Best 16:9 without anamorphic lens (YAT)

Yes, but you need to get an anamorphic picture on the DVD. One way to do that is to shoot letterbox and then use software to remove the black bars and stretch the image. The DVD player will then add the black bars back in if appropriate.
 
Seems to me if you have photozoom or something similliar then uprezzing in post yields best results but will take more time. I know for me squeeze does just fine.
 
Just for info: I compared photozoom to Final Cut Pro upscaling (using motion filtering "best") and could see no advantage of Photozoom. FCP upscaling looked really good, plus it handles fields without trouble.
 
so you can get that extreme widescreen with the anamorphic lens + letterbox mode?

if so cool!

what advantages does the anamorphic offer (for 16:9) other than more detail?
i kinda got the impression that you can get wider focal lenghts, is this true?

also does the anamorphic lens eat up much light?

and one more, can you use filters in conjuction with the anamorphic lens?

cheers
 
after reading this thread I decided to try it out...

first I recorded with the squeeze 15 seconds & then 15 seconds with the letterbox... then I imported everything into Premiere & created from each footage a screenshot, the squeeze was imported into a 16:9 project & the letterbox of course into a 4:3 project... these screenshots I opened in Photoshop & noticed that squeeze is using the full 576 lines... letterbox cuts a part away and makes the frame 150 pixels smaller... ( total are 108,000 pixels not used in letterbox mode )...

next test was showing both shots on our widescreen 56'' LCD screen... first the letterbox footage & of course you get a small image with a black box around... few times hitting on the adjust knob of our remote control, and woppa.... full widescreen footage.... the second track of the DVD is the same letterbox recording but then resized with Photozoom... I didn't notice a big different with and without Photozoom, both tracks are zoomed up to deliver a full screen widescreen view... but when I watched the third and last track, I saw a hugh different with the previous tracks... much sharper, better and brighter colors.... and that track is the Squeezed one....

conclusion -- Squeeze give me a sharper and better colorfull image because it use the full 576 lines and 108,000 more pixels then Letterbox ( 426 lines )... you get as how it is recorded without any resizing at all!!!... so for me, its Squeeze for the 16:9 thing....
 
Good test. And the resizing is done before the image gets sharpened in-camera, before the color gets subsampled, before the DV compression is applied, etc. If you resize in post, you're just blowing up all those artifacts.
 
StayNuts said:
...but when I watched the third and last track, I saw a hugh different with the previous tracks... much sharper, better and brighter colors.... and that track is the Squeezed one....
Click to expand...

I don't get it, couldn't you have created a fourth track and shown uprezzed-Squeeze footage? It's not like Squeeze footage couldn't also be uprezzed with PhotoZoomPro right? Or am I missing something?

For the Letterbox footage, wen't you first suppose to literally stretch the footage so that the black bars are gone, and then have the TV stretch out the footage for you into 16:9 (anamorphic)? Basically, what the camera does for you when you shot Stretch. Why did you do all that in the TV?


So, afterall all is said and done, assuming Stretch does yield the best results, what then? Can you uprez the footage from there (to say 720)?

I'm now wondering about 2.35:1, and how to achieve the best results for this aspect. Should I shoot Squeeze, then crop to 2.35 first, or uprez first, and then crop the footage to 2.35?
 
StayNuts said:
after reading this thread I decided to try it out...

first I recorded with the squeeze 15 seconds & then 15 seconds with the letterbox... then I imported everything into Premiere & created from each footage a screenshot, the squeeze was imported into a 16:9 project & the letterbox of course into a 4:3 project... these screenshots I opened in Photoshop & noticed that squeeze is using the full 576 lines... letterbox cuts a part away and makes the frame 150 pixels smaller... ( total are 108,000 pixels not used in letterbox mode )...

next test was showing both shots on our widescreen 56'' LCD screen... first the letterbox footage & of course you get a small image with a black box around... few times hitting on the adjust knob of our remote control, and woppa.... full widescreen footage.... the second track of the DVD is the same letterbox recording but then resized with Photozoom... I didn't notice a big different with and without Photozoom, both tracks are zoomed up to deliver a full screen widescreen view... but when I watched the third and last track, I saw a hugh different with the previous tracks... much sharper, better and brighter colors.... and that track is the Squeezed one....

conclusion -- Squeeze give me a sharper and better colorfull image because it use the full 576 lines and 108,000 more pixels then Letterbox ( 426 lines )... you get as how it is recorded without any resizing at all!!!... so for me, its Squeeze for the 16:9 thing....
Click to expand...


THANKS FOR THIS POST IT IS VERY HELPFULL TO SEE SOMEONE ACTUALLY TEST THE THEORY.

