say that despite the pushing of 16:9, for several uses 4:3 is even better (top and bottom is needed more than the sides). For example several sports like ski jumping where they bring the person very large over the screen.

Georg -

I was saying that for 16:9, there are consumer cameras I would choose first.

I sure can't imagine any consumer camera being something anyone would choose for 4:3 shooting, over a VX2100 (unless you couldn't carry it where you needed to get it or something like that maybe).

But can anyone please answer whether it would be professional to use the letterboxing with my projects? Meaning that I film and edit in 4:3, then add the bars in post.

I guess that would depend on the client/target audience. If they'd be viewing on a 16:9 display, that could look a little cheesy, I would think. If you know for sure they'll be viewing on 4:3 SD displays, it will look fine.

Using VX2000 for a 16:9 film job
 

I have a customer who has hired me to shoot underwater footage with my PAL Sony VX2000 for a 16:9 job that will be transferred to film.

The VX2000 will not do 16:9 natively and an anamorphic lens is not an option so I reckon the options we have for achieving 16:9 are as follows:

1. Shoot 4:3 (576 lines) and crop in post production. This gives the flexibility to move the cropped area up or down for fine tuning of the composition. In this case I could mask the top and bottom of the underwater housing's monitor so I know I am composing shots correctly for a 16:9 result. Result is 432 lines of resolution.

2. Shoot 4:3 and reduce the aspect ratio ("squeeze" the height). Result is 576 lines of resolution.

3. A combination of 1 & 2. Some cropping, some "squeezing". Result is somewhere between 432 and 576 lines of resolution.

4. Shoot with the camera in 16:9 mode. This "letterboxes" the 4:3 image and gives 432 lines of resolution. One drawback is that the image on my monitor would be stretched vertically to 4:3 so it is not so easy for me to compose shots, but I can still work this way.

5. Tape the lens frame to mask the captured image. This is what the customer has suggested but would be difficult to do accurately. Result is 432 lines of resolution.

Can I ask you guys, are these options correct and which would you recommend? On previous 16:9 jobs I've just shot in regular 4:3 mode and I think the customer has just squashed the height (option2), but they may have cropped too.

Nick

You talk of 576 lines Nick, so I guess you're shooting PAL. This is a good start if you plan to finish with a 432 line 16:9 image, and I'd say this - go test out your various options, it really is the only way.

However, I like shooting 16:9 on my VX2k in the 16:9 mode - that way my v'finders both show the correct aspect ratio and I find framing much easier than viewing a vertically stretched image as on a XM2, say. But it sounds as if in your case shooting in 16:9 actually gives you a distorted monitor image - not good.

Shooting 4:3 is probably your safest bet. That way you can still produce 4:3 DVDs as well as mask within the frame in post. Have you checked to see if this post production reduces your picture quality?

Your last paragraph has me confused. It sounds as if the customer has accepted a distorted image just to have it in 16:9. Amazing. But then underwater things are a bit unusual anyway, so some one-sided compression might not go unnoticed by your average land-lubber.

tom.

On my VX2K, if I want to shoot for cropped 16:9, I add a mask from a file on the chip, and use MEMORY MIX to pull it up from the chip.

I like it because the mask shows up on screen, and on the monitor. I believe using that method, you get a better overall picture.

Thanks for the replies guys.

This sounds like my best option. How do I get hold of or create a suitable mask? Would it just be a JPEG of a pair of black bands (top and bottom) created in Photoshop or similar? What dimensions do I need (for PAL)?

Nick

16:9 Mask
 

Nick:

If you haven't done one yet, I have a file posted here:

http://www.makeyourfilm.net/downloads/DSC00027.jpg