Quick question..

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tcibene

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I saw this on a forum one time..

"This was shot in the camera's native 1:85:1 Ratio and i converted it to my favorite ratio of all time...2:35:1"

I have an xl2, which is the same camera this guy uses to shoot, and I shoot in the 16:9 ratio. I am trying to figure out how to make the 16:9 that the camera makes to a 2:35:1. Is there a codec or some sort of way some one could direct me to making my movies look like this ratio? I use Adobe Premeire.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FiIjGIvIFUE

i am a noob so if this topic has already been posted, please post the site url here.

Thanks!
Tim
 
All it really involves is overlaying the video with a black layer, and then putting a transparent mask through the middle to show the video underneath.
 
Wouldn't that cut out a bunch of the video from the top and bottom?
 
Yep. When people plan for 2.35:1 they just shoot with some sort of 2.35 markers on the monitor/lcd so you know whats going to get cut. Rubberbands, acetate (printed on or grease pencil), get creative.
 
OK, so what i did is in Adobe premiere pro, i ended up cropping the top and bottom. Top is 75pix and bottom is 75 pix. It came out amazing but from now on i will shoot so that i can crop it later. Thanks A whole bunch and one more thing. When i'm cropping it from top and bottom, what amount should i crop it by so that it is the official 2:35?
 
I don't know of any precise way of measuring it, really. Just use your eye judgement :-p

Actually, I'm sure someone knows of an exact way but I surely don't.
 
i'm trying to figure out how to mark it on the XL2. Thats the camera i'm working with. I'm trying to figure out how to mark out the square were to film.
 
is there any codecs people would recommend for exporting with a 24fps on a xl2? I'm trying to find one that brings rly nice quality.. So far i have found a mpeg2 dvd quality and its nice but is there anything better?
 
when i'm exporting, i export in a m2v file, like mpeg2 dvd format or something. I'm just trying to find the most excellent looking image. Any suggestions on hardware, software, and codecs?
 
tcibene said:
when i'm exporting, i export in a m2v file, like mpeg2 dvd format or something. I'm just trying to find the most excellent looking image. Any suggestions on hardware, software, and codecs?

Nothing beats TMPGenc at 8000kbps CBR, Highest Quality. I usually output an uncompressed AVI from Premiere and use that to encode in TMPGenc.
 
tcibene said:
OK, so what i did is in Adobe premiere pro, i ended up cropping the top and bottom. Top is 75pix and bottom is 75 pix. It came out amazing but from now on i will shoot so that i can crop it later. Thanks A whole bunch and one more thing. When i'm cropping it from top and bottom, what amount should i crop it by so that it is the official 2:35?

There is no exact amount of pixels to crop when converting 16:9 to 2.35 because it is dependent on how many pixels you start with. If you shoot SD which is 720x480pix you will crop less pixels than if you shoot HD 720 or HD 1080. The best way to find out how to get official 2.35 is to do the math.

NOTE: 16:9 is 1.78 and NOT 1.85, remember that.

I'm pretty sure you know what 2.35 means but in case you dont know... 2.35 means the width of the frame is 2.35 times larger than the height.

The equation is:

Height x 2.35 = Width

Now, you're not going to crop the sides, so the width of your frame will stay the same, meaning you have that value. Once you plug in that value, you do the math and figure out how many pixels your height should be. Whatever value you get, you find the difference between that value and the amount of pixels you currently have for your height. Divide that value by 2 and that's how much you crop off from top and bottom.

Example with SD:

SD frame is 720(width) x 480(height)

Height x 2.35 = 720

divide 720 by 2.35 to get:

Height = 306.3829 and then more numbers

Difference between 306 and 480 is 174

Half of 174 is 87 pixels.

Cut 87 pixels on the top and 87 pixels on the bottom of a 4x3 full frame SD image, and now you have a 2.35 framed image.

Now if you're working with an anamorphic lense, then things change a bit. What an anamorphic lense does is stretch a 4x3 image into a 16x9 image. So, technically, if you're using an anamorphic lense, you still have 720x480 pixels, just stretched wider. Luckily, math is our friend. I'm not 100% sure but I believe the pixels are stretched width-wise by 1.33 when using the lense. So think of each pixel being 1 high by 1.33 wide. For mathmatical equations, you want to convert these 1x1.33 pixels to 1x1 pixels in your mind. So how many pixels do you have width-wise? Multiply that by 1.33 to get the amount of pixels that you would have if the pixels were 1x1. Then follow the above directions to find out how many pixels you need to crop from the top and bottom.
 
In PremierePro, you can use the transform>crop function set to 22% to get the 2.35:1 aspect ratio. Of course that's if you are starting with a 4:3 image. As far as exporting, I think that Sorenson Video 3 compression to .mov yields some of the best results.

Here's a link to an aspect ratio guide that you can slap over your footage when editing or even print out for your non 2.35:1 or 16:9 camera display.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:WideScreenFormats_Breitbildformate.svg
 
morisato said:
There is no exact amount of pixels to crop when converting 16:9 to 2.35 because it is dependent on how many pixels you start with. If you shoot SD which is 720x480pix you will crop less pixels than if you shoot HD 720 or HD 1080. The best way to find out how to get official 2.35 is to do the math.

NOTE: 16:9 is 1.78 and NOT 1.85, remember that.

I'm pretty sure you know what 2.35 means but in case you dont know... 2.35 means the width of the frame is 2.35 times larger than the height.

The equation is:

Height x 2.35 = Width

Now, you're not going to crop the sides, so the width of your frame will stay the same, meaning you have that value. Once you plug in that value, you do the math and figure out how many pixels your height should be. Whatever value you get, you find the difference between that value and the amount of pixels you currently have for your height. Divide that value by 2 and that's how much you crop off from top and bottom.

Example with SD:

SD frame is 720(width) x 480(height)

Height x 2.35 = 720

divide 720 by 2.35 to get:

Height = 306.3829 and then more numbers

Difference between 306 and 480 is 174

Half of 174 is 87 pixels.

Cut 87 pixels on the top and 87 pixels on the bottom of a 4x3 full frame SD image, and now you have a 2.35 framed image.

Now if you're working with an anamorphic lense, then things change a bit. What an anamorphic lense does is stretch a 4x3 image into a 16x9 image. So, technically, if you're using an anamorphic lense, you still have 720x480 pixels, just stretched wider. Luckily, math is our friend. I'm not 100% sure but I believe the pixels are stretched width-wise by 1.33 when using the lense. So think of each pixel being 1 high by 1.33 wide. For mathmatical equations, you want to convert these 1x1.33 pixels to 1x1 pixels in your mind. So how many pixels do you have width-wise? Multiply that by 1.33 to get the amount of pixels that you would have if the pixels were 1x1. Then follow the above directions to find out how many pixels you need to crop from the top and bottom.

Your math is wrong. You are forgetting the PAR involved. Correcting for widescreen PAR, the width figure should 854, not 720. 854/2.35=364, 480-364=116, 116/2=58. 58 pixels top and bottom to convert widescreen NTSC to 2.35 letterbox widescreen NTSC.
 
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