Does HVX in DV mode match DVX?

[zorman]

I'm a dvxuser from Norway, and the hvx is not available until late march. I was hoping to get some advise from someone with handson experience with the hvx.

Say you have a shoot with three cameras, two dvx and one hvx.
If you shoot the hvx in DV mode, will it match the pictures shot with the dvx cameras?

Hope someone can help....

[polispol]

I think that if you use the SD NORM gamma setting, you can match the gamma curve with the dvx100, and also using the cine-like matrix.
I haven't tried by myself yet, but with this two conditions, and SD mode, the camera looks like a dvx.

[Barry_Green]

You'd have to take some effort to match them up, but yes they can be intercut pretty well.

[imgentertainment@mac]

Now I also have a question about this. Berry, when you shoot with the HVX it is 16x9 native right? So to match up the cameras what should you shoot on the DVX. Should you use letterbox, or squezz. or do you have to go with the anamorphic lense? or do you shot 4x3 and do it in post?

[Barry_Green]

You can do any of those.

The HVX can shoot 4:3 DV that matches up quite well with the DVX, and it can even do the "letterbox" mode.

Squeeze on the HVX will be notably higher resolution than Squeeze on the DVX though.

[dolph2000]

What could be a reason to shoot 4:3 letterbox HVX, when you can shoot 16:9.
(besides matching with 4:3 letterboxed dvx)

[c.g._eads]

And could someone very quickly explain 'squeeze' to me. Pros and cons over letterbox. "Squeeze" implies to me that something is being "squeezed" out of the image, which doesn't sound good.

[Barry_Green]

What could be a reason to shoot 4:3 letterbox HVX, when you can shoot 16:9.
(besides matching with 4:3 letterboxed dvx)
Well, letterbox is for when you're aiming for footage to be shown on a 4:3 display, but you want the letterboxed-movie look. If you shoot native 16:9 footage and put that on a 4:3 TV it'll just be squeezed.

If you're doing the post work, and delivering on DVD, then no question the native 16:9 mode of the HVX would be the preferable way to go. But if you're doing a TV commercial for broadcast in the US, and you want the 16:9 look, letterbox might actually be the right choice, because it's 4:3 (and all SD broadcasts in the US are 4:3) with the 16:9 look.

But if you edit your own stuff, definitely shoot native 16:9 (which on the HVX is called "squeeze").

[Barry_Green]

And could someone very quickly explain 'squeeze' to me. Pros and cons over letterbox. "Squeeze" implies to me that something is being "squeezed" out of the image, which doesn't sound good.
"Squeeze" on the HVX means "native 16:9". I think it was a poor choice of name, and it unnecessarily confuses the issues.

On the DVX100A and DVX100B, "squeeze" means an electronic stretch of the 4:3 image to make it become 16:9. So even then, "squeeze" is probably the wrong name, it should probably have been "stretch".

But on the HVX, "squeeze" means pure native widescreen 16:9.

[lyonfilms]

So is shooting on the HVX in "squeeze" (i.e., native 16:9) for broadcast television an absolute no-no? I was under the impression that would could still shoot in 16-9 but that the footage would be recognized by the broadcasters to so that when it went out to the viewer it would keep its proper aspect ratio and the black bars would appear on the screen? Am I way off base? Is it simple a rule-of-thumb that you always shoot 4:3 when intending broadcast?

[c.g._eads]

But why would someone shoot 'widescreen' over 'squeeze' or 'squeeze' over 'widescreen'? I mean it sounds like squeeze would be the obvious solution so why give another option?

[Barry_Green]

Because one is 4:3 video, and one is 16:9. There are two different television types, and each mode would be appropriate for one and not for the other.

US broadcasters don't deal with 16:9 at all. There are no 16:9 broadcasts. 16:9 is useful for DVDs, because DVDs do the aspect ratio conversion themselves. But if you master a project to 16:9, and you want to broadcast it (especially on a local channel) you'll have to un-squeeze it to 4:3 and then letterbox it anyway, because in the US all SD broadcasts are 4:3.

[dolph2000]

Well, letterbox is for when you're aiming for footage to be shown on a 4:3 display, but you want the letterboxed-movie look. If you shoot native 16:9 footage and put that on a 4:3 TV it'll just be squeezed.

If you're doing the post work, and delivering on DVD, then no question the native 16:9 mode of the HVX would be the preferable way to go. But if you're doing a TV commercial for broadcast in the US, and you want the 16:9 look, letterbox might actually be the right choice, because it's 4:3 (and all SD broadcasts in the US are 4:3) with the 16:9 look.

But if you edit your own stuff, definitely shoot native 16:9 (which on the HVX is called "squeeze").

But my reason to shoot 16:9 is a broader view. if I edit it (I make my own programs) and write it back to 4:3, there will be no problem, isn't it? I took advantage of shooting higher res with 16:9
Or do you say that a sqeezed 16:9 for 4:3 broadcast isnt that good?

[Jack_Felis]

You'll get bars on the top and bottom with squeezed and you won't with 4:3.

Full screen = 4:3

Wide Screen = 16:9

Your DVD's should show you the difference.

Why shoot 4:3 over 16:9? Well, for TV broadcast if you don't want the bars, shoot 4:3. If you do, shoot 16:9.

The DVX is 4:3 and fakes 16:9. To better match up to the DVX if you have an HVX, shoot 4:3. Or, if you want both in widescreen, shoot Squeeze mode on both cameras.

Barry's said this like 100 times now in this one thread alone! =)

[dolph2000]

This is not what I mean. I know what widescreen is. I film 16:9 for years. Only Barry says shoot 4:3 because broadcast stations broadcast only broadcast 4:3. I say I shoot 16:9 because of its advantage of a broader view and higher res. instead of 4:3 letterbox. And then then output in on 4:3 then you get automatically black bars, but real 16:9

[oxrs]

If it's going to dvd the dvd player will add black bars for you. If you intend to have it broadcast, chances are the broadcaster won't take it unless you put the black bars in yourself.

You're always better off starting with a higher res image but if you don't want to go to the trouble of adding black bars and all the work associated with that then you're better off starting with letterbox footage and editing that.

[Jack_Felis]

Oh, well in that case, dolph, 16:9 ideally shouldn't give you more resolution as the only thing you'd get is the extra framing space on the sides of the frame. But there are cases where the 16:9 resolves a tad more resolution, I've heard this about the XL2 and it's different shooting modes, due to the native 16:9 CCD's emulating 4:3, but I don't know if that's true for the HD/V cameras of today.

Got any insight on this Barry?