exporting as 16:9

S

sean90291

Veteran
If I have a 4:3 letterbox film in my Avid, how would I export it so that the black bars were squeezed out and the whole film became 16:9 output? That is, if I want to get rid of the black bars and keep the image blown up to true 16:9, can I do that on export? Or is there another step I have to do first.

Ultimately, I want to reproduce the film on DigiBeta for projection in a theatre (having now seen my short projected at 4:3 and accidentally blown up to 16:9--even though I hadn't framed it that way--the 16:9 screening blew the 4:3 away). I think I'll have to disagree with the folks who say if you shoot 4:3 and have a great story, just exhibit 4:3. I say exhibit 16:9 AT ALL COSTS!
 
If you are running on a Mac, Apple's Compressor can crop out the bars and from there you can create a native 16x9 image. Not sure how to do it on a PC.
 
You probably want to scale the image vertically in Avid to give the correct ratio for anamorphic output. I'm sure there's an effect which does that, but I don't remember what it is.
 
This is VERY useful for all Avid users who have 4:3 footage. I couldn't find info on how to do it anywhere in the manuals. Seems like a common thing to try to do.

Krestofre, would this also work? Use the Reformat>Pan and Scan effect, set the Source to 1.33 and the Target to 16:9 Anamorphic.
 
I think that would work ... to tell you the truth I haven't messed with Pan and Scan much. I normally just throw a resize effect on. :)
 
Okay thanks, I'll stick with Re-size. Seems MUCH simpler. I did use re-size already in the timeline for various shots. I have never tried putting a Re-size on top of existing Re-size effects. EDIT: I guess I should collapse the video layer before I do this...so I can effectively apply the re-size on top of a re-size.
 
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Yeah, or go back to my favorite trick of adding an empty video track and putting the effect on it. :)
 
krestofre said:
Yeah, or go back to my favorite trick of adding an empty video track and putting the effect on it. :)
Click to expand...
I've never tried that. So the effect will then apply to the layers below it? Avid surprises me every damn day.
 
This thread is interesting.

There's a project I am involved which I shot in 4:3 on a PD170. As I agree with Sean to always exhibit in 16:9 ifyou can, I framed everything in 16:9 by taping the viewfinder so I could later add a mask on the Avid.

In fact that turned out better than using the PD170's own 16:9 capability, which I used on another moment of the shooting with crappy results. Never do that.

Well, that same project might become a theatrical film, shooting more stuff and then blowing up to film. The camera/s I will be using now will be Z1.

So here are my options and I would appreciate some opinions on:

1) Continue shooting in the same way with the Z1, in DV, using the same 4:3 ratio.

2) Shoot in DV but using the Z1 capability to shoot in real 16:9. Resize vertical => 133 on already shot material.

3) Shoot in HDV (which is 16:9) and uprezz the already shot DV material, cropped as 16:9 using the Resize vertical => 133 as suggested.

The uprezz I think will be necessary to improve on the already shot DV quality.

What do you think?
 
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If you shoot DV and intend to alter it's aspect ratio later on, you should adjust the camera's sharpness ( detail on DVX ) down as far as it goes, and shoot 'soft'. ( This simply means you are not ADDING artificial sharpness - your not actually adding any softness ! )

Shoot full 4:3 rather than 4:3 with black bars to mask to 16:9. Shooting with the camera recording Black Bars puts ZeroBlack in your shot - regardless of exposure, so in later colour correction they set a trace on your scopes - ( not that I'VE ever been caught out that way . . . er, . . well . . . ).

After Aspect Ratio Conversion - put the sharpness you didn't add in camera back on. Voila ! nicer edges.
 
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