Do You shoot 4x3 or 16x9?

F

firehawk

Veteran
I used to shoot 4x3 on most everything, but the last 3 years have been shooting 16x9.
The footage doesn't look as sharp but it seems everyone wants widescreen so that necessitated the change. I realize the DVX is only 4x3 native and squeezes to manage a non-native 16x9, which to me is the worst thing about an otherwise good camera. But when it came out, it was still largely a 4x3 world, and the loss of resolution of the panasonic widescreen method was deemed acceptable across it's prosumer line.
I end up upresing web video to 720p, normally with good results.

I was wondering if you DVX users out there mostly shoot 4x3, 16x9 squeeze, 4x3 letterbox or what?
 
I shoot in 16x9 Squeeze since I got to know this non-native works and how it would works in post. Quite few years ago! It may have differences between the 4x3 and 16x9 for us who made videos and films, but for the rest of people, they don't see the difference. I do some uprising to 720p and I do like those final results.
 
If you have a 100A or 100B, I can't think of a reason for shooting 4:3 instead of Squeeze unless you really want that aspect ratio.

I think letterbox is pretty much useless except for watching something directly from tape (and this is true on the original 100 as well). But how often does that happen? You pretty much always edit or at least capture first.
 
I shoot 4:3 and compose for 16:9 by using one of my old Screen Skins overlays on the LCD. That way, I can letterbox in post (or edit using a widescreen timeline). Same actual screen resolution as using the squeeze mode, but I still have the advantage of being able to shift the picture up or down a bit to compensate for headroom, etc.
I make widescreen (cropped) master for Sorenson Squeeze which uprezzes to 1280x720 for HD Youtube. Seems to work fine.
Hope this helps.
Ken
 
kplo said:
Same actual screen resolution as using the squeeze mode
Click to expand...

You're not getting the same quality, though.

When the camera crops the 4:3 image in order to make the squeezed image, it does it before image processing. It takes the raw image from the CCDs and works with that.

Then it compresses at a 5:1 ratio into DV, meaning it's throwing away 80% of the image information.

When you do it in post, you're doing it on the compressed, post-processing image. You're doing it with 80% less information. You're uprezzing far less of an image than the camera does.

Squeeze will give you better-quality 16:9 than doing it in post -- and this is especially important if you're planning to uprez even further to 720. Sure, you lose the ability to re-frame, but just do it right when you shoot.
 
Thanks David...I always thought that the squeeze was performed on the "enlarged" processed image.
The tests I've done showed no visual difference, even on finely detailed subjects, but those were on my old Panasonic S video CRT monitor. I originally shyed away from squeeze because my 100A doesn't un-squeeze it on the LCD or in the camera VF.
Now you got me goin' I'm gonna test that again on a HD monitor. :)
Thanks,
Ken
 
I have ye olde anamorphic adapter for the OG DVX100. I have liked the results sometimes –- very much -- though other times, I have found it very finicky and it has a very narrow aperture range and somewhat narrow zoom range where it gives best results. Still, it's fun to play with. The wide end is _really_ wide, which can be a nice thing. Now shooting mostly 720p24_n_ with the HPX170, however, but I still like the image and the color from the DVX100 a lot.

Is squeeze better than or about equal to the anamorphic adapter results, I wonder sometimes. I don't have the former option, as it turns out.
 
If you shoot in squeeze (I assume you also are shooting at the F6 setting (if you have the DVX100a)), how are you bringing it into your NLE? I have Premiere CS6 and was wondering if I did shoot some footage in squeeze what settings would you have to set your NLE to import it in so it would be in the right format?
 
F6 selection (from factory) would shoot with the 2:3:3:2 pull-down in-bedded so it could be edited in 24p timeline.
 
I shoot squeeze exclusively now, but back in the day we used to shoot 4:3 in school. That was the time when no one really bothered, "Oh SD? That's 4:3." How spoiled.
 
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