Procedure for uprezzing 4x3 letterbox to 16x9

so in all the time from when this thread started there isnt a simple plug-in that can do this?
 
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Can I just please clear something totally stupid up as I'm the kinda moron who likes to know he's 100% right in a situation.

The DVX shoots in 4x3 as we all know. To get to shoot in 16x9 you click the camera to letterbox mode and place some sticky tape over the LCD where the letterbox borders are, thereby forcing you to ignore some of the top and bottom of the image. You then click the camera back to normal mode, but use the tape to frame your image for the shorter frame.

This gives the 16x9 illusion because you now need to zoom out a bit to get your target in the same vertical frame as before, ensuring you are now therefore seeing more from the side also by proxy of zooming out.

Then using your NLE, for me it's Vegas, you open up a widescreen timeline, bring your clips onto the timeline and use the Crop feature to resize the image for a 16x9 video - ensuring the tops and bottoms of your 4x3 image are cut off, which is exactly what you want.

The reason why you do it this was is because you maintain the higher resolution of the 4x3 image but the image looks just like a 16x9 image in framing.

Yeah?

If so, being that you're trying to protect the quality of the image, is there a difference between shooting in progressive or interlaced modes with the resolution?
 
andrew00 said:
If so, being that you're trying to protect the quality of the image, is there a difference between shooting in progressive or interlaced modes with the resolution?
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Yep- progressive will give you about 2x the quality over interlaced. Interlaced does not have the full image like progressive does- it is the interlacing of two images, or frames to create one image, or frame. Progressive is one full frame at a time- yielding a higher res image.
 
I see. Hmm that leave me with a dilemma then, because I'm gonna be shooting a travel promo, lots of scenery plus a presenter etc. My first thought was to shoot interlaced because there would be movement, crowds etc, you'd want them in focus.

But I was also gonna do the above tape on lcd to 16x9 trick, plus am shooting scenery etc so for both would want a good resolution.

Which means progressive will get better footage, but interlaced might be better for the autofocus for crowds etc? What do you reckon you would do?
 
andrew00 said:
... you'd want them in focus ...but interlaced might be better for the autofocus for crowds etc?
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I take it that you have the DVX100, and not the 100a? You can have autofocus with the DVX100a when shooting in progressive, it is just not as quick.

Honestly I HATE autofocus as it really focuses on what I want it to - it tries to focus on whatever is in the center of the frame. Which if that is how you frame everything, then you will be fine. But rarely find myself framing everything center screen. It also continues to hunt for the focus point, which means that your image could be going in and out of focus- NOT GOOD.

To make sure that you are focused correctly when not using autofocus, you need to pull critical focus. Zoom all the way in on your subject, pull focus on the part of the subject that you want in the sharpest focus (When filming people, I go for the eyes), and then zoom out. You will then be set.

andrew00 said:
What do you reckon you would do?
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Shoot 4:3, 24pa, frame for 16:9, make sure to expose and focus correctly. Then with the footage either use PZP or my NLE to resize the 4:3 to 16:9.

Hope that helps.
 
Thanks for the reply, I do have the 100A with the focus assist, however I didn't know if it's focusing would be fast enough for me. You see a lot of what I'll be doing will be on my own just holding the camera with some home made stabilisation.

As such I didn't know if the focus assist would be quick for movement.
 
andrew00 said:
I didn't know if it's focusing would be fast enough for me.
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It might not be quick enough for you- it is slower in 24p then in 60i. But again, I would still recommend going manual and not using the auto focus- you are smarter then your camera, and only you really know what you want in focus, and what you do not want in focus. If you frame everything so that it is center frame, then auto focus should work fine- as for how you images turn out .... well that is another matter .....

If I were you I would spend some quality time, as much as you can, before the shoot and practice using the manual focus.

Good luck!
 
So I did a bit of a test with the whole tape on the LCD method, but I'm confused about something.

When I run the video that I've rendered in some media players like Win Amp and VLC player it appears as a 4:3 video - i.e. it is squashed like it would appear if you watched a widescreen film on a non-widescreen TV.

But, if I open the clip in Windows Media Player then it plays fine - in widescreen - and maintains the widescreen aspect ratio - i.e. no squashing, borders on the top and bottom as it should have on my non-widescreen monitor.

My question therefore is - am I doing everything right and the media players are just idiotic, or am I missing putting some information in that tells the video players to play Widescreen? Is this a Vegas issue I should ask the Vegas boffins about?

For reference, the exact process I used I've bulleted below:

- In camera set to letterbox mode, place tape over LCD where borders are, switch to normal, film footage keeping to taped borders.
- Capture footage in Vegas, drag to the PAL Widescreen timeline.
- Click Event Pan/Crop and set the clips to the 16:9 Preset. [Did each clip individually 'coz I'm dumb and can't do the mass change.]
- Render the file. When Rendering, selected the PAL DV Widescreen template.
- Watched Avi, got confused, typed this messaged.
 
