What are the best settings for .... ?

I

IsraelHoudini

Well-known member
im starting a feature length shoot soon, and after reading thousands of posts and websites i still have no clear answer as to the best settings for what i want the end result to be.

i expect to export to dvd. i want it to be 16x9 on standard television ( i despise full screen movies with a burning passion that cannot be equaled having worked in distribution for a few years now). and obviously fill the view on a widescreen tv. the dvd will be digitally projected for showings.

what settings will give me the highest quality image, played back at 16x9? letterbox, squeeze, or cropped 4:3?

i expect to edit in FCP4. which is better, 24p or 24pA? which will give me less hassles and/or look sharper and more cinematic and clearer?

and finaly, i dont have the cam yet, so does the lcd and viewfinder display adjust for the various settings?

straightforward simple answers greatly appreciated.
 
Re: What are the best settings for .... ?

I could try and help...but you might as well wait for Barry Green to answer this. I swear he should be on Panasonic's payroll.
 
Re: What are the best settings for .... ?

[quote author=IsraelHoudini link=board=news;num=1087552455;start=0#0 date=06/18/04 at 02:54:15]
what settings will give me the highest quality image, played back at 16x9?  letterbox, squeeze, or cropped 4:3?[/quote]
If you take the effort to extract the best from it, the anamorphic adapter will provide significantly higher resolution. But if you don't want to use that, I'd say squeeze will be your best bet, for your particular situation.

i expect to edit in FCP4.  which is better, 24p or 24pA? which will give me less hassles and/or look sharper and more cinematic and clearer?
Click to expand...
The look will be nearly identical, with perhaps a small advantage going to 24PA. But again, for your purposes, wanting to make a 24P DVD, I'd definitely use 24PA. As for less hassles, you'll have to ask FCP users about that... there are many issues that keep getting reported about 24P editing with FCP. I don't know what the most hassle-free way to go is.

and finaly, i dont have the cam yet, so does the lcd and viewfinder display adjust for the various settings?
Click to expand...
I'm not sure what you mean -- do you mean, will the LCD/VF accurately show what the camera is recording? They'll try, but they're nowhere near as good as having a quality CRT field monitor with you. And, no, they won't show a de-squeezed anamorphic image, so if you're shooting squeeze mode and want to see it in its proper framing you'll need an external 16:9 monitor (or the viewfinder de-anamorphic from Century Optics).
 
Re: What are the best settings for .... ?

I'd vote for 24pA for DVD production... I've had no trouble with FCP 4.1, and you get the benefit of space (and processing time) savings along with the "film look"... a win all around if that's the look you want.
 
Re: What are the best settings for .... ?

Hey thre Barry...a question. I keep hearing about Century Optic's 16x9 Viewfinder but neither Century's web site nor others can tell me a model number, nor does it seem to actually exist. I know there are adapters for many other makes. Could you (or anyone else reading this) give us all an actual model number? Thanks from the bottom of my Sun Shade!

Dorian
 
Re: What are the best settings for .... ?

They say the problem is with the size of the glass.  The viewfinder unsqueezer is fairly small in diameter.  They've had success with 37mm anamorphics, and 52m and 58mm... it's just the large 72mm that's giving 'em fits...

... and I suspect the unsqueezer was really easy. Just take an existing 16:9 lens, turn it 90 degrees, and it becomes an un-squeezer... so they may have just had to use one of their existing 37mm lenses and design a new mount for it, for the DVX VF.
 
Re: What are the best settings for .... ?

You may also want to consider Avid's XpressPro, or their up-coming Xpress Studio, which is a pretty stable solution for both 24p-A as well as 24p-standard. Price-wise similar to FCP, with good technical support, always reassuring to have in times of shooting features! To my eye, standard pulldown is smoother than the advanced pattern, but that only matters if you're NOT editing at 24p (well, 23.976p).
In theory (and in marketese) FCP offers "better image quality"; in practice though it seems that Avid's codec(s) may provide more accurate color management: see http://24p.com -> "Apple FCP and Avid XPDV frame grabs compared" for an illustration of FCP3 and XpressDV (both previous incarnations of present versions) output. Adam Wilt has an informative view also linked on this site.
Good luck on your project irrespective of editing soultion you wind up using!
 
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