DVCAM Squeezed

I just transfered some older films and videos from Beta SP and 3/4 SP (remember those?) to DVCAM at a production house in NYC. When I play them back on a Sony DSR 25 to capture, they looked squeezed, like 16:9, on the LCD monitors on the deck and my editing station after capture but not squeezed on an NTSC CRT monitor. This doesn't happen with mini-dv tapes, which look and play back fine everywhere. I've gone back to the tape house and everything plays back fine there, even on the small screen of a similar non-sony deck. Activating "square pixels" on the viewer seems to partly correct the aspect ratio but it still looks slightly wider than regular dv. I've read some of the threads having to do with square pixels which may have something to do with my problem but it's not clear. My question is, does DVCAM looked squeezed when played back originally or is there something wrong with my deck, the tape transfer or my FCP settings, which are all D-NTSC (no settings for DVCAM on FCP5). Any thoughts?

Thank you,

alf

Can you post a still, so we can see?

I'll try.

Hi Jeff,

I two pics up on facebook, a snapshot of a 20 inch non standard ldc monitor and a still image from the captured file.

Thanks,

Alfredo

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2035181&id=1351209891&l=cc847d3c22

I mean a 20 inch standard (non-wide screen) monitor

Looks to me like it was captured wrong at an anamorphic 16:9 setting. Check the "Anamorphic" column of the clip in the Browser, make sure it's unchecked.


www.derekmok.com

Or get the clip settings by single clicking the clip in the browser and going to Edit > Item properties > Format. This will bring up a dialogue box. In the box find the 'anamorphic' row and click in the 'V1' column next to it to untick it, which should make your footage display correctly, with sidebars.

[www.lafcpug.org]



www.strypesinpost.com

Hi Guys,

OK, unchecking anamorphic does the trick, but I still cant' figure out why it's capturing as anamorphic to begin with. Capture and sequence settings are set to dv-ntsc, 48 khz, , device is firewire NTSC, Video Playback Apple Firewiere 720 x 480. When I digitize FCP is apparently seeing the signal as anamorphic when the tape house says its regular 4;3 NTSC. It plays that way on their systems. At this point I think that my deck (Sony DSR 25) is seeing the signal as anamorphic when it's not, but there are no settings on the deck that would affect that. So, I can now get it to look right. I'm wondering, Am I losing quality in this "fix".

Thanks for your help.

Alfredo

Your Capture Presets were probably altered without you knowing. Check. "DV NTSC 48kHz" is just the name of the preset; the contents within may not reflect the name. Don't just look at the name of the preset; double-click and go in to check.

> When I digitize FCP is apparently seeing the signal as anamorphic

There is no such thing as an "anamorphic signal", at least on DV. Both anamorphic 16:9 DV and regular DV are 720x480 pixels; an anamorphic 16:9 image simply stretches a wider image into that area so that it can be crunched back down to an image that's around 720x405 pixels, a widescreen image.

Read the FAQ link supplied by strypes above. It will help you.


www.derekmok.com

When I click on the DV NTSC 48Khz in the capture setting it shows its set to 720 x 480, NTSC (3:2) aspect ratio, with anamorphic not checked. When I capture, the anamorphic box is checked on the browser settings and I have to uncheck it. I read the 16:9 segment on strypes link. I know now it's not an anamorphic "signal" but again, the image is squezed on the dvcam deck BEFORE being captured. That's why at this point it's a deck issue or it was recorded as anamorphic.

Thanks,
Alfredo

> the image is squeezed on the dvcam deck BEFORE being captured.

Perhaps there's a display option on the deck. Check the switches and the menu. Most broadcast monitors I've seen, for example, has a "16:9" switch that's designed to show anamorphic footage properly. If such a switch is on but the footage isn't actually anamorphic, it would skew the image.

As for why the anamorphic flag is on, if you had the anamorphic option checked while logging, then checked it off afterwards, but then left "Use Logged Clip Settings" at the capture dialog box, then the clips will still capture with an anamorphic flag.


www.derekmok.com