I used the Photozoom Pro method for a music video I did and I like the results. It's not mind blowing but it does look better than if I had shot in Stretch mode.

If you got the time, it's pretty cool. Good thing my project was just a music video though as it takes a super super long time. I say a 10 minute short is the limit of how long a film you want to do this on. If you really have the time, then I guess you could push it to 15 minutes.

However really the only reason I would create a 16x9 version of my footage is to create the best quality DVD version of your project. That being the case, I usually take my time with Photozoom, meaning I'll do a little here, a little there, no rush cuz until then, I can just burn 4x3 letterboxed versions and give them to friends, all the while working on my "archival" version so it's not too bad.

There's a new upgraded version of Photozoom Pro. YOu can upgrade for $50 I think. They say it processes images faster. Anyone tried this out to see if it's worth the upgrade?

P.S. I find the shooting method that gives you the most flexibility is to shoot 4x3 and then apply widescreen in post. That way you can adjust your frame in your editor as I usually find that sometimes moving the image up or down a little can improve your composition. I know some people said they like to put black tape over the LCD but I think a better method is to get a transparency (like the kine they use for overheads), cut out a square shape of it to the size of your LCD, turn on your DVX, set it to letterboxed, and with a sharpie, draw a line where the letterbox bar ends (but don't color the whole bar in, just the line). then switch your camera back to 4x3. Now you can use your transparency as a guide where the letterbox is, AND you can see what's in your 4x3 frame b/c if you're not careful, you might get a power cable or light stand in there and that'll mean you can't adjust your frame in post. You could tape the transparency to the LCD hinge if you don't want to constantly be moving it to and from the LCD, just make sure you use gaffers tape and not something like scotch tape.
 
I had some 4:3 footage that I need to convert to anamorphic 16:9 and I used PhotoZoom. The new footage looked great next to the stuff I shot with the Panny anamorphic lense. I was extremely pleased, but yes the process is LONG!
 
PhotoZoom vs InstantHD

PhotoZoom vs InstantHD

I've been using PhotoZoom Pro for uprezzing 4:3 to 16:9, and in general I'm happy with the results. I'm now in the process of comparing PhotoZoom Pro and InstantHD. As of now, InstantHD is ahead because it's a plug-in (I use PremierePro), and it's a lot faster.
 
HekCentrik said:
Don't worry about the tiffs looking stretched, that'll be corrected once you've resized to 720*768 in Photozoom.
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My images shouldn't look stretched or squeezed or anything before I have uprezzed them in Photozoom. I crop my images to a 16:9 resolution on export to tiff frames from Premiere before I stretch them verticaly in Photozoom.
So...
before Photozoom - cropped
after Photozoom - stretched vertically as if shot in squeeze mode

My problem is that the cropped images I get out of Premiere still look just a little horizontally squeezed or vertically stretched, I don't know which it is. If I export as square pixels (1.0) I will get an image that is not at all squeezed or stretched but then I get some kind of vertical lines rendered all over the image instead.

Help me. I shoot PAL DV (1.067). How do I crop and export my sequences properly in Premiere Pro 1.5 for uprezz in Photozoom Pro?
 
If you go from PAL 720*576 to Stillpicture you should have the still picture in 768*576.

Cropped it should be 720*432 to 768*432.
 
Yes indeed, I know that, but when I render to square pixels I get some kind of vertical lines in the picture. It looks.. how should I say.. blocky.

I have tried looking for a descent crop tool in Premiere Pro 1.5 but I can't find anything. In Premiere 6.5 you could at least crop the picture on export by the desired amount of pixels.

EDIT: Okay, the blockyness is gone, but when I export a PAL 720x576 frame to a 768x576 still picture with PAR 1.0 I get a slightly horizontally stretched and somewhat softer picture. It does look more stretched than if I play the original 720x576 DV AVI in say VLC player or Premiere for that matter. Anyway it doesn't look natural, and we are not talking about a cropped picture here, just a straight 720x576 frame exported to 768x576 PAR 1.0. Am I doing something wrong?
 
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Sure, Vegas seems to be the better choice for this, but can it export to a tiff sequence? I've heard it doesn't. Also I personally don't like the workflow in Vegas, but that's just me.

Anyway, for me it seems like the 768x576 image is wider than the 720x576 image. Should they be equally wide with different PARs?
I made a test just now. I exported a cropped frame in both 720x576 PAR 1.067 and 768x576 PAR 1.0 and ran them both through Photozoom without changing the resolution and then imported them into a widescreen project in Premiere and interpreted them both to PAR 1.422 which is PAL widescreen. When I put them both on the timeline and compared them, the 768x576 image was too wide so it's sides were chopped of. The 720x576 one looked just about right. So maybe 768x576 PAR 1.0 isn't the way to go?
 
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