Comments

plasmavideo wrote on 4/17/2009, 11:28 AM
Don't. They were recorded as 4:3. Use them in their native aspect ratio by using black pillars on the side. Anything else is just a distortion of the picture.

You can set up a project with the wide aspect dimensions, and drop your footage in and do'nt change the footage aspect ratio. That will put black pillars on the side. I don't think you have to apply any track or event fiddling to accomplish this (not at the editor right now)

Check out this thread for some other thoughts.

http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/forums/ShowMessage.asp?ForumID=4&MessageID=644324
Stringer wrote on 4/17/2009, 1:13 PM
If you don't care the way it looks - just set the project properties to 16:9 - then, when you render to DVD - select the " Strech Video to Fill output frame size " check box ..


Edit: Ooops ... Found out this doesn't work .....

I'll get back with something more definitive if I figure it out..

Bottom line - your final product will either be cropped or strectched - you can accomplish the same thing by using the ' display mode ' function on your HDTV ...
CLWaldroff wrote on 4/18/2009, 11:41 AM
I've been playing around with the project properties, cropping, etc and I think I may have it. Basically I'm just trying to crop the top and bottom so when you zoom in on a widescreen tv it will fit the entire screen without looking stretched.

plasmavideo: I realize the quality will suffer, but there are ways of doing this so it won't look too stretched or horrible. I'm just trying to find out the best way to do it, whether it's zooming in the editing process or zooming with the tv options.

Here's another question . . . I have several movies on DVD where they say "widescreen" version, but some have the black bars top/bottom and some just automatically fill the screen with no zooming. Obviously the resolutions are different, but anyone have any thoughts on how this is accomplished.

Is there a way to make a DVD (not blueray) that automatically fits a 16:9 aspect ratio without zooming with your tv controls?
Stringer wrote on 4/19/2009, 2:40 PM
" Here's another question . . . I have several movies on DVD where they say "widescreen" version, but some have the black bars top/bottom and some just automatically fill the screen with no zooming. Obviously the resolutions are different, but anyone have any thoughts on how this is accomplished. "

The ones that fill the screen are truly 16:9 (a resolution that scales to 1920 x 1080 - if your TV is 1080p - or 1366 x 768 if 720p )


" Is there a way to make a DVD (not blueray) that automatically fits a 16:9 aspect ratio without zooming with your tv controls? "


Not without cropping and stretching, because DVD is 720 x 480 - which has an aspect ratio of 3:2 ...
owlsroost wrote on 4/20/2009, 12:29 AM
AFIAK, the DVD spec only allows for 4:3 and 16:9 aspect ratios - movie material with wider AR e.g. 2.35:1 is handled by letterboxing to 16:9 when it's encoded.

Most DVD material is encoded as 720 x 480 (NTSC) or 720 x 576(PAL) for both 4:3 and 16:9 - the 16:9 material is sqeezed horizontally to fit into 720 pixels and flagged as 16:9 when encoded, and then expanded by the player back to the original aspect ratio.

If the DVD player has been set up correctly so it knows the aspect ratio of the TV, it will automatically adapt the display of 4:3 and 16:9 material according to the user's preferences - this is how it's meant to work.

Tony

(720 x 480 isn't an aspect ratio - it's a frame size, aspect ratio is defined separately as 4:3, 16:9 etc and carried as extra information in the video stream e.g DV, MPEG)
fausseplanete wrote on 4/20/2009, 3:06 AM
Anyone have practical experience of rez-enhancement software such as the one discussed at www.sonycreativesoftware.com/forums/ShowMessage.asp?MessageID=647394&Replies=2
? There are two or three apps like this knocking around.

Having no experience, I imagine the extra resolution might tend to come and go with variations in camera movement etc. This (possibly unfounded) prospect worries me - sometimes consistency is better than variable quality. Is this kind of technique something one can whack a whole SD product (e.g. movie) through to elevate it to HDV-ish resolution without thinking about it or (as I suspect) only really useful (useful nonetheless) for strategically selected inserts of SD-source footage at points within a mostly HD-source project?
Stringer wrote on 4/21/2009, 6:16 AM
Tony:
"(720 x 480 isn't an aspect ratio - it's a frame size, aspect ratio is defined separately as 4:3, 16:9 etc and carried as extra information in the video stream e.g DV, MPEG)"
_______________________

The ratios 4:3 and 16:9 define the relationship between the horizontal and vertical resolution of the frame ..

I didn't say 720 x 480 was an aspect ratio - I said it has a ratio of 3:2 - which must be scaled to 4:3 or 16:9 to be displayed on an HD panel -- In either case you will have to deal with cropping - black bars - or distortion ..

To fill up a 16:9 display without cropping - black bars - or distortion - you have to start with a source that is 16:9 - which was what the OP was asking ...
owlsroost wrote on 4/21/2009, 4:35 PM
The ratios 4:3 and 16:9 define the relationship between the horizontal and vertical resolution of the frame ..

No they don't - they define the shape of the frame - the ratio of the horizontal and vertical dimensions when it's displayed

How the frame is sub-divided into pixels - which defines the resolution - is a separate, independant issue and quite often results in non-square pixels (e.g. DV & DVD use non-square pixels for both 4:3 and 16:9).

Tony
CLWaldroff wrote on 4/21/2009, 8:16 PM
I've been working for the past 6 hours recording and testing and I figured out a few things, but still have a couple of questions . . .

Converting 4:3 > 16:9
Yes, it will require you to use your TV controls to zoom in on the image but you can make it fill the screen properly without stretching or squeezing, although the image quality suffers when zoomed in.
For those of you who want to know . . . crop the video by right clicking on the clip, then select "event pan/crop", lock the center by clicking on "size about center", bring the height down from 480 to 400, then when rendering select a normal DV NTSC 720x480 template and select 16:9 as the aspect ratio instead of 4:3. Note: if you start the project in NTSC DV (720x480) then select "maintain aspect ratio" for the clip properties. If you start with NTSC DV Widescreen (720x480) then deselect "maintain aspect ratio".

One more thing I learned . . . my blueray player handles ratios differently than my DVD player. The blueray won't increase a normal 4:3 video to fill the screen, but my DVD player will with different zoom options on a widescreen tv. Hmmm.

I also tested out recording the same shots in several different lighting conditions using my XHA1 with HD16:9 (1440x1080, 1.3333), SD16:9 (720x480, 1.2121), and SD4:3. Then converted them all to 720x480 using SD and WS rendering (with the SD4x3 footage I used the crop method as above) . . . . interesting thing is I saw no difference between the HD16:9 and SD16:9 clips, but of course they were both rendered down to 8bps. The SD4x3 footage croped and zoomed looked like crap compared to the HD16:9 and SD16:9 clips, but that's to be expected.