letterbox footage : how ???

Randall_Oelerich

Randall_Oelerich

Veteran
I have 1920x1080 footage (16:9) in my vegas project, rendering it all out with audio, Foley, etc. I can not figure out how to get letterboxed output with .avi output. Seems to happen with .mov Quicktime okay, but what do I need to do to get letterbox (black bars on TOP and BOTTOM; not black bars on right and left sides)? I am careful to choose the 1.77 ratio (height x 1.777 = width) if not doing 1920x1080, but I can not get letterboxed rendering. At least not in the live preview as it renders, maybe it ends up letterboxed once done?
 
But it's already at filmic proportion; it doesn't need letterboxing. The only reason you letterbox is to display material that's at a wider aspect (proportion) than the screen you're displaying it on.
 
David, if he wants the amps on 11... put them on 11..!!! :)

Need to render the project at 1920x1440. That should put the letterboxing on.
 
Thank you PerroneFord, I will give that a try today. Whether to letterbox is a subjective thing I guess. Douglas Whitefeather says it is one thing you can do to give DV a more filmic look, because letterboxing is what we are used to seeing in theatres; I suppose in theatres it is because the black bars at the top and bottom give some space from the ceiling and floor, or whatever (Likely something behind it all to make us buy more 10-30W oiled up popcord for $8 a bucket).

PerroneFord said:
David, if he wants the amps on 11... put them on 11..!!! :) Need to render the project at 1920x1440. That should put the letterboxing on.
Click to expand...
 
There are no black bars in a movie theater. There's only the screen.

Douglas Spotted Eagle wrote that because DV, especially at the time he wrote it, is typically 4:3, the aspect ratio of TV. If you're adding letterboxing, you're giving the illusion of a wider picture, which corresponds to what you see on a letterboxed DVD or letterboxed movie on TV. (I promise you he would not advocate what you're doing.)

But the only reason it's letterboxed is to show the whole picture at once on a screen which isn't shaped the same way. Your picture is already widescreen. The only reason it would be necessary to letterbox it is to show it on a 4:3 TV.

Or, if a movie is 2.35:1 or 2.40:1 or wider, it will need the black bars on a 16:9 screen, too, but ONLY because the aspect is wider than 16:9's aspect.

But that's not your footage. Your footage is 16:9. There's just no reason to add black above and below.

But if you really, really want to, you can; you'll just be adding to the file size unnecessarily and making it more difficult to fit onto any screen, especially at full size.
 
Crop the movie to 2,35:1

It gives black bars, retain the 16:9 compability. And give some filmic sense to it.
 
Okay to be honest I have not paid much attention in theatres to see if there are black letterbox bars on the top and bottom of some movies, I thought for some movies there are-- movies shot with a cinerama or panavision type aspect ratio, 2.35:1 or so.

Suppose I frame my film in 2:35 cinerama mode, but my camera saves the footage as 16:9 (1.77:1); so in post production I want it letterboxed to recreate the [2.35:1 cinerama] framing I envisioned during shooting, as helped by my camera's LCD overlay framing grid. Doesn't that create a situation justifying letterboxing? E.g. when I watch the movie "The Return" (Asif Kapadia, director; Sarah Michelle Gellar, star) on DVD I see it letterboxed even on my 16:9 home TV; so in the theatre I should think it would be letterboxed, not sure, but regardless if I shot a movie like that I would want my footage that was recorded in 16:9 off my camera letterboxed in post to give me the 2.35:1, right? I would obviously lose images top and bottom but that would be my desire, since during shooting I did not want that image data in the final rendered output.
~:beer: Randall





David Jimerson said:
There are no black bars in a movie theater. There's only the screen.

Douglas Spotted Eagle wrote that because DV, especially at the time he wrote it, is typically 4:3, the aspect ratio of TV. If you're adding letterboxing, you're giving the illusion of a wider picture, which corresponds to what you see on a letterboxed DVD or letterboxed movie on TV. (I promise you he would not advocate what you're doing.)

But the only reason it's letterboxed is to show the whole picture at once on a screen which isn't shaped the same way. Your picture is already widescreen. The only reason it would be necessary to letterbox it is to show it on a 4:3 TV.

Or, if a movie is 2.35:1 or 2.40:1 or wider, it will need the black bars on a 16:9 screen, too, but ONLY because the aspect is wider than 16:9's aspect.

But that's not your footage. Your footage is 16:9. There's just no reason to add black above and below.

But if you really, really want to, you can; you'll just be adding to the file size unnecessarily and making it more difficult to fit onto any screen, especially at full size.
Click to expand...
 
No, then that's fine -- you need to letterbox it to get the desired 2.35:1 -- you do this in pan/crop. But that's only because it's the only way to do it within a 16:9 frame. This is what you'll have to do for DVD.

However, if you're looking for computer display, you don't actually have to export as 16:9; you can export as actual 2.35:1 and then you won't need black bars there, either.
 
Thanks. All a bit confusing. So many rendering choices, aspect ratios. I am basically playing with my footage with rendering now, seeing what can be done, trying out various video rendering codecs, etc. I will try the pan/crop to 2:35 just to experiment and see what happens.

David Jimerson said:
No, then that's fine -- you need to letterbox it to get the desired 2.35:1 -- you do this in pan/crop. But that's only because it's the only way to do it within a 16:9 frame. This is what you'll have to do for DVD....
Click to expand...
 
David Jimerson said:
It's a problem if the smaller height cuts things out that you don't want gone.
Click to expand...

Thats correct, but its suprising how many times you actually can reframe to 2,35:1 without hurting the video.

Its like the more important stuff happen in the side, and not the top and bottom.
 
Try these...One is 4x3 the second is 16x9.

Master Jimmerson IS right.....:)
 

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