Anamorphic for DVD on 4/3 TV ?

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Hi, I'm going to shoot for a DVD. This DVD will only be seen on a TV (no film transfert). Can I take any advantages to use an anamorphic adapter? Is the extra resolution will be apparent on a regular 4/3 TV ?

Thank for reply.
 
Re: Anamorphic for DVD on 4/3 TV ?

I've done a true 24p anamorphic DVD. On a 4:3 tv. You won't see the extra resolustion. On a HDTV with a progressive scan player you will see all the extra resolution. I have seen the footage I shot projected onto a 120 screen. It looked really good.
 
Re: Anamorphic for DVD on 4/3 TV ?

Well, yes and no. If it's only destined for 4:3, why even bother shooting anamorphic? You'll either end up doing a digital downsizing in your editing program, to letterbox it, or the DVD player will do it for you, but either way the picture will end up being resized. If you know it's going to end up on a 4:3 TV, just shoot letterbox and save yourself a lot of hassle.

If there's a chance that someone will watch it on a widescreen TV, then having shot anamorphic and making an anamorphic DVD will show a large improvement.

If they're only watching on a 4:3 TV, you will still get the wider-angle field of view from having used the anamorphic, but you could get that same field of view from using a wide-angle adapter and letterbox.

For 4:3 TV's, the anamorphic doesn't really make a lot of sense...
 
Re: Anamorphic for DVD on 4/3 TV ?

I don't understand... The anomorphic adapter gives you greater resolution. An anamorphic DVD played on a 4:3 TV will automatically generate black bars on top and bottom. What appears in between -- your widescreen movie -- will still have more detail and video information than if you had shot it letterbox, wouldn't it?

Raoul
 
Re: Anamorphic for DVD on 4/3 TV ?

You won't see the increase in resolution because a 4:3 TV can't display the full resolution when letterboxed, the black bars are the lost resolution of displaying on a 4:3 TV. Depending on the quality of the DVD player's mpeg decoder I could imagine that an anmphoric disc might loose resolution due to the resizing for 4:3, just a guess there though. The basic problem is the 4:3 TV. I liked what Barry said regarding the 4:3 TV, the anamorphic doesn't make sense if 4:3 is the only display option.
 
Re: Anamorphic for DVD on 4/3 TV ?

A higher-res picture that gets digitally scaled down will probably not look higher-res or better than an unmodified, full-resolution picture that has letterbox bars on it.

That's the theory, anyway. Someday I should practice with it to see, but I can't see how a digitally squeezed-down picture is going to look better than the raw resolution straight off the camera...
 
Re: Anamorphic for DVD on 4/3 TV ?

Is there a one to one correlation between pixels on the tv screen and the pixels off your DV tape? Why wouldn't there be better detail on the widescreen band across a 4:3 set if the footage was captured with the anamorphic adapter?
 
Re: Anamorphic for DVD on 4/3 TV ?

There are no pixels on a TV screen. TV's are analog, not digital.

The DVX renders a 4:3 picture at its full resolution, for proper display on a 4:3 set.

If you use the anamorphic adapter, you're making video that's appropriate for a 16:9 set, by squishing (optically) the pixels together to fit more on the CCD.

To display that on a 4:3 set you'd have to digitally resize the image down.

So, it just stands to reason that an optically squeezed, digitally unsqueezed image isn't going to look as pristine as one that's unmodified, which has been captured at the full resolution the TV can display.
 
Re: Anamorphic for DVD on 4/3 TV ?

"To display that on a 4:3 set you'd have to digitally resize the image down. "

What do you mean by this? Doesn't a DVD player add the bars automatically when it encounters a 16:9 source? (Is something recorded with a 16:9 adapter read as a 16:9 source?) If this is the case then you don't have to resize the image down, right?

Is the anamorphic adpater only superior to letterbox box mode:

A - When you are doing a film out

B - When you are going to play exclusively on 16:9 televisions

C - When you are going to project 16:9

I always thought the anamorphic adapter was the best way to go if you were aiming at DVD's as your final product. Now it seems like that's useless if the DVD isn't played back on a 16:9 TV.

Am I making any sense?

Thanks for the help!
Raoul
 
Re: Anamorphic for DVD on 4/3 TV ?

Yes, basically, that's what I'm saying.

A DVD player doesn't just add black bars to the footage: it digitally scales down the 16x9 image on the DVD, and THEN adds black bars.

If you're making 16x9 footage, the adapter's great. If you're showing it on a 4x3 TV, the adapter was wasted. You really need to show your 16x9 footage on a 16x9 device (projection, film, widescreen TV) in order to get the full benefit of using the anamorphic adapter.
 
Re: Anamorphic for DVD on 4/3 TV ?

If you shoot letterbox which is great for most 4 x 3 formatted screens what does it look like on a widescreen tv?

Also if I shoot squeeze, for DVD will the picture just be stretched on a 4 x 3 formatted tv? Or will it look letterboxed?


I recently shot some squeezed footage and transferred to a vhs tape for someone. When played back it filled the screen on a 4 x 3 tv. I thought it would play back like letterboxed but it didn't. If I hit the 16 x 9 button then it looked great>
 
Re: Anamorphic for DVD on 4/3 TV ?

Some nicer 4:3 TVs (larger Sony WEGAs, and even the little 14" Toshiba everone likes to use as a cheapo edit monitor) have a feature where the TV will switch to anamorphic mode by squeezing the scan lines into a smaller area. In such a case, the widescreen movie between the black bars *is* full resolution.

Also, I always think -- Well, my TV is currently 4:3, Standard Def. But will it always be?
 
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