Aspect ratio question

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nashmotionpictures

Active member
How do some people end up outputting their footage at 2.35:1 when HVX200 films at 16x9? Is it just cropped in post? Does it help in any way apart from making it look more 'film like'? What should I be doing if I were to make a film for the festival circuit? I'm shooting on HVX200 Redrock M2 with HD monitoring, if that helps.

Thanks
 
Yes, cropping is most likely what they're doing. I haven't heard of an anamorphic adapter for the HVX. There must be one, but they make focusing difficult.

Make your aspect ratio decision based on what best serves the story and the distribution medium.

There are still films being shot in 4x3 (and they still do well in festivals). The film aesthetic on video does require progressive 24 frames and maintaining as much dynamic range in the final as possible.
 
Unless you want to do a filmout at that aspect ratio, I don't see any point to shooting wider than 16:9. HD is 16:9 and really why give yourself potential headaches dealing with letterboxing unless you REALLY need a wider frame?

I'm working on a project now that's being shot on the Sony HDV cameras for 2.35:1, but the footage is being upresed, so they're at least making up for the loss of image area.

.
 
ProfessorU said:
Make your aspect ratio decision based on what best serves the story and the distribution medium.

There are still films being shot in 4x3 (and they still do well in festivals). The film aesthetic on video does require progressive 24 frames and maintaining as much dynamic range in the final as possible.
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If I can ask a really dumb question:
If the end use of my film project is television, I should shoot in Normal 4:3, yes?
A friend of mine sounded horrified at this. "Dude, shoot in 16:9. Widescreen, bro!"
And I actually don't want to see the film letterboxed on TV. Therefore 4:3 is just fine, yes?
Is there something I'm missing here?
Many thanks!
 
Each year that goes by there will be more and more widescreen TVs and fewer 4:3 TVs. So if you go buy a widescreen TV you won't have to see your project letterboxed.

If you shoot 4:3 now, in 10 years it will look very dated, and it will have to be cropped or pillarboxed.
 
I'm working on a project now that's being shot on the Sony HDV cameras for 2.35:1, but the footage is being upresed, so they're at least making up for the loss of image area.
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Chris, can you please explain what you mean by "unpresed"? Thanks
 
No, not "unpressed", "upresed" or "uprezzed".

Taking an image or video and increasing the storage resolution of the file. It doesn't do much for quality, because you can't add more information than was already visible in the original.
 
nashmotionpictures said:
Chris, can you please explain what you mean by "unpresed"? Thanks
Click to expand...

There are ways of upconverting in order to end up with higher resolution footage. Instant HD is a program that makes it possible to upres from standard def to HD and there are others.

If you shoot for 2.35:1 from a 16:9 camera, you are throwing away part of your frame, so upresing at least allows you to have a gain in resolution and make up for the loss from cropping.

.
 
If I can ask a really dumb question:
If the end use of my film project is television, I should shoot in Normal 4:3, yes?
A friend of mine sounded horrified at this. "Dude, shoot in 16:9. Widescreen, bro!"
And I actually don't want to see the film letterboxed on TV. Therefore 4:3 is just fine, yes?
Is there something I'm missing here?
Many thanks!
Click to expand...
missing? no. not considering? maybe...
like professorU says. the day of the 4:3 tv is rapidly coming to an end.
and as far as not digging letterboxing - i think thats "mom-logic." and by that i mean like back when color TVs first came out everybody just jacked the hell out of the color levels just because they now had the knob. and similarly, my mom doesnt like letter boxing because "it doesnt fill the screen"

- its kind of like white space in design. just because you have it - doesnt mean you HAVE to fill it!

i personally consider better composition way more important than filling a screen.
and consider this. if you shoot 16:9 you can always crop that or pan and scan to fit 4:3. but you'll never go the other way.

we just shot a wendys commercial last week and the client requires 4:3. but we shot 16:9 and just composed the footage so that it would work with a 4:3 crop and still afford us 16:9 should the need arise
 
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I think 16:9 is close to ideal. It looks great on widescreen TVs and acceptable on 4:3 screen TVs. 2.35:1 is too much; there's no 2.35:1 projector or TV anywhere.
 
Don't forget...the Feb. '09 Analog-Digital conversion is coming up. I would think that would be the time most of your stations, especially local, would switch to HD, and therefore 16:9.
 
Chris Santucci said:
There are ways of upconverting in order to end up with higher resolution footage. Instant HD is a program that makes it possible to upres from standard def to HD and there are others.

If you shoot for 2.35:1 from a 16:9 camera, you are throwing away part of your frame, so upresing at least allows you to have a gain in resolution and make up for the loss from cropping.

.
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uhhh... uhhhh... that's a little misleading. you can never gain more than you have to begin with. you can certainly transcode SD to HD but you aren't gaining detail. and it isn't going to "make up for" the image area you matte to achieve a 2.35:1 aspect ratio.
 
Zak Forsman said:
uhhh... uhhhh... that's a little misleading. you can never gain more than you have to begin with. you can certainly transcode SD to HD but you aren't gaining detail. and it isn't going to "make up for" the image area you matte to achieve a 2.35:1 aspect ratio.
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You can certainly gain more resolution. I do it everyday with Photoshop. You might lose other things in the process if you're not careful, but resolution isn't hard to increase.

And you can certainly "make up for" to some degree, image area you lose by cropping. If you shoot on a 16:9 camera, crop out enough to get 2.35:1 and then upres to a 2K frame, you're gaining something, right?

Look at some movies that have to include VHS, DV, or Betacam footage (as from home video/news, etc.) and tell me some of this footage doesn't look better than if it was projected in its original resolution. Not to mention the 4K upres work from HD that's being done for 70mm filmouts for Imax films.

Yeah, the image upres has been interpolated and some methods of interpolation are better than others, but it's still of greater resolution, AND in some cases there are gains in detail.

.
 
Don't forget...the Feb. '09 Analog-Digital conversion is coming up. I would think that would be the time most of your stations, especially local, would switch to HD, and therefore 16:9.
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sorry aroon, thats not correct. there is no direct correlation between the switch to digital and switching to HD. some may then (or before) but the digital conversion does not neccesarilly dictate HD.
 
wgzn said:
sorry aroon, thats not correct. there is no direct correlation between the switch to digital and switching to HD. some may then (or before) but the digital conversion does not neccesarilly dictate HD.
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I didn't say that it did, but I suggested that most stations would probably go HD. The ones in my area have as a result of the upcoming digital conversion.
 
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