Barry, David, Disjecta - question?

J

Jkim

Member
I know this has been asked and answered a bazillion times, but I'm still not clear (I've ordered and am waiting for Barry's book/DVD). For someone who wants to film a short without the anamorphic filter and wants to show on a 4x3 TV in letterbox, on a 16x9 TV in 16x9 aspect ratio, and wants the resolution to go to film (if needed) - which is a better choice (in order of preference)

1. Film 4x3 and letterbox matte in post
2. Film 4x3 DVX letterbox
3. Film 4x3 DVX letterbox and uprezz using photozoom
4. Film in 16x9 squeeze mode

Thanks for your patience in this matter and can't wait to receive the book!
 
Re: Barry, David, Disjecta - question?

I'd probably shoot 4x3 letterbox and uprez your finished 4x3 timeline to 16x9 for final DVD output.

Let me explain the above, because there are actually 2 ways to go here:

You can simply create a 4x3 DVD that will letterbox on a 4x3 NTSC TV and when played on a widescreen TV, you will need to zoom in to avoid the pillarbox and letterbox that will appear by default. Zooming in will fill the screen appropriately but is kind of a pain for some users.

The other option is the one I mentioned, which is creating a 16x9 project and burning a 16x9 DVD. It will look right on both 4x3 and 16x9 without any additional adjusting from the user's standpoint. The widescreen footage will also look better, in my opinion.

It really comes down to what your audience is going to watch the most. If the majority of them are going to be watching your film on a 4x3 TV then don't bother with the uprezzing, not worth the trouble. If it's going to be mostly watched on a widescreen TV, it's worth uprezzing in my experience.

You can then give the original 4x3 footage to your film house and let them do the uprezzing for film output.
 
Re: Barry, David, Disjecta - question?

If you have the $20,000 to output to film, invest in an anamorphic adapter. At least for wide shots.

The anamorphic adapter's one major flaw is that you can't get much DOF with it, but you only really want shallow DOF (an open aperature and telephoto lens) for talking heads anyhow, and you can shoot those in squeeze mode and no one will notice the loss of resolution.

And even though photozoom is a pretty impressive program, squeeze mode gives you more color resolution than does letterbox. It WILL give you a better image, though not by much.

For output to DVD I'd use the anamorphic adapter for wide shots, squeeze mode for tight shots, and then I'd give the whole thing a healthy dose of chroma blur then go to anamorphic 24p DVD.
 
Re: Barry, David, Disjecta - question?

[quote author=Policar link=board=Events;num=1100282002;start=0#3 date=11/12/04 at 11:43:06]
And even though photozoom is a pretty impressive program, squeeze mode gives you more color resolution than does letterbox.  It WILL give you a better image, though not by much.
[/quote]

Policar, I do not agree with this and I'm not sure where you are getting your information from regarding color resolution.
 
Re: Barry, David, Disjecta - question?

When I first got the DVX, I looked at using both the Letterbox and Squeeze modes and the squeeze modes always looked better than the letterbox stretched in post. I figure it this way, the image in the DVX is getting squeezed before the DV codec and even though there the resolution of the captured CCD information is the same, the increase in color information puts the squeeze mode in an advantage over letterbox since it is using the entire 720x480 frame. The reason (I think) squeeze mode looks better is that there are 16200 color samples per frame in the letterbox and 21600 in the squeeze mode frame.
I'm am by far no expert, but from what I have seen and know, the squeeze mode has gotten a bad rap lately.
As for the anamorphic adapter, I can't say much other than what I have seen on the web looks great and can agree it is that way go for the best resolution.

dolby
 
Re: Barry, David, Disjecta - question?

jkim,

if you are really going to do a film out, id reccommend the following
use the letterbox mode in cam or mask in post.. (you will add color correction and such anyway so masking in post isnt going to cost you any more generations of loss than doing your color correction, and will leave a little room for error if you need it) and stretch using photozoom or a comparable program for cropping and stretching to 16:9 for the 16:9 anamorphic DVD. that same DVD will automatically letterbox on a 4:3 tv if the DVD player is set up right.

if you really need the film out then the original frame being letterbox will retain all of its native reoslution for transferring to film for the film out and give you the best results, where if you were to use squeez mode youd be taking the original leterbox image, and stretchiong it electronically once, and then just blowing it up to film from a useless intermediate strecth that loses you a little quality from the original untouched letterbox image. the optical out from letterbox to film is near lossless cause its optical. the electronic crop and stretch done by squeeze mode is unfortunately not as lossless. and then your just doing your optical out from there.

..i really dont know where all this talk about additional color info is coming from concerning squeeze vs letterbox. they both start with almost the identical image. any additional color info is simply estimated and added electronically during the stretch process.. the same as would be done using the photozoom software.. only photozoom outperforms squeeze mode hands down imho. ..
 
Re: Barry, David, Disjecta - question?

I think the color reference was in regard to the use of the anamorphic adapter versus photozoomed letterbox.
 
Re: Barry, David, Disjecta - question?

[quote author=Policar link=board=Events;num=1100282002;start=0#3 date=11/12/04 at 11:43:06]squeeze mode gives you more color resolution than does letterbox.[/quote]

Actually, I don't think there is any doubt he is talking about squeeze mode.
 
Re: Barry, David, Disjecta - question?

wow that just made me feel like an idiot :D

Thanks disjecta! I guess I read what I thought made most sense instead of what was actually written :-X
 
Re: Barry, David, Disjecta - question?

I did a few tests by hooking up my DVX to my comp and capturing with Vegas 5. I started a new project - NTSC DV widescreen. I captured video of my room in the three dvx modes - normal, letterbox, and squeeze. Then I pan/crop all three to 16x9 ratio. Maybe my eyes aren't as trained as you guys, but I didn't see any resolution difference. Well when I pan/crop squeeze footage, the side vertical lines are covered (normal and letterbox modes there are 2 black vertical lines on both sides of the video). So in conclusion, does it matter what mode I really shoot in? My plan is for 16x9 dvd. And I masked my LCD to 16x9 and shoot in normal mode...f6... sorry if this has been explained before.
 
Re: Barry, David, Disjecta - question?

Thanks all for the advice. Disjecta - I take your opinion very seriously as your work is absolutely stunning. Iamloser - my apologies for not including you in the header - ditto on valuing your opinion. Thanks to Shaw and others too. Now I'm leaning towards:

Film 4x3, letterbox mask in post (I like the idea of having some room for error), uprezz to 16x9 anamorphic, create 16x9 DVD.

This seems to give me the most options without buying the anamorphic adapter. It's not that I can't afford the adapter, it's just that disjecta's uprezzed footage is simply amazing (especially after being heavily compressed for downloading.) If my wide shots aren't satisfactory, I'll just rent the adapter for those shots.

If I overlooked something, please let me know!!!
 
Re: Barry, David, Disjecta - question?

Before you make your final decision, do a couple of test shots in the general conditions you'll be shooting. Uprez the test shots and create a DVD. Look at it on a 4x3 and 16x9 TV and make sure your decision is sound before you start your project.

Good luck.
 
Re: Barry, David, Disjecta - question?

Also it is probably important to keep in mind the render times associated with photozoom. As of now you can only import so many frames at once and at several seconds a frame you will have a LONG wait if you are doing anything of great length.
 
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