Procedure for uprezzing 4x3 letterbox to 16x9

Re: Procedure for uprezzing 4x3 letterbox to 16x9

Thanks for the info disjecta. As far as cropping on the export goes with FCP, I was able to do this by changing the sequence setting to 720x372. I then export the image sequence and once finished, I change the sequence setting back to 720x480.
 
Re: Procedure for uprezzing 4x3 letterbox to 16x9

Here are before and after stills using disjecta's method with FCP:

beachbefore.png


beachafter.png
 
Re: Procedure for uprezzing 4x3 letterbox to 16x9

Here's an example from my initial tests:

Before:

before1.jpg


...and after:

after1.jpg
 
Re: Procedure for uprezzing 4x3 letterbox to 16x9

donbarzini,

Thanks sooo much for posting your workflow for FCP. ;D This is the program I've been working on and I've been running into some snags. Trying to figure out the Final Cut Pro workflow. Got some noise in uprezzed footage also.

I've been having some trouble getting my aspect ratio right. You mentioned doing two things to get it to display correctly:

1) Scaled movie file to 100%, then rendered.
2) Changed the sequence setting to 720x372. Then exported the image sequence and once finished, I change the sequence setting back to 720x480.

How did you do these two things?
 
Re: Procedure for uprezzing 4x3 letterbox to 16x9

Assuming you shoot in letterbox mode (camera puts black bars on top and bottom), there are two ways I found you can do this. Either you can export the image sequence from the FCP timeline as the default 720 x 480 size. You go through the PhotoZoom flow, create your QT movie by importing the image sequence into QT, then once finished, import the QT movie to FCP. You should have the anamorphic option checked in your sequence settings. Now with the QT movie still in the bin, right click or control click the movie and drag down to "item properties". Check the anamorphic option. Put the QT movie in your timeline, scale the movie to 100% and render.

The second option that I prefer is to use "iamloser's" speed tip but you need to do some workarounds in FCP. Change the sequence settings to a custom 720x372 timeline then export the image sequence, this crops the images prior to the export and removes the black bars, this is the only way to crop since I could not find a crop option prior to exporting an image sequence. As soon as FCP is finished exporting the image sequence, I change FCP's sequence settings back to 720x480. In PhotoZoom scale the image sequence to 720x480 and go through the same QT process. Once the QT file is in the FCP bin, you still need to check the anamorphic option in it's item properties. That is it, no need to scale to 100% since the image sequence was already scaled to 480 in PhotoZoom and the black bars were gone on the initial image sequence export.

I hope this makes some sense :D
 
Re: Procedure for uprezzing 4x3 letterbox to 16x9

Regarding noise, disjecta is right. I tried this process with other footage with no noticeable noise to start with and it looks great!
 
Re: Procedure for uprezzing 4x3 letterbox to 16x9

I had earlier read somewhere in the forum that 'November' was shot in 4:3 and was later cropped in post to widescreen.

I wonder whether they used a similar procedure as disjecta and iamloser discovered. If that was the case, I am sure it would have taken them 2-3 months to complete the whole process.
that makes me think that there SHOULD be some speedier though costlier options avaialble in this respect.
 
Re: Procedure for uprezzing 4x3 letterbox to 16x9

donbarzini,

Thanks! :D Yes. That makes total sense. I tried the 720 X 372 option in Sequence settings and it works great. You're right about using the "Custom" only setting. If you use the other "Custom" setting, it maintains the aspect ratio and forces it into 560 X 372 (or something similar)...

I guess you really need a lot of light to avoid the noise in the image. I had some pretty good exposed footage and still noticed some noise in certain areas. I wonder what would happen if I add a slight "blur" to the footage prior to exporting from the timeline (and importing into PhotoZoom Pro)? I'm going to try some different filters (Magic Bullet, Nattress filters) prior to export to see what effects I get after the uprez. Might be kinda fun.

On the upside...my computer is getting 2 second render times per frame in PhotoZoom. Not bad. The computer blows through a ton of frames pretty fast.

Any other tips to eliminate this noise or is it sort of a part of DV compression?
 
Re: Procedure for uprezzing 4x3 letterbox to 16x9

My Dual 2.0 GHZ G5 took an hour for PhotoZoom to scale 40 seconds worth of footage (960 frames). As far as noise, just like you said, you can try using some blur filters, MB, etc. With the time it takes to go through this process, it is fun by the way, I will consider the new Anamorphic adapter if it is ever released by Century. This process is way too time consuming for projects of great length.
 
