16mm Film to HD

[Doug Weiner]

Thanks for the lead, but its not exactly what I am looking for.

I have transferred 16mm already in HD, 1920×1080, 23.98. The problem is that because the original source material is 4:3 16mm, the HD footage has a black pillar box. My vendors do not want the pillar box. The two solutions are to blow up the image to fill the 16:9 screen which as a result cuts off the top and bottom. The other is to replace the black pillar bars with moving image. Neither solution is good, but the latter is the lesser of the two evils.

I am hoping to find someone who has some experience in the aesthetic of making these ‘moving’ pillar boxes. I have done it in FCP, and its not bad.

My method.
Two video tracks with identical video. On upper track (track 2), crop the image left and right so that I have a video picture of 1440×1080. Then on track 1, blow up the image, 130%. Add a gaussian blur and drop the video opacity to about 70%.

The result, is not bad – for what it is, but I was hoping someone might have a suggestion to improve my results.

Thanks
Doug

[David Roth weiss]

[Doug Weiner] “The result, is not bad – for what it is, but I was hoping someone might have a suggestion to improve my results.”

If you go the 4×3 route it’s not going to get any better that what you’ve done already.

Frankly, I prefer blowing up and going full-frame 16×9. Yes, it’s a tad soft, but it is archival footage after all, and it’s done full-frame in major motion pictures all the time.

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles
https://www.drwfilms.com

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[Doug Weiner]

Perhaps I will be forced to go down the route of blowing up the picture. However, my concern is not making the image soft so much as framing. These are completed 16mm films that I have already preserved in HD. As they are not just a shot or two, I am not going to reframe thousands of shots. If other people want to blow them up for later use, that is fine. My intention is to preserve them as they were presented in a movie theater or on TV long ago, but in True HD. My preference is to leave the black pillar boxes. I understand that this might create a problem with some viewers, so distributors insist on being full 16:9. If that is the case, then I am going down the ‘fake’ moving pillar bar route. If the distributing vendor wants to modify it further so be it.

I do thank you all for the discussion and encourage it as it might turn up some new answers, but before this post gets too sidetracked into a discussion of merits of how to best deal with 4:3 footage to 16:9, my primary reason for posting was to find someone more experienced than myself with designing these moving pillar boxes.

[Jeremy Doyle]

I’ve done this hundreds of times when using archival footage on TV. There is no magic formula that I have found. In fact, the brightness of the scene can change just how much opacity or blur I use.

I say you’re on the right track and adjust to taste.

On the opposite side of this subject, I can’t tell you how many shots that look great in an HD frame get screwed up by a networks center cut SD version.

As far as I’m concerned, there are no standards anymore. Just give people the specs they ask for.

[Jeff Meyer]

I usually do what everyone else is doing, original video on V2, blurred, lower opacity copy on V1. On the layer on V1 I play with the DISTORT and SCALE sliders on the Motion tab in the Viewer until I have a frame-filling image. Since it’s blurred out I don’t find the need for arbitrary precision – eyeballing it seems to be sufficient.

[John Pale]

I know I am in the minority, but I really despise the “blurry moving background” look.

If I can’t do pillarbox, I actually prefer a stock background that’s not too busy (very simple grids or particle fields), and pull the opacity way down, so that it is just visible enough to register without distracting from the footage. I find that it’s tasteful and respects the original framing best.

[Bob Tomlinson]

Hello,
I’ve used the TMTS Free plug-ins with good results.
The filter you would need is the “Smart Anamorphic”.
It stretches the sides and leaves the center as is.

I also do not like that blurry fill, yes, a simple texture would be better if needed.