This question again!?!

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Kentertainment

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I am fully aware that questions along what I'm about to ask has been said over and over, so don't get upset.

Here is the thing, I'm gaining an interest in cinematography so I'm just getting new to it. I see all these threads about Letterbox, Squeeze, and 4:3 frame and I just seem to read these super long answers that go to opinion instead of fact. So the question is...

Which simply has the best resolution? Letterbox, Squeeze, or 4:3?

I've also read somewhere that if you frame a 4:3 in order to add a matte of black bars later or just crop black bars it somehow reduces quality. Is this true?

I normally shoot in Letterbox and then set my timeline to widescreen where I have to crop my image to fit the screen and I'm basically zooming in on the image and it's making the quality look horrendous and I'm getting sick and tired of it.
 
it's pretty simple, if you have a camera that has 4:3 chips in it, then shooting 4:3 is your best resolution. letterboxing will simply cut off resolution and squeeze will give you a true anamorphic video, but to do so you will loose resolution.
 
Kentertainment said:
I normally shoot in Letterbox and then set my timeline to widescreen where I have to crop my image to fit the screen and I'm basically zooming in on the image and it's making the quality look horrendous and I'm getting sick and tired of it.
Click to expand...

It would be much better for you to use squeeze mode than doing it this way.
 
If you want 16:9 but don't want to use the anamorphic lens, I'd also recommend squeeze mode. I shoot squeeze all the time and really like it.
 
There are only two ways to get highest quality 16:9 footage out of DVX100:
1- Progressive In Camera (Shoot in Squeeze mode)
2- Progressive Out Camera (Shoot in Letterbox and Upraise in Software)

This raises another question:
Which technique produces the best of the best wide-screen footage ?

My Opinion:
There are two possibilities:
1- "If the camera upraises the RAW footage not yet compressed for DV": In this case theoretically In-Camera produces the best of the best 16:9 footage(yet to confirm).

2- "If the camera upraises the DV compressed footage": In this case theoretically latest software would produce the best 16:9 footage since better algorithms to upraise are developed since Oct. 2005 (release date of DVX100B).

Any suggestions !
 
It only takes one comparison of SQUEEZE compared to a 4:3 uprezzed in post (using any tool or method) to sell you on SQUEEZE forever. It's not even close.

I tend to think the people that debate this point have never actually done such a comparison.
 
Great! So, you mean that In-Camera Squeeze mode produces the finest 16:9 footage. It may also correct me saying that DVX Squeeze mode is actually applied on the RAW footage before DV compression. Woof !

So, the 16:9 work-flow would be:
1- Always shoot in progressive DVX squeeze mode.
2- Capture on 24/25P 16:9 time-line (since Squeeze footage is already upraised to 16:9).
3- Edit and keep '24/25P Master' footage.
 
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