Widescreen Differences...

I

ipastudios

New member
We're really new to filmmaking, in terms of making films for a festival, we we're trying to figure out the difference between, digital squeeze mode, and letterbox mode. Do any of them cause distortion?
 
Letterbox mode crops a 4:3 aspec ratio image. Squeeze mode shoots in an actual 16:9 aspect ratio.
 
I'm not sure which is technically "better". I can offer you my opinion. If you shoot 4:3 full screen you can put a letterbox look on it and control what you place within the masked off portion. This gives you control over your final product, but it's 4:3 letterboxed.

If you shoot in "squeeze" mode then you get the 16:9 aspect and are stuck with it. I shoot "squeeze" when I KNOW I am going to a native 16:9 screen.
 
All "squeeze" does is take the image between the black bars in letterbox mode and stretch it out to fill the rest of the frame. It's exactly the same resolution.

Personally, I find letterbox mode useless.
 
Sad Max said:
You find that the processed squeeze is superior to the unprocessed overlayed-bars?
Click to expand...

This is debatable.

To "stretch" the footage from Letterbox to Full-screen "Squeeze" the camera performs interpolation. The quality of this conversion in-camera vs in post is debatable.

Due to the need for a blowup from the "16:9" ("letter-boxed") area, it's generally advised to do that blowup in post on a clean 4:3 image - not one that has been restricted by the letterbox bars.

- Mikko
 
Sad Max said:
You find that the processed squeeze is superior to the unprocessed overlayed-bars?
Click to expand...

I find that if you want to make a true widescreen image out of letterboxed footage, you have to crop off the black bars anyway, so why bother with them in the first place? You're only restricting yourself, and the black bars gain you noooooothing in any context.
 
Well, resolution-wise, your best bet is to shoot 4:3 with the anamorphic adapter. You're still originating 720 x 480, but you're no longer discarding valuable information at the top and bottom of the image for cropping if you output to a 16:9 project.

e
 
So if were to use squeeze mode...and capture into vegas..how do I get the image to fill the entire display monitor?...also if I'm capturing in squeze mode..I do not want to change the capturing monitor to widescreen right?..nor should I mess with the little box in the capture settings.."base dv decoding on preview window size?"
 
Ok thanks...but when I capture footage filmed in "squeeze" mode it doesnt fill the monitor all the way..so do I crop it then? or someone earlier suggested messing with the pixels?..what do you recommend?
 
Squeeze is widescreen footage, so if you have to change the preview window to widescreen, then so be it. You should be using a widescreen project and outputting widescreen. There's no magic to it.
 
Can someone (with some time to spare) put up just some screen shots of something in normal and then the "Squeeze mode" and the other modes if possisble just so we can get an idea of what they look like. Thanks
 
"what monitor"...sorry the preview in which we watch the footage in vegas...I meant monitor so that I didnt have to say preview, so that I wouldnt be confused with the capture preview monitor...so ya the little video preview
 
I assume, then, that you mean it doesn't "fill the screen" becaues there are balck bars on the top and bottom? As mentioned above, you should be working in a Widescreen project.
 
well..I'm working in a widescreen project and yet when I place the footage in the timline after capturing it and then watch it on the preview it looks like a 4:3..and I cant figure how to make it fill the preview?..so thats why I was wondering what I should do to make it look 16:9...I heard two ways ..either cropping or messing with the properties?..you mentioned before about not touching the pixel things...so then I went in and cropped it but still dont get the black bars?...how do I get those?
 
I'm on Vegas 5.0 - Try this: go to file>properties, make sure the video tab is selected, next to "pixel aspect ratio" select "1.2121 (ntsc DV widescreen)" from the drop down.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top