Re: Procedure for uprezzing 4x3 letterbox to 16x9

Spline based interpolation/reconstruction has been applied in the publishing industry for quite some time. It is a powerfull tool (low distortion) but computation hungry...B.t.w. many people don't realize that uprezzed letterbox images ( and native anamorphics too) are made for widescreen displays, which have their own (and powerfull, real time) uprezzing build in, and in addition, quite often show vertical screen resolutions (numbers of lines or pixels in vertical direction)) exceeding the 525/625 standards. Even if there would be a perfect uprezzed 525/625 signal at the input, the widescreen display will resample it to its own image structure. So uprezzing letterbox pics for modern widescreen displays doesn't make sense and results in quality loss..just let your widescreen TV uprez the letterbox pics, it has been designed to do so because all analog widescreen broadcasting is in letterbox mode for compatibility reasons
 
Re: Procedure for uprezzing 4x3 letterbox to 16x9

Letting a widescreen TV "zoom" to widescreen aspect on a 4x3 letterbox-sourced movie does not yield the same results. The uprezzed version is much clearer and crisp. I have done extensive testing on this.
 
Re: Procedure for uprezzing 4x3 letterbox to 16x9

Disjecta, can't you post pics, like I did in the past. Progressive pics (still frames) ideally uprezzed to system vert res by Spline/Bezier techniques (525/625) and further uprezzed by the my Sharp 37"LCD to 768 pix, could almost equal the single step uprez build in into my Sharp. Interlaced pic were worthless! Did you verify the standard problem with (vertical)uprezzing, being artifacts by critical testpics?
 
Re: Procedure for uprezzing 4x3 letterbox to 16x9

Andre,

If you know of a better method than the one I've outlined here, I'm happy to hear about it. I'm sure someone will eventually find a more efficient way of doing this other than the one I have outlined here. But for now, I'm happy with it and it works well for me.

Unfortunately, I cannot expend any more time or energy on this but if you have screenshots of what you are talking about, I'd love to see them.
 
Re: Procedure for uprezzing 4x3 letterbox to 16x9

Disjecta, I appreciated yr work and the SW you found works wonderfull. I can't find artifacts and the processed pics you published look perfect. The only thing I remarked was a small amount of edge enhancement in the chain which makes the results even more attractive (unless the pic is noisy). Some months ago I had screenshots taken from my Sharp TV on my FTP site. Unfortunately I deleted everthing. Maybe somebody on this forum downloaded them and could make them available again.
 
Re: Procedure for uprezzing 4x3 letterbox to 16x9

The other thing I want to make clear to everyone is that this is really only suitable for those making very short films, maybe up to 10 mins long.

Otherwise you can expect to wait for days before the rendering is finished. :D
 
Re: Procedure for uprezzing 4x3 letterbox to 16x9

Sorry , I don't understand this letterbox option in DVX. Is it so that the DVX is just puting black bars on the 4:3 picture? Isn't it like this: the camcorder is not using the hole sensor to capture the image. And when you transfer it via firewire to the NLE timeline, than you get a 720x480 4:3 or 720x480 16:9 video? Depends on how the NLE's setup is. But without black bars.
 
Re: Procedure for uprezzing 4x3 letterbox to 16x9

Letterbox does exactly what its name implies: it "letterboxes" the video. It covers up the top and bottom with black bars.

It's designed for those who want to get the "widescreen" look, but intend on displaying their work on a 4:3 television. Something like 95% of the TV's in the USA are 4:3, so 4:3 with letterbox is an entirely reasonable approach to take.

If you want to have your video displayed on a widescreen TV, that's when you would choose "squeeze mode" instead of letterbox (unless you want to do the squeezing in post, which is what this thread is all about)
 
Re: Procedure for uprezzing 4x3 letterbox to 16x9

Barry - thank you. I now what a letterbox is.

I was just wondering how the DVX's "letterbox" works. Other camcorders has a letterbox only in the wievfinder and the video out is a 720x480/576. No black bars.

So the DVX is different. It has a letterboxed output. Some other camcorder has it as an option but as I can remember only the analog output can have it.
 
Re: Procedure for uprezzing 4x3 letterbox to 16x9

Actually, most camcorders these days have the letterbox option. It simply records black bars as the top and bottom quarters of the picture.

More and more are building in a "squeeze" mode, too. Keep in mind that all "squeeze" mode does is take the image from between the black bars and stretch it to the full frame.

The DVX100A has both a "squeeze" and a "letterbox" option.
 
Re: Procedure for uprezzing 4x3 letterbox to 16x9

I was wrong. I said to a frend that the DVX 's squeeze mode has to be something like a digital anamorphic adapter and the letterboxing option like the PD150's 16:9. But now I understand that the DVX's squeeze is the same as the PD150's 16:9 and the DVX has the real letterbox option. Thank you.

I couldn't figur out how this "my digital anamorphic" function could work. Everybody said it is just crap so I thought is has to be an miscalculated design option. But now I understand it is the same as the other non nativ 16:9 camcorders has. Thanks.
 
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