The switch from 4:3 to 16:9

[CharlesPapert]

Back in the late 90's/early 2000's, those of us working on film-originated projects for broadcast TV had to deal with future-proofing our footage for 16:9 sets (which anyone had yet to see). Our 4:3 ground glasses were replaced by ones that had both 4:3 and 16:9 aspect ratios, and we were told to protect the difference between the two. Exactly what that meant was a moving target. Very few shows insisted on keeping the sides perfectly clean...generally we were told "do your best". If clearing out a bunch of stuff meant slowing down the process, we usually reported it and moved on. I remember thinking that there was going to be a lot of work for VFX peeps down the road when the new 16:9 versions of these shows were struck, cleaning up our messes.

Obviously the change to 16:9 came about, and every now and then you see that the process of ensuring the junk never made it to the masses was about as half-assed as our guidelines for "protecting". Caught this on one of the episodes of West Wing I worked on back in '99 and had to smile.

 

[nothing]

Smile worthy for sure On the bright side, most general public won't recognize that gear for what it is - but a few will

 

[puredrifting]

I see this here and there. I recall those days of shooting 4:3 but protecting 16:9.
I'm amazed too at how often, in darker scenes, I see a boom mic intruding in on top of frame, like it's just not there but as a sound oriented person, wow, does it stick out to me.

 

[markfpv]

Good stuff Charles. On the flip side of that...in my smaller market tv world, it was a bit of the opposite later....seems I was still protecting 4x3 (safe guides for graphics & action) while shooting 16x9 for local tv spots just a few years ago (though it's probably been at least 4 or 5 in reality). Just this week, I was on location with my 18" Panny monitor and accidentally hit the function button that brought up the 4x3 guides. Had a good chuckle to myself to realize I had never reprogrammed that button.

 

[Run&Gun]

I remember those days and absolutely HATED them. While not going quite as far back as the late 90's, I worked on some stuff in the early 2000's and it was the same BS. It was just so hard to wrap my head around why they were going through the trouble and expense of doing this high-profile show in HD and then crippling it. We shot on F900's, which at the time were $100K each and the show was posted in HD, which at the time was still expensive, along with an SD version. We were given the same dumb edict of "protect", meaning everything essential had to be kept within the 4x3 safe, while still shooting 16x9, but it HAD to be clean, as well. And the kicker to all this, even though the network had an HD channel, the shows only ran in HD ONE time each, for their premieres, then all the subsequent re-airs ran in SD. A few years ago they ran some of an interview I had shot in the series(the person had just passed away) and it was 4x3. Frickin' 4x3 when there is a 16x9 HD master sitting there in the library. And they ran that...

 

[puredrifting]

I remember those days and absolutely HATED them. While not going quite as far back as the late 90's, I worked on some stuff in the early 2000's and it was the same BS. It was just so hard to wrap my head around why they were going through the trouble and expense of doing this high-profile show in HD and then crippling it. We shot on F900's, which at the time were $100K each and the show was posted in HD, which at the time was still expensive, along with an SD version. We were given the same dumb edict of "protect", meaning everything essential had to be kept within the 4x3 safe, while still shooting 16x9, but it HAD to be clean, as well. And the kicker to all this, even though the network had an HD channel, the shows only ran in HD ONE time each, for their premieres, then all the subsequent re-airs ran in SD. A few years ago they ran some of an interview I had shot in the series(the person had just passed away) and it was 4x3. Frickin' 4x3 when there is a 16x9 HD master sitting there in the library. And they ran that...

That sucks man. My favorite frustration story of the era producing about three hours of new, original documentary content for Warner Bros. for their 2005 Box Set Release of The Wizard of Oz. They gave me three quarters of a million dollars, a lot for bonus material but required that I only shoot and deliver 4:3 SD. No matter how I begged them they wouldn't let me spend any of my budget on shooting it at least in HD. We shot so much killer material with people who are dead now, all shot on 4:3 SD in 2004. We had access to HD gear then but now all of that material is very much undesirable as 4:3 SD. Grr...still frustrates the hell out of me, probably one of my career high points and now, nobody wants it because it's not HD or 16:9.

 

[SHARBOR]

and now, nobody wants it because it's not HD or 16:9.

Interesting stories, good stuff! I shot a wedding in 1997 as 4:3 on MiniDV and then lost contact with the client, so the editing was never done. Client recently reappeared and decided he wants the edit completed so I edited the project and then realized that 4:3 interlaced material does not convert to the modern world very well, for instance as an .mp4 deliverable.

I researched different deinterlacing methods online and found a great solution using (all free) AviSynth and assorted plug-ins/filters for it that did a beautiful job of not just deinterlacing, but changing 30i to clean 60p believe it or not! However, result was of course pillar-boxed on modern displays. Then found further updated information on converting to cropped 720p to get a full 16:9 image (with sharpening) and results are quite surprising, with final converted output being ProRes HQ.

Workflow for PC users only and requires some patience and tinkering to install and get workflow going, but results are worth it - http://macilatthefront.blogspot.com/2018/09/tutorial-4-sd-to-hd-revisited.html

Definitely worth the effort if you have precious footage in need of updating and preservation.

Thanks

Jeff

 

[puredrifting]

Interesting stories, good stuff! I shot a wedding in 1997 as 4:3 on MiniDV and then lost contact with the client, so the editing was never done. Client recently reappeared and decided he wants the edit completed so I edited the project and then realized that 4:3 interlaced material does not convert to the modern world very well, for instance as an .mp4 deliverable.

I researched different deinterlacing methods online and found a great solution using (all free) AviSynth and assorted plug-ins/filters for it that did a beautiful job of not just deinterlacing, but changing 30i to clean 60p believe it or not! However, result was of course pillar-boxed on modern displays. Then found further updated information on converting to cropped 720p to get a full 16:9 image (with sharpening) and results are quite surprising, with final converted output being ProRes HQ.

Workflow for PC users only and requires some patience and tinkering to install and get workflow going, but results are worth it - http://macilatthefront.blogspot.com/2018/09/tutorial-4-sd-to-hd-revisited.html

Definitely worth the effort if you have precious footage in need of updating and preservation.

Thanks

Jeff

Good suggestion. All of the edit masters and camera masters are sitting in Warner Bros. archives so not much I could do with it but that's good to know for other material. I have exclusive interviews with lots of Hollywood people who have since passed on, you never know when someone will need them for a historical documentary.