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16:9 Widescreen to 4:3 Letterbox PROBLEMS
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Not that it matters, but I definately made my point. I gave my exact situation, and I gave my exact need. I understand that many people come in these forums understanding so little that they may in fact be trying to solve the wrong problem (in this case, that would go something like this: why not just use widescreen end-toend?). However, I explicitly stated EXACTLY what I needed in the very first post, then I reiterated it in another post. So, I’m not sure WHAT you’re talking about because I couldn’t have been more clear about what I was trying to do.
That said, you seem to be more interested in the “why” than what I’m interested which is the “how.” I didn’t feel that I needed to bother anyone with the why because it has nothing to do with the how, but I can see why it matters to some people because sometimes you have no idea who you are dealing with in the forums, and you have no idea if they are just completely clueless and missing the whole point.
Anyway, to answer some of your questions… YES, you can put widescreen-formatted video on many forms of tape. However, if the device/player etc. doesn’t understand the flag, what you’ll get is a “squished” image. For example, let’s say you record in true widescreen PAR=1.22 onto DV tape. If you play that DV tape connected to a regular 4:3 TV, chances are about 95% that the tape will play fine, but the entire widescreen image will be squished into the TV (it’ll look stretched vertically — it’ll look kind of like you used an anamorphic lense but never stretched the image out to widescreen width). Now, if you plugged it into a widescreen TV (or a really modern 4:3 TV), the TV would recognize it’s widescreen and automatically play it that way (or on a really modern TV, it might letterbox it for you, but that is WAY the exception, NOT the rule). That is just one example.
More importantly however, you might have a client, or a TV station, or whatever, that MANDATES you provide them with a MiniDV print-to-tape version of your show in 4:3 format. Period. End of story. Ask them why they want it that way, all I know, is that’s the way they want it, and that’s the way I have to give it to them, or they won’t accept it. Like someone else said around here, it’s not the preferred way, but this often comes up and you need ways to deal with it. Basically, this requirement is mostly done for compatibility reasons. A client or whoever’s whole operation is based on 4:3, and they want everything in 4:3 or they won’t use it. It’s their standard, and they do not want to deal with letterboxing it themselves (probably because of this exact kind of crap I am trying to fix right now). Hopefully that puts more context around the why…
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I understand… now… what it is that you were looking for… and that my attempt to work around the problem was offensive to your senses. Unfortunately knowing the complete context of the question (and your prior posts were NOT explicit enough to see) helps in considering the answers one gives.
You seem ncapable of taking constructive questions/discussions around the problems you posed and intent therfore on being rude to the people who attempt to look around the problem somewhat.
Despite your own issues… having wider discussions around such problems (I find anyway) leads to a much deeper level of understanding of the issues… NOT JUST between you and I.. but in a way that benefits many others who participate (viewing and posting) in this forum.
I’ll certainly add a note for future reference that you do not appreciate someone using their brain to help respond to your questions.
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Sorry, man… I wasn’t offended, and I didn’t mean to offend you. So if I did, I apologize. Also, I’ve posted this question in a couple of different forums, and I’m getting a little mixed up about what I posted where — I’ve probably posted more clear descriptions in other places. My bad. I think it’s more that I’m frustrated by this and you’re questioning of why I want to do this made me even more frustrated than I already was. I should have taken a deep breath before posting…
Back to the problem at hand though. I’ve had some success by using the reduce interlace flicker switch on the events that look the worse. I thought I had tried that already, but maybe not. I think this problem has something to do with the fact that my widescreen footage is literally being resized smaller for the letterboxing, and that resizing is affecting the lower and upper interlaced fields a little differently such that I’m getting serious jaggies on horizontal motion. I also tried blend deinterlacing (making progressive) my project settings, then rendering back out to interlaced 4:3 NTSC DV. This seemed to also help a lot, but that round trip de-lace/re-lace isn’t a good thing to say the least. However, these two options seem to produce much better results than doing nothing. I haven’t yet tried Procoder like the other guy recommended yet, but I will, and I’ll report back my findings.
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Despite trying to offer an alternative view to the solution – I certainly am nonetheless interested in the core problem that you encountered… and ways to make it work better.
I also apologize at being rather snappy in my posts….
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Taynt3d i knew exactly what your issue was with outputting letterboxed 16:9 in 4:3 format in your first post! dunno where all the confusing came about… its a very simple concept especially for us here in the big state of arkansas. 16:9 is cool but who actually has a 16:9 tv or better yet, even a “regular” tv that’ll recognize 16:9 and scale appropriately?? hahaha modern tvs do it, but the run of the mill old tube tvs people have show only what they’re given. never seen a dv deck either that’ll automatically scale 16:9 into letterbox (or edge crop). supposedly dvd players will do it, but i’ve never seen an actual 16:9 commercially produced dvd. dvds you rent at a store are all 4:3 letterboxed.. and its within the player or tv that you can basically zoom the image to fill a true 16:9 tv screen if thats what it’s played on.
to answer the original question (in case you’re still having issues).. i had that same issue when i first played with 16:9 source material in vegas. make sure under the project properties that “deinterlace method” is set to “blend fields” thats what i use when i simply want to drop some 16:9 clips into a 4:3 project. the clips are automatically letterboxed and with “blend fields” turned on, the output seems to be just as good as running 16:9 footage through a decent ARC or DVE. or you can do a project in 16:9, then when you print to tape just choose regular ntsc dv instead of ntsc dv widescreen. course.. the problem im still having is if i’ve done a wipe or any transition that has graphical elements (colored border), the border doesnt stay within the confines of the 16:9 space! the border extends and fills the 4:3 space. really annoying!
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I don’t know if it’s too late and at the risk of getting my head handed to me: if the client wants 4:3 you should shoot 4:3 and avoid all these problems.
As I said, maybe it’s too late; maybe you cannot go back and reshoot or you are working with previously shot footage. But, frankly, I’d avoid all the high tech solutions. Sometimes the technology gets in the way. I’d try to shoot in the format that the client wants in the first place.
OK, I’m ready for it. 😉
Good luck.
Dennis
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