Short Film 24pa squeeze mode or 4x3

S

skrott

Well-known member
ok i want your honest opinion here. shooting a short for the festival scene in 24pa but should I shoot in squeeze mode or regular 4x3 mode and add bars in post?
I shot some test in squeeze and I still had the bars on my wide screen TV as well as my 4x3 big screen, so it seems why not shoot in 4x3 ?

please love to hear pro and con
 
skrott said:
ok i want your honest opinion here. shooting a short for the festival scene in 24pa but should I shoot in squeeze mode or regular 4x3 mode and add bars in post?
I shot some test in squeeze and I still had the bars on my wide screen TV as well as my 4x3 big screen, so it seems why not shoot in 4x3 ?

please love to hear pro and con
Click to expand...

If it was me personally (and im not a pro) i would shoot in 24PA squeeze mode and then render it as a 16x9 dvd. Or, if your not comfortable with the 16x9, shoot in LETTERBOX that way you dont even have to add bars to 4x3 in post, because thats esentially doing it for you prior.
 
If the choice is between squeeze or letterboxing in post. I would shoot squeeze. Squeeze mode is quite good when shooting 24P on the DVX. You'll have your widescreen version, and when scaled down in your editor you'll have your 4x3 with letterbox. Make sure you set line detail to thin.

You shouldn't have had bars on your squeeze footage when viewed on widescreen tv...but that's for another day.
 
what? guys guys, dont shoot squeeze mode, just shoot 4x3 and then letterbox it aftewards, for the resolution that is visible, it should be more clear. set it to thin.
 
I recommend you shoot 4:3 and protect 16:9. That is shoot normal but keep you prime content in the middle 1/3rd of the screen so you can add letter box in post. This provides a 4:3 or 16:9 option. If you are not comfortable with the estimated framing then shoot letter boxed.

Letter boxed or squeeze mode footage on the DVX looses vertical resolution creating an image of 720 x 372 as opposed to the standard 720 x 480. But squeeze mode electronically stretches the image to make it 480 pixels.

If you plan for distribution on average tv's then either squeeze or letterbox is probably OK. If you are planning for larger screens (projector or large plasma's) then I would definitely go Letter box or shoot standard and letter box in post. If a film out is possible then squeeze is out and I would seriously consider using the anamorphic adapter.

If you letterbox you have to uprez the video to fill the 16:9 screen without black bars. Here is a process that works well for me and others.

http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showpost.php?p=93579&postcount=1

S Cannon
 
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scannon, since you know what your talking about with the whole post letter boxing thing, how do you create a scope letterbox during post. (so lets say shoot in 4:3 or 16x9 then apply a scope letter box in post) i made a topic about that, but no one replied. perhaps you can help. (not trying to go off topic here, but you appear to have awnsered his question)
 
DOOOOONNNNN"TTTTTTT SHOOOOTTTTT SUEEEZZZZEE!!!!!!!

(only reason ever to use it is if your post production time and your computer power is EXTREMELY limited IMHO)

First lets deal with teh letterbox on your squeeze footage.

Actually first ... read the manual :)

If you have letterbox on your squeeze shots on your 16X9 monitor something isn't calibrated correctly or you've exported your video wrong. If you are playing directlly from your DVX or a computer to a widescreen, then you MAY have to let your monitor know that you its suppoosed to be interpreting widescreen footage and which aspect ratio.


If you are playing from a DVD then one of three things is wrong.
1) you didn't encode or tag your video correctly
2) you didn't encode the DVD correctly
3) your DVD PLAYER doesn't know what type of TV you have (you have to tell it in its menu then it will interepret every DVD you put in to play correctly on your monitor.)

Now ... why not to use SQUEEZE
1) You take a slight resolution loss using squeeze vs. Letterbox 300 lines vs. 330, prbably not noticable but there none the less.
2) unless you use a widescreen monitor in the field and now how to set it up or you have a 100B, then framing will be harder.
HERE's THE MAIN REASONS
3) if you wait and letter box in post then you can slide the image up and down behind the letter bars and reframe in post -- why would you want to loose that, the ability to alsways have perfect headroom and perfectly framed closeups especially since the resolution is still higher
4) If you don't want letterbox and want a true 16X9 dvd, then just blow up your 4:3 video to 16X9 on a 16X9 timeline -- this is what squeeze basically does, BUT your NLE has a cleaner starting point to blow up the footage AND the end result is slightly - very slighly - slightly higher resolution AND you can still reframe by sliding the image up and down.

