To Squeeze or not to Squeeze...

DammitJanet

DammitJanet

Well-known member
I'm shooting a short superhero film for school with the DVX100B, and I'm wondering if I should go with the Letterbox setting, or Squeeze mode. I've imported squeezed footage from a GL2 into FCP before and it looked just fine to me. I'm planning to so some color correction and effects in AE afterwards as well, so any help here would be great.

My final output will be DVD for display on 4:3 tv's, 16:9 tv's, and video projection (I'm assuming 4:3 as well).

Thanks!
 
Go with your heart.

Personally, I like SQUEEZE cause it looks nicer and more filmic when making a short/feature film.

You lose minimal quality which isn't much noticeable, but that's not a very big deal.

Robbie
 
If you want to see what it looks like, search for a thread about it in this forum... I made a video comparing the two.
 
Using either squeeze or letterbox mode will look fine on a standard run-of-the-mill 4:3 television. Neither will look very good on a widescreen.
 
Robert M Wright said:
Using either squeeze or letterbox mode will look fine on a standard run-of-the-mill 4:3 television. Neither will look very good on a widescreen.
Click to expand...

Squeeze looks great on my Sony BraviaX 40inch panel. But then again, what I haven't seen won't hurt me. I'm yet to see native 16:9 footage on it so I can't compare.
 
Robert M Wright said:
Using either squeeze or letterbox mode will look fine on a standard run-of-the-mill 4:3 television. Neither will look very good on a widescreen.
Click to expand...
Not correct. Using either NORMAL or LETTERBOX will look fine on a standard 4:3 TV. SQUEEZE will look awful on a 4:3 TV.

SQUEEZE will look great on a widescreen 16:9 TV. Neither NORMAL or LETTERBOX will look good on a widescreen 16:9 TV.
 
Squeeze locks good on a screen of 90" in 16:9. I have a Panasonic projector.
 
Hardly anyone has seen their hdtv used to it's full potential, so they won't know the difference. Most people watch 4:3 sd cable on their hdtvs and don't care, or even know that it's not hd.
 
seriously. Most of my friends have em and their dads think they are so badass, watching 480i on their 1080p tvs. I don't get it, my 32in tube looks way better than that when it comes to sd. I never tell em because they dropped their retirement on these tvs that don't have hdmi.
 
renegadewill said:
Hardly anyone has seen their hdtv used to it's full potential, so they won't know the difference. Most people watch 4:3 sd cable on their hdtvs and don't care, or even know that it's not hd.
Click to expand...

That's true. It will change over time though. I don't view much in SD anymore. When I look at something shot with a low cost SD camera nowadays (not to mention, shot with 360 lines of resolution - as a practical matter, even the squeeze from cameras like a DVX is only 360 lines of resolution stretched over 480 lines for recording), on my widescreen LCD, the image quality is a bit of a shock for a second.
 
Test Footage Well Grabs

Test Footage Well Grabs

There has been lots of talk about squeeze not squeeze etc. So I decided to post up some of my test results. I have 4 stills. which can be viewed at:
www.flickr.com/zergtherobot.

Squeeze
2374803303


Letterbox scaled up 133%
2375636342


Crop and 400 percent enlargement of squeeze
2375640436


Crop and 400 percent enlargement of letterbox
2374805011


Hope this worked for everyone.

Just thought id share.
Thanks
 
Just shoot normal 4:3 and squeeze in post. It's better because you have extra picture on the top and bottom if you want to reframe your shots. Squeeze Mode in camera will give you the best results but I think the extra picture on top and bottom is much better to have incase you want to reframe the shot. Plus, the difference in quality isn't really TOO noticeable so I'd rather Squeeze the pic in post.
 
Letterbox and scale up in post.

Letterbox and scale up in post.

in my tests I have found that squeeze gives you the most detail but has the most artifacts. Shooting letterbox and scaling up in post gives you less detail and less artifacts. Shooting 4x3 gives you less detail and more artifacts then both squeeze and letterbox, but gives you the option of reframing.

Personally if you shoot it right the first time there is no need to reframe in post.
But realistically very few people are ever going to tell the difference between any of the 3. Unless your looking, they will seem relatively the same.
 
zergtherobot said:
in my tests I have found that squeeze gives you the most detail but has the most artifacts. Shooting letterbox and scaling up in post gives you less detail and less artifacts. Shooting 4x3 gives you less detail and more artifacts then both squeeze and letterbox, but gives you the option of reframing.

Personally if you shoot it right the first time there is no need to reframe in post.
But realistically very few people are ever going to tell the difference between any of the 3. Unless your looking, they will seem relatively the same.
Click to expand...

Awesome... thanks for sharing that info on the different shooting options and test results. I'll make a note of that.

I do prefer to shoot 4:3 because I like being able to go, "You know what, maybe we can add a camera move here," when we're in post production. But whatever is best for you is what you should use. Like Zerg said, it will be difficult to tell the difference unless you're looking at them side-by-side, so use what you think will be best for your needs.

Thanks again, Zerg, for that info.
 
Thanks for posting those comparisons pics. I have been meaning to post some myself for a long time. Due to the upscaling involved, some sharpening would need to be added to the uprezzed 4:3 to get it look as nice as the SQUEEZE, and that has been my real-world experience as well.

Not sure what you mean by the SQUEEZE having more artifacts? I did find the sharpening to be a bit harsh on SQUEEZE using default settings, but using my typical shooting settings, that has not been a problem. I usually shoot DETAIL -7 V.DETAIL -7 CORING +7, SQUEEZE 24pA THIN, and while pin sharp, as long as focus is set correct, I have gotten great results. Other filmmakers are always asking me how I get such filmlike images. First step is to defeat the electronic processes that make video look like video.
 
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