Ok so I've been reaserching over and over all over the net trying to find out some info on aspect ratio conversions and well everybody says diffrent things!!! So I figure I can ask this forum for some help since people here really know what there talking about.

I have a xl1s canon cam and I want to have my final product in 16:9. However, even though my camera shoots in 16:9 aspect ratio most seem to say I'm better off shooting in 4:3 (even in the burns and sawyer video on the xl1s!!) and later converting it because of the fact that its just an animorphic stretch and not true 16:9 widescreen.

So if anybody knows the "true way" to converting a 4:3 and make the final video 16:9 please help me and post a reply...

Thanks...

the true way would be cropping it out, so you add black borders to the top and bottom, i'd imagine.

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Hi,

Ive been usig the xl1 16:9 mode and actully found it not to be too bad however there is a slight loss in quality because pixels are being streatched. The only other way I know to convert is what the BBC do which is crop or resize the image so its slightly streatched but not as much as the xl1 does. This way you get 16:9 with less quality lost and only abit of black at the sides that you would only notice if you had an underscan monitor.

Hope this helps you

Nick

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Someone please correct me if I'm wrong but this is back to front isn't it?

If you shoot 4:3 you will have to crop top and bottom off to get a 16:9 product. When played back on a 16:9 TV you will then have to zoom the result to fit the screen, losing quality.

Surely you should be shooting 16:9 and then crop the left and right if you ever want/need a 4:3 variation. That way you lose no quality - just the loss of the edges of your shoot.

Personally, I always shoot 16:9. When I master a DVD the owner can then modify their preferences ont heir set top box to play it as they wish. Either play as an 'enhanced' 16:9 disk, set to pan and scan (letting the DVD player crop off the left and right portions to fit 4:3 screen, or set to letterbox mode (and have black borders top and bottom for the widescreen presentation).

I've never found a reason yet to deviate from this personal standard.

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Thanks!!!
I croped it out and played it back on a tv....looks great! More like film feel and nice picture without pixel stretch which is what i was looking for!

:lol:

Alan Mills,

Hey I don't think your wrong at all, however I just wanted to have a 16:9 look on a standard tv, since not many people around me have widescreen capability on their tv's. When played on a 16:9 tv though I will definetely have a 16:9 copy of my same movie. Just trying to get the film look for now. But if there is any other idea's out there for making this possible for a better quality outcome share the knowledge we all need to know various ways to get things done in this industry! :lol:

i thought exactly what Alan Mills said.

But I think I get what you mean now.
You want 16:9 but to be played on 4:3 normal tv's.

You can render the 16:9 in tmpeg so on 16:9 it auto letterbox's
no need to crop and stuff.

Why do all this fancy encoding to achieve this result, only to have to do a different type of encoding to watch on a widescreen TV?

Just build a standard widescreen DVD and let the DVD player letterbox it, just as you have it do to those DVDs you buy in the shops. This should be no different. That way you don't have two master disks depending on what type of TV you have.

I've not found a DVD player yet that won't autmagically 'letterbox' a widescreen production for display on a 4:3 screen. Save youself soem work and let the h/w do it.

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Playstations 2 have a hard time with it. But that's all.

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As far as I know, PS2s don't natively play DVD Rs anyway.

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