:beer:
 
Gordon JL said:
I don't get it, couldn't you have created a fourth track and shown uprezzed-Squeeze footage? It's not like Squeeze footage couldn't also be uprezzed with PhotoZoomPro right? Or am I missing something?
Click to expand...
Why should you uprezz Squeeze footage when it's already 16:9? No black bars or something, just full 16:9 view :)

For the Letterbox footage, wen't you first suppose to literally stretch the footage so that the black bars are gone, and then have the TV stretch out the footage for you into 16:9 (anamorphic)? Basically, what the camera does for you when you shot Stretch. Why did you do all that in the TV?
Click to expand...
Is just your knob on your TV which you let to swap between the various modes. Letterbox format is stored as 4:3 format & you have to adjust it on your TV screen to get full screen... Other tracks are in 16:9 format but the second track is a uprezzed letterbox & that is in fact the same as adjusting 4:3 to 16:9 view on your TV. Only the last track, the 16:9 Squeezed one, will be show as it is recorded without any uprezzing at all..

So, afterall all is said and done, assuming Stretch does yield the best results, what then? Can you uprez the footage from there (to say 720)?

I'm now wondering about 2.35:1, and how to achieve the best results for this aspect. Should I shoot Squeeze, then crop to 2.35 first, or uprez first, and then crop the footage to 2.35?
Click to expand...
For 2.35:1 I should shoot in Squeeze & then crop it. Uprez you add pixels who not excist in reality, with cropping you remove some pixels or combine them... you don't add fake pixels to uprez it... I never did this as I don't use 2.35:1...
 
BennisHahn said:
I believe the issue can be viewed as such.

If you have the time/programs/patience, uprezzing 4:3 footage in post can give you a sharper picture,

but....

for almost every circumstance I can think of, squeeze mode does such a good job and saves so much time, it is almost a non issue. I don't think you will be seeing a difference on a TV screen anyhow....
Click to expand...
I agree, I doubt highly you'd notice on a TV screen.

Has there been a theatrical released movie shot on the DVX100 in Squeeze mode? How did it look? How does squeeze'd footage look after it's been uprez'd for HDTV?


That's what I'm curious about.
 
Is it safe to say that using the photozoom uprezzing technique from Letterboxed 4:3 footage is the key to better quality?

I hope so, because I've been running 100a squeeze footage tests on my dad's new widescreen HD TV, and the results are pretty ugly. Closeups still look pretty good...but wide shots look dirt nasty. Unbearable to watch - at least for me.
 
crookedpictures said:
Is it safe to say that using the photozoom uprezzing technique from Letterboxed 4:3 footage is the key to better quality?

I hope so, because I've been running 100a squeeze footage tests on my dad's new widescreen HD TV, and the results are pretty ugly. Closeups still look pretty good...but wide shots look dirt nasty. Unbearable to watch - at least for me.
Click to expand...

I prefer straight SQUEEZE to Photo Zoom. So, I guess you'd have to try it yourself and find out.
 
Joshua Provost said:
I prefer straight SQUEEZE to Photo Zoom. So, I guess you'd have to try it yourself and find out.
Click to expand...

Unfortunately I don't know anyone with a copy...and I'm too financially strapped to get it now anyways...

Have you tried your squeeze footage on mid to large HD tv's? How did the footage stand up next to 4:3 footage? Any scene final settings that you consider necessary to achieve the quality your getting out of it...I'm still hoping that I can get a nice picture out of squeeze. I'm editing tests as I type this.

Before reading this thread...I hadn't even considered squeeze as a viable option, based on what I'd read/heard from other experienced DVX users...it's good to hear that some people are getting nice results.
 
I'm a pretty inexperienced filmmaker, and I've been trying to decide what format to shoot in for ages without finding anything really conclusive. After reading these posts, it appears that Squeeze mode is the way to go, but you have to look at that squeezed image all day. I hate not being able to see my video in the correct aspect ratio until the day's shooting is over. Is there any way to get around that problem?
 
Irecently bought a 7" Lcd to go on top of my dvx100a, With squeeze and the 7" stretched out it's correct aspect ratio, Before ive only been shooting 4:3, but i'm about to jump into the 16:9 world, so thats one option. NO GOOD for focus though. if you using a 35mm adaptor...
 
greenlighted said:
Oh yes, it's Yet Another Thread about 16:9... And this post is gonna be long, but please bear with me...

As preparation for my purchase of a DVX (will someone *please* sell me a DVX100BE) I've been looking into this entire 16:9 thingy and after reading literally hundreds of posts here about 16:9, 4:3, letterboxing, squeeze, anamorphic, etc etc, I thought I'd do a summary on how to achieve the highest quality anamorphic 16:9 image with a DVX. *I*'m actually not telling anyone, I'm just summing things up, so please, all you really technical guys and gals out there, correct me if I've drawn the wrong conclusions or listened to the wrong people... Okay, here goes:
  1. Shoot letterboxed!
  2. Import into a 4:3 project in your NLE of preference and edit.
  3. Export your timeline as an image sequence and use a good resizing software, such as Photozoom, to crop and stretch your images to the proper 16:9 anamorphic dimensions. (Some prefer to do cropping and stretching directly in the NLE but the majority seem to think Photozoom gives better results due to better resizing algorithms.)
  4. Import the resized images into a 16:9 project.
  5. Color correct and add effects and other fancy stuff.
  6. Export and burn to DVD.
Now, you might have some questions regarding this. I'll try and anticipate some of them:

- Why shoot letterboxed, why not shoot ordinary 4:3 or squeeze mode?