So hook your camera up to your NLE as a monitor and turn letterbox on some footage in the time line -- you now have a reference point for where your 16X9 frame will be within the 4:3 frame. Next tape gaff tape and cover up only the 16X9 bars on your LCD screen Now you can frame for 16X9 even though you are shooting 4:3 and then again correct any framing errors in post.

Also you can buy screen laminates -- little plastic clear screens with different aspect ratios painted out or drawn in with lines.

But you really need to read the manual and educate yourself as to the pros, cons, and differences of 4:3, 4:3 letterbox, Squeeze, and the anamorphic adatpor :thumbsup:
 
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t-h-e-w-h-o said:
scannon, since you know what your talking about with the whole post letter boxing thing, how do you create a scope letterbox during post. (so lets say shoot in 4:3 or 16x9 then apply a scope letter box in post) i made a topic about that, but no one replied. perhaps you can help. (not trying to go off topic here, but you appear to have awnsered his question)
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Thanks for the compliment but like many in this forum I have benefited from the vast knowledge of this group and I am simply passing on what was shared with me.

I assume you are referring to a 2.55 to 1 ratio of cinemascope? This is like letterboxing 16:9 since no television exists in this aspect ratio.

You could do this by shooting with an anamorphic adapter in letterbox mode or shoot anamorphic and add the bars in post.

Remember that the DVX uses native 4:3 chips. Anything you do to alter that aspect ratio alters the native pixel resolution and detail of the image.

The uprezzing technique using Photozoom Pro works well for converting 4:3 to 16:9 with good detail. Converting to the scope letter box could be accomplished by re-letterboxing the uprezzed 16:9 in post. As I said before this aspect is not native to any TV display.

To make this work though you will really have to control the framing of your shots!

S Cannon
 
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Everyone here ROCKS thanks for your help as always, I am still blessed that I found this site....
 
HVX200 too?

HVX200 too?

Interesting discussion. I'm curious... does this discussion hold true for the HVX200 as well? I have that camera, but I am about to shoot a project on 24P mini-DV and have been wondering about the same thing: squeeze vs. widescreen.

So does this discussion hold true for the 200? Or is it an entirely different beast?
 
scannon said:
Thanks for the compliment but like many in this forum I have benefited from the vast knowledge of this group and I am simply passing on what was shared with me.

I assume you are referring to a 2.55 to 1 ratio of cinemascope? This is like letterboxing 16:9 since no television exists in this aspect ratio.

You could do this by shooting with an anamorphic adapter in letterbox mode or shoot anamorphic and add the bars in post.

Remember that the DVX uses native 4:3 chips. Anything you do to alter that aspect ratio alters the native pixel resolution and detail of the image.

The uprezzing technique using Photozoom Pro works well for converting 4:3 to 16:9 with good detail. Converting to the scope letter box could be accomplished by re-letterboxing the uprezzed 16:9 in post. As I said before this aspect is not native to any TV display.

To make this work though you will really have to control the framing of your shots!

S Cannon
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Thanks for adressing my issue, i apreciate it. I guess i just need to learn HOW to add a "cinemascope" letterbox to 4:3 footage IN post. I use adobe premier 2.0 and im not sure how to acomplish that. Perhaps theres a tutorial or another post that explains. Thanks for your time scannon (and others)
 
there's no such thing as squeeze on the HVX because it shoots native full resolution 16X9

With the HVX you get full 500 line resolution 16X9 just like with the XL2 but you get the DVX mojo, plus the abaility to shoot dvc pro 50 which has a nicer color space than HD and HD

But in general, people should read the users manual page 120 in the version that I have, chapter heading "Anamorphic Adaptor Guide". I can see why people might skip it if they don't have the anamorphic adaptor but it actually explains the difference between 4:3, Squeeze, The Anamoprhic adaptor.
 
