Capturing More Image Than Seen in LCD

RallyMonkey

RallyMonkey

Active member
Hey guys, I just finished filming a short I've been working on for a long time.

After capturing, the problem I'm running across is that the image I filmed is much larger than the image I saw in the LCD. I am shooting in squeeze mode, and I am using the 16:9 aspect on the DVX100B. So, now I am having a few problems with lights or the boom pole coming into view in the corners.

It would be nice to know how to avoid this in the future, yet, my main concern right now is if there are any know dimensions of which I could matte the video. I'm getting more on the top, bottom, and sides. Does anyone know of dimensions I could use that would make the image exactly what I saw in the LCD after I put on a matte?

Thanks.
 
Yep, what you're encountering is that most cameras prior to the DVX100B just didn't show the full frame. In fact, most still don't. They show what's called the "overscanned" frame, because TVs typically cut off a certain area around the frame.

On the DVX100B they changed the LCD to show the full "underscan" frame.

If you want to know of everything that's being seen, you need to use an external monitor that has the capability of showing you the full frame (usually this means a professional production monitor with an "underscan" button). Or you could use something like Adobe OnLocation or any other firewire monitoring program, which should show you the full frame.
 
So the DVX100B's LCD should show the full frame? Because that is what I am using.

Do you know the dimensions of the overscan frame generally? So I can matte the images I captured when I'm done editing?
 
The 100B shows full frame, yes. The 100A and the 100 don't.

As for matting, you shouldn't really have to. Maybe a couple of pixels on the sides, but in squeeze mode, if you're using the LCD screen in letterbox display you should be seeing everything from top to bottom.
 
Hmm, I don't know what the problem is, then.

I am definitely shooting in squeeze, and the LCD is letterboxed, and I am sure I am in 16:9 aspect ratio.

Here's an example of how much room is being added.
http://www.dinosaurteaparty.co.cc/Scene1.bmp

The pretty obvious boom pole in the upper left corner. I am certain that I could not see it at all in the LCD. I knew this was a problem, and I was keeping the boom mic a bit higher than it needed to be to be out of the shot, and I haven't had any problems with that. My biggest problems have been boom poles in the corners, and a light every now and then.

I was just curious if there was a specific dimension because I did not want the mattes to move between scenes, as that would seem to be fairly annoying for the audience.

Thanks for your help, Barry.

UPDATE:

After going through all of my footage, it seems like I'm only having problems in the scenes where the boom is coming in from the side. I kept enough room in the scenes with it coming straight on, by raising the boom more than it seemed I would have to. Yet, in the scenes where the boom needed to be higher than the boom girl could reach, and she was coming in from the side, we have it in the corner of every scene.

Do you think it would be too jarring to the audience to bring in the sides more on those 3 scenes than the others?

Would it be worth the loss in resolution to scale up the image instead?
 
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I'm with NoNoob on this, it's really really difficult to even tell that the mic is in that shot, I seriously doubt you'd have seen that live on the little on-camera LCD. To me that mic totally blends into the gray wooden frame to the right of it, and I doubt a lot of people would have caught that. We sometimes will put a thin strip of white tape around the end of the mic so we can clearly see it when it dips in frame; of course, sometimes that backfires too because on a shot where you might have otherwise gotten away with it, the white tape makes it glaringly obvious.

Yes OnLocation or a full-size monitor would help catch that a lot better.
 
The DVX100B, with the LCD in 16:9 mode actually does overscan quite a bit. This is a design flaw that has been discussed numerous times, and Jan said she would take it back to engineering/development, or something, but there probably is no way to fix it.

Two workarounds are 1) to do a quick check of your frame hit the MENU button, the screen will temporarily switch back to 4:3 underscan mode and you can check the edges, or 2) use SQUEEZE, but leave the LCD at 4:3, which will be underscanced, it will look squished, but you get used to it real fast.
 
You can so use that shot because it does not even look like the boom pole. Since its in a backyard it could be a swing set or part of a gazebo or something. I agree with Barry's idea. I have a piece of yellow tape on my mic so I can see it.
 
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