Let's start with letterboxed vs ordinary 4:3: DV is a compressed format with an "upper size limit per frame" (to simplify) so the more detail/variation you have in your image the more it has to be compressed down to tape. When you have two large areas in your image that you're not going to use, it makes little sense filling them with detail that uses up valuable storage. Having those two areas completely black makes compressing those areas much more effective, leaving room for more data for the part of the image that you're actually using. Therefore, letterboxing in camera gives better quality images than letterboxing in post. (It's been remarked that if you letterbox in post, you get more freedom on how to frame the shot while editing since you can shift the frame vertically and still have image data there, but hey, all you're doing then is covering up for bad framing when shooting. And you're doing it on the expense of image quality...)

Squeeze mode then: when you're using squeeze mode, the DVX actually letterboxes the image and then *stretches* the letterboxed image to fit the entire frame (giving it the anamorphic dimensions). When in squeeze mode, you're not using any more of the actual image data (pixels, resolution, ccds, whatever) then you do in letterboxed, it's just stored differently, stretched, on tape. And since we're stretching the image before storing it, the compression limits from above still apply and you're now wasting storage compressing derived, from stretching, data. There's also another, even bigger, reason to why you should stretch in post instead of in camera: the camera's stretching algorithms must be able to do 50 stretches per second (60 for NTSC). The algorithms aren't doing a bad job but in the end, guess which stretching algorithms produces the best results: the camera's 3-4 year old ones that has to do a stretch in 1/50th of a second or a newly developed software algorithm that can take several seconds per frame stretch...? (Someone mentioned that the camera might stretch in 4:4:4 which would be better than a post stretch done on less color information, but I haven't seen anyone verifying that fact. But even if it is so, my money would still be on the software stretch algorithms...)

- Why edit before stretching? Why not just stretch all my raw footage and then edit?

Well, time and space. The more data you stretch, the longer it will take and the more storage space you'll need on your editing system. But if you've got the time and space and rather stretch all your raw footage, well, good for you...

- Why stretching before color correction and effects?

Stretching increases noise, which color correction sometimes introduces/enhances, and stretching your "effect data" is unnecessary since you can just as well apply the effect on the stretched material and not risk loosing quality in your effects.

- But what about using an anamorphic lens? Is that better than doing it this way?

Yeah, I would think so. With an anamorphic lens you get more actual image data which should result in better quality images (even though you've then got more data that needs to share storage during compression). If I actually had a DVX to test with, I'd be able to say for sure. (Could someone *please* sell me...)

Well, there you have it. You've made it to the end. Congratulations. Now, if you're one of the technical people, could you please let me know if I've understood all this correctly...

Oh yeah, had another question: When you're using a 35mm adapter, such as SGPro, are you then using it with an anamorphic lens between the DVX and the adapter or do you need an anamorphic lens at the end of the adapter? Or do you perhaps loose the anamorphic option then due to lack of (reasonably priced) lenses?

That's it for now.
Click to expand...
I'm sorry, But I'm working on my first 16x9 project and I'm trying to make sence of all of this. I have allready shot in the camera's letterbox function. the footage is for a client who will be viewing the footage on a standard ntsc T.V. but in the near fute may be buying an HD TV.

What would be the best plan of action as far as imorting into FCP?

Should I leave the settings the standard 4:3 or should I import to anamorphic 16:9?

I guess one of the things I'm asking is. Is there a setting that will look good on both 4:3 T.V. and a 16:9 HDTV???

Thanks so much.
 
I used to believe that you should shoot with an anamorphic adapter or letterboxed. But after having seen what khmuse was able to do in the squeeze mode (on a DVX100A) I am sold and for all my narative shooting, I now use the squeeze mode and edit on a 16x9 timeline in FCP. I couldn't be happier...at least until I get my RED ONE. :thumbsup:
 
deliciousgroove said:
I'm sorry, But I'm working on my first 16x9 project and I'm trying to make sence of all of this. I have allready shot in the camera's letterbox function. the footage is for a client who will be viewing the footage on a standard ntsc T.V. but in the near fute may be buying an HD TV.

What would be the best plan of action as far as imorting into FCP?

Should I leave the settings the standard 4:3 or should I import to anamorphic 16:9?

I guess one of the things I'm asking is. Is there a setting that will look good on both 4:3 T.V. and a 16:9 HDTV???

Thanks so much.
Click to expand...

LETTERBOX mode is 4:3 with letterbox burned in, so use a 4:3 project/timeline.
 
deliciousgroove said:
but how do I make it an actual 16:9 image on a widescreen tv???
Click to expand...

Best way would have been to shoot SQUEEZE mode or with the anamorphic adaptor to start with.

Now that you have 4:3, the easiest solution is just to stick with 4:3 and use whatever zoom feature the TV has on it. Other than that, you'd need to blow up the footage, and that is going to have a quality hit. I'm not familiiar with FCP, but probably you drop the footage on a 16:9 timeline and scale it up to 133 or 134% to fill the screen.
 
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