squeeze vs letterbox

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Killawa

Active member
I have been doing extensive searches to find out what the difference between Letterbox and squeeze mode is on the DVX100b? How do the affect your post work?
 
Killawa said:
I have been doing extensive searches to find out what the difference between Letterbox and squeeze mode is on the DVX100b? How do the affect your post work?
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From my understanding letterbox shoots with bars meaning when you transfer it from tape it will be 4x3 with bars.
Squeeze shoots as if you were shooting with bars, but eliminates the black, so when you transfer it to your comp it trasnfers as 16x9 footage, not 4x3 with bars.
 
For FCP, at least, that is correct. Squeeze mode produces footage that should be edited in 16:9. Letterbox mode produces 4:3 footage, but of course you could edit in 16:9 by resizing it.

(I imagine the answer is the same for other editors.)
 
I do it the second route which iain.bason mentioned. I shoot in 4:3 then bring it into a NTSC anamorphic timeline then scale it by 133.33%. I have never tried the squeeze mode. I wonder if you have the ability to move the frame up and down like I do with my route?
 
Does 16:9 lose any quality e.g. if 16:9 is compared to 4:3 is it same quality???

One cameraman told me that on the DVX100 he uses an animorphic lens but it appears on my version B of the camera this is no longer nessciary as it has a squezze mode???

Confused and hope someone can help!!!!
 
Squeeze loses image area, not really resolution. If you use letterbox you lose image area to black bars, and retain a smaller image area between the bars. Squeeze keeps that same image area, but stretches it to fill the frame. So the same amount of detail is recorded in both.

The difference is: in 4:3 that image takes up less screen space, in squeeze it's stretched to fill the screen.

(so technically that would mean it's lower resolution, in that there's less detail in the image area, but only because the letterbox version is smaller inherently, and the SQU mode has been stretched). As far as retained detail they're basically the same.
 
Hey Barry, I read your book and if I remember it right you were talking about losing either resolution or sharpness when using the squeeze mode?

I am pretty sure this was talked about in several parts of the book.

I really like the squeeze function, but at the same time I want to maintain the highest picture quality. So I always thought it is a give and take situation...
 
Either way you do it you are loosing about the same amount of resolution all said and done so choose the one that fits your post work flow better.

I shoot squeeze exclusively.
 
As demonstrated in Barry's book, you get a tiny bit more resolution in letterbox mode compared to squeeze - barely noticible in my opinion though :)

If you are outputting for 4:3, I'd recommend that you shoot letterbox and edit in a 4:3 timeline for that widescreen look :)

If your intended output is to DVD or to 16:9 and you don't have the anamorphic adapter, shoot squeeze - (as it states in Barry's book) You get almost identical resolution to letterbox, but it'll fill the entire 16:9 frame (or be letterboxed for 4:3 playback by the DVD player if required)

The anamorphic adapter gives you close to the maximum resolution afforded by the DV format (540 lines) so if you want the highest resolution - it's the way to go (but you'll need to shell out some $$ for the extra 200 lines of resolution!!)
 
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