16 x 9 anamorphic questions??

Via a few earlier posts, I had a few more questions about this topic.


#1- If you shoot in 16 x 9 (with a camera using 16 x 9 chips), which capture codec do you choose? DV 720 x 480 or DV anamorphic?

#2- why?

#3- Unclear about the definition of 16 x 9 anamorphic. My only clear understanding is the following:
If I shoot widescreen mode using a 4 x 3 camera (Canon GL-2), the image is vertically squeezed in the viewfinder. This is the 16 x 9 image shoved into a 4 x 3 frame. I think this is clear. I capture this footage with the DV anamorphic codec.
What's not clear is why or why not do you choose one or the other codec's in question #1 if your NOT shooting with a 4 x 3 camera.

The distribution is SD-DVD.

FC Suite 5.1.2
DVDSP 4
Canon A1 HDV and SD 16 x 9 capable camera.

thx to all for the patience.
dm

Hi DM -

There are many pros and cons. Depends upon the client, application, final output, longevity, etc. A quick google search for "16:9 vs 4:3" pulled numerous hits, including an excellent article by Adam Wilt.

[www.adamwilt.com]

paul

#1- If you shoot in 16 x 9 (with a camera using 16 x 9 chips), which capture codec do you choose? DV 720 x 480 or DV anamorphic?

DV anamorphic.
but that's not exactly the CODEC, it;s the capture setting.
DV is the CODEC,
the anamorphic part is just in the capture settings, and sequnce settings


#2- why?

when you do this, the clips are "flagged" as anamorphic.
they will behave in the right way, and "un-stretch" themselves, when cut into an anamorphic sequence.
this is only an FCP thing. if you open the clip in QuickTime, it will still be squeezed

you dont HAVE to use the anamorphic capture setting.
if you dont you can still tag teh clips as anamorphic in FCP,
but you ;d have to do it every time you re-imported the clips.
using the anamorphic capture setting saves time, and unnecessary work


#3- Unclear about the definition of 16 x 9 anamorphic. My only clear understanding is the following:
If I shoot widescreen mode using a 4 x 3 camera (Canon GL-2), the image is vertically squeezed in the viewfinder. This is the 16 x 9 image shoved into a 4 x 3 frame. I think this is clear. I capture this footage with the DV anamorphic codec.
What's not clear is why or why not do you choose one or the other codec's in question #1 if your NOT shooting with a 4 x 3 camera.

ANAMORPHIC refers to the process of squishing the picture up in shooting, and stretching it out afterwards.
this is one popular way to get a widescreen image.
if you have another way of getting a widescreen image, like just shooting on wider film,
or shooting on a wide tape format like HD, than that;s not anamorphic


if you shoot anamorphic, or more precisely, capturing from an anamorphic tape source,
then use the anamorphic capture and sequence settings in FCP


hope that helps,
nick

#1- If you shoot in 16 x 9 (with a camera using 16 x 9 chips), which capture codec do you choose? DV 720 x 480 or DV anamorphic?

-It does not matter. Widescreen and 4:3 are exactly the same size, they are just viewed/interpreted differently. You can capture 4:3 and then just flag it as 16:9 later.


#3- Unclear about the definition of 16 x 9 anamorphic. My only clear understanding is the following:
If I shoot widescreen mode using a 4 x 3 camera (Canon GL-2), the image is vertically squeezed in the viewfinder. This is the 16 x 9 image shoved into a 4 x 3 frame. I think this is clear. I capture this footage with the DV anamorphic codec.
What's not clear is why or why not do you choose one or the other codec's in question #1 if your NOT shooting with a 4 x 3 camera.

-I think you may have misunderstood this. Some older style 4:3 cameras dont squeeze the image, they crop top and bottom, thus making the image smaller. This is not poper widescreen. Proper DV widescreen is when you shoot PAL(or NTSC) but with a lens that disorts the image by 142% horizontally. If you open this file as 4:3 in Final cut it looks squeezed. When you flag it as 16:9 and display it as widescreen it looks normal. Again, the 4:3 image and the widescreen image is exactly the same in size.

In case you still dont get it look at it like this:
A PAL frame is 720 by 575 when interpreted as square pixels.
PAL DV stretches the image 7% horizontally making it look like it is 768 by 576
PAL DV Widescreen stretches the image 142% making it appear as it is 1024 by 576.

Johan Polhem
Motion Graphics
www.johanpolhem.com

I'm fairly knowledgable with things but, I've just got some mental block going here.
As I stated above, I can understand "making" a 16 x 9 picture fit into a 4 x 3 frame by squeezing in the sides. That's what I would call anamorphic.

