Settings?

[Jbadham77]

Hey all,

I will soon be Purchasing a "Panasonic AG DVX100A" camera.
I was wondering, could someone tell me the best settings for the best picture and sound quality? [Widescreen]

Picture:
http://www.wamp.ca/images/AG-DVX100A.gif



Thanks,

Josh

[andy_starbuck]

As for the best sound quality, you will want to record in 48k rather than 32k mode.

With respect to the best picture quality, that depends on what is aesthetically pleasing to you -- what look you prefer.

You choices for widescreen are: a) shoot in 4:3 and crop in post to letterbox. b) shoot in letterbox in the camera. c) Shoot in squeeze mode.

If you are planning to create an anamorphic 16:9 DVD, then squeeze mode is the best way to go.

If you are planning to create a 4:3 DVD letterboxed to 16:9, then the benefits of shooting in letterbox are that you can see what you will be getting, and its quicker in post. The benefits to shooting in 4:3 and cropping it in your editor is that you have some flexiblity to vertically re-frame shots (depending on the editor program) if you didn't get a shot framed the way you wanted.

Squeeze mode in the DVX crops off the top and bottom of the image and then digitally stretches it in the camera. The pixels are then "anamorphic" and have to be stretched horizontally in post to create a widescreen image. This is great for an anamorphic DVD that will fill a widescreen TV. However, for letterbox, its not that great. Because the image gets digitally squeezed in the camera, digitally stretched in the editor, and then you have to squeeze it down again to fit 4:3 letterbox. All that stretching and squeezing isn't great for image quality.

There are a ton of other settings on the DVX. To learn about those you really need to get Barry's DVX book and the DVD and read about the settings and watch the examples on the DVD.

at your service

Andy