Jack, that's what I thought. But it's momentarily confusing because the aspect ratio options on the HVX are "4:3", "widescreen" and "squeeze". (At least this is the case when shooting on mini-DV.) This "squeeze" is certainly the native 16:9, but they don't call it that.
 
The HVX shoots native 16:9 so you don't have to do anything for 16:9 display. If you want to use a 2.35 or 2.55 to 1 aspect then you will have to letterbox the 16:9 footage. The problem with doing this is if you intend to show this on 16:9 LCD's or plasma TV's not all default to a black screens. Some are white, some are gray so any area not filled with video is surrounded by these colors not black like a computer monitor or CRT TV's. Very annoying.

S Cannon
 
scannon said:
The HVX shoots native 16:9 so you don't have to do anything for 16:9 display. If you want to use a 2.35 or 2.55 to 1 aspect then you will have to letterbox the 16:9 footage. The problem with doing this is if you intend to show this on 16:9 LCD's or plasma TV's not all default to a black screens. Some are white, some are gray so any area not filled with video is surrounded by these colors not black like a computer monitor or CRT TV's. Very annoying.

S Cannon
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???????
wow that's confusing.
when you show 16X9 on a 4:3 monitor then it's letterboxed -- but the letterboxing doesn't exist -- its a void so it could default to whatever your TV or maybe DVD is set to in terms of color of teh bars -- dunno

But when you shoot 16X9 and letterbox to 2.35:1 the black bars DO EXIST in the 16X9 frame -- so tehy are really there and they will always be black.

This is the way any cinescope DVD Gladiator or Starwars or Whatever gets 2.35:1.

Now if you play that on a 4:3 monitor then you might have a situatione where your REAL black bars which get you your 2.35:1 frame within your 16X9 frame have some other color on the outside of the 16X9 frame so you might have - image, bar of black on the top and bottom, and then bars of a diffrerent color black, or something else outside those bars.

But 16X9 footage on a 16X9 MONITOR WILL HAVE NO BLACK BARS IF YOU HAVE YOUR DVD PLAYER / MONITOR SET UP RIGHT EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER
 
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t-h-e-w-h-o said:
so how can you add a BLACK scope letterbox in 2.35:1 in post production?
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depends on your nle.

in FCP on a 16X9 timeline or a 4:3 timeline you just just select teh 2.35:1 letterbox matte.

I like to use the matte as a guide and then pull a slug bar (a solid black) over the whole image a line above it in the NLE then use a matte tool to cut the center out to the 2.35:1 aspect ratio and then remove the 2.35:1 filter on the clip below.

If you just use the filter and have a blur or flash desolve then it will blur or dissolve the black bars too because the transition is applied last over all the filters.

alternately you can just use the lettrebox filter until its a problem with a transition and then use the slug/black bars above that.
 
If you are using Vegas you should just be able to crop it down to a 2.35:1 aspect ratio. Very easy to do. There are defaults for 16x9 and you can create any other aspect ratio imaginable.

Also, someone mentioned the laminate overlays that will show you the correct aspect ratios on your LCD screen on the camera. They can be found here.
 
Jack you just confused the whole issue with the double talk:(

Play 4:3 video ona 16:9 tv and the pillars on the left and right will show in whatever the native pixel color is on the display because the video does not fill the display. Some plasma's have gray pixels others have a whiteish cast, believe me it isn't always black when a video signal doesn't fill the display. Unless you use the sqeeze feature on the plasma display to stretch the video or use the zoom feature to scale the video (lopping off top and bottom pixels) your picture just covers the center of the 16:9 display.

If your bring 4:3 into a widescreen template in an editing program and matte it then you are outputing full 16:9 with a matte (black or other color) and you guarantee what will be displayed on any set. Which is I quess what you meant. The same would be true if you letter box downn to 2.35 to 1. As long as you did this in a 16:9 template you could letter box to 2.35 to 1 with black bars as a matte.

If you outputing for web then this is moot.

S Cannon
 
I'd personally always shoot in 4x3, as you've got room to move up/down if you need to reframe for widescreen. Also, if you do want 4:3, you've got it.

I would NEVER EVER shoot cropped in camera with the bars ... once they're there, you're stuck with them forever.
 
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