However, I've got what I think is a rectangular chip set already (16 x 9). Isn't 16 x 9 equal to 720 pixels wide divided by 1:77= 407 pixels high?
And I thought the square vs non-square pixels types dealt with graphic images vs video? Not, 4 x 3 vs 16 x 9.

The viewfinder on my camera is rectangular. It shows a full 16 x 9 image when I set the camera to the same and a "pillarbox" image for 4 x 3.
This is why the question. Seems to me that anamorphic only applies to a wide screen image captured on a 4 x 3 chip.
AAAAHHHHH!!!!!!!!

"s I stated above, I can understand "making" a 16 x 9 picture fit into a 4 x 3 frame by squeezing in the sides. That's what I would call anamorphic."

and you;d be right

"However, I've got what I think is a rectangular chip set already (16 x 9)"

so the chip set films a 16/9 area,
and it gets squished onto the 4/3 area of the PAL or NTSC format.

Close. Anamorphic, in this case, applies to a 16x9 image(your camera's chip) rendered into a 4x3 format like NTSC(your camera's recording format).

The part you're missing is that the format you are recording is probably 4x3. If it's NTSC (Any of the Beta formats, DV, DVCAM and variants) the final frame is 4x3. Your camera has a 16x9 chip so it has to do one of two things to get in onto a 4x3 frame. Letterbox or anamorphically distort it.
Basically, unless you are shooting HD or any of the near-HD non-tape formats you are recording a 4x3 image onto the tape (or disk in the case of XDCAM) Whether your camera gets to 4x3 from a 4x3 chip or 16x9 chip the result is the same, a 4x3 image.

Widescreen is just a generic term for a group of aspect ratios that aren't 4x3. i.e. 16x9, 1.85, 2.35, Tohovision etc. It says nothing about the resolution of the images or the quality of the images, just the shape. No matter what the camera store guy said.

ak
Sleeplings, AWAKE!

Ok, now it's making sense. I was stuck on the idea of the wide image without remembering that NTSC is 4 x 3. It's embarrassing because I know all of what your saying and deal with these issues all of the time. The subtle understanding of wide still being in a 4 x 3 frame was escaping me.
My GL-2 (4 x 3 camera), in a way, is really showing me what's happening by showing the squeeze in the viewfinder. My A1 camera, (16 x 9) doesn't produce the squeeze in the finder so I didn't really realize that it's still happening.

Thanks to all for your support.
We'll now observe a moment of silence.

16:9 Full height anamorphic? When 16:9 is squeezed vertically..I believe the pixel shape changes..in my country I have to deliver alot of stuff like this. Then it is broadcast at 16:9 via an aspect ratio corrector. Apparently it provides better picture quality.

[www.lafcpug.org]

thx for the link

dm

Hi guys,

Im having a strange problem that I havent encountered before. When I simulate my project in dvd studio pro 4 the aspect ratio is fine. However when I burn the project to DVD the titles (they are in th safe zone) are cut off. I have made sure all my menus and assets are set to 16:9 letter box and I have tried the disc on a number of tv's and different DVD players. If anyone can think of anything else to try please let me know.
Thanks

Hi Everyone,

If I am capturing 24p footage (on a DVX-100B) that was squeezed into 16:9 anamorphic during filming, then which settings do I need to capture the footage in to get the actual 24p effect? I switched from the advanced pulldown removal because some of the footage pixelated. Now I tried the Dv NTSC anamorphic mode but I'm wondering if that means I'm not getting the 24p effect since it doens't offer pulldown removal.

Thanks.

Josh, I would re-post this as a new topic. I don't work in 24p at all. I can't help with this question.

dm

> Now I tried the Dv NTSC anamorphic mode but I'm wondering if that means I'm not getting
> the 24p effect since it doens't offer pulldown removal.

24p means that the camera shoots at 23.98fps, but adds 2:3 pulldown (not advanced pulldown) to write to tape since NTSC tape only runs at 29.97fps.

It is not absolutely necessary to remove 2:3 pulldown. Capturing and editing at 29.97fps would be akin to shooting film and then doing a telecine to add pulldown to the 29.97fps videotape copies. The "film flicker" is already there, and your clips will be running at 29.97fps.

If you intend to have an SD tape master (DigiBeta, DV) of the show, leave it at 29.97fps. You can go to tape or any other format with that. If you're only doing DVDs and delivery to the web, then you have the option of doing a reverse telecine to remove the 2:3 pulldown and get 23.98fps.


www.derekmok.com