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16×9: keep it letterboxed or enlarge and anamorphic?
Hello all,
This isn’t technically a FCP question, but I’m editing in FCP so this seemed like the closest fit.I shot in 4×3 NTSC DV (720×480) and have cropped the film to widescreen (720×360) because I like the look better. But I hate the idea of someone with a widescreen TV watching it and seeing black bars on all four sides of a tiny image.
I know that I can find a program that does very intelligent deinterlacing so I don’t lose half the resolution, but much of the film is handheld, so I don’t know how good of a job those programs could do.
My option is to leave it as a 4×3 video with black bars, or to use a smart deinterlace on it, resize it back to full frame, and set it as anamorphic video. This definitely produces a nicer file, and I like the concept of compressing something without black bars, but how much picture resolution do I lose? Is it worth it?
Also, what program does the best job in intelligent motion-adaptive deinterlace and resize? I have Final Cut, After Effects, Premiere, and Motion.
Thanks!
Michael -
13 Replies
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1) Enlarge and make anamorphic.
2) What’s your purpose for de-interlace?
David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los AngelesPOST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™
A forum host of Creative COW’s Apple Final Cut Pro, Business & Marketing, and Indie Film & Documentary forums.
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The deinterlace has to happen to enlarge the film, since the source footage is interlaced. That’s why I’m concerned about enlarging it, because I lose some resolution on the deinterlace–even though the compressor can do a more efficient job.
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[Michael Morgenstern] “The deinterlace has to happen to enlarge the film, since the source footage is interlaced. “
No, it doesn’t. That might hold true for web distribution, but certainly not for scaling up to fill the anamorphic frame. That’s why I asked the question.
David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los AngelesPOST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™
A forum host of Creative COW’s Apple Final Cut Pro, Business & Marketing, and Indie Film & Documentary forums.
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You’re saying that I could enlarge a 720×360 interlaced video to 720×480 without deinterlace?
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No, 720×360 is a pixel dimension you created by letterboxing. Forget that…
Your original is 720×480, you should should check the anamorphic box and scale the video up 33.3% to fill the frame horizontally, without de-interlacing.
David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los AngelesPOST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™
A forum host of Creative COW’s Apple Final Cut Pro, Business & Marketing, and Indie Film & Documentary forums.
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Whoa David, I was with you all the way until you said blow up 33%. Don’t you think that is a little steep for DV? With plain old DV (depending on the source camera) I usually start to notice some degrading characteristics after 12%.
-Al
Al Davis
Visual Velocity
Brookline, MA -
Actually it scales pretty nicely. Sure, there’s a little softness, but nothing horrific, and you’re not usually running it side by side with original either.
David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los AngelesPOST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™
A forum host of Creative COW’s Apple Final Cut Pro, Business & Marketing, and Indie Film & Documentary forums.
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Wow, thanks everyone for all the help! Here’s my confusion: anamorphic DV has 480 scan lines. I’d be effectively mapping 390 lines to 480, meaning each scan line will be larger than one scan line in the new format, and it won’t sync up. The only way to make the odd scan lines sit on the odd scan lines and the even on the even would be to enlarge both fields individually, then reinterlace them. Follow?
Does FCP do this?
Again thank you, this is my first time on this forum but I think I’ll stop by here more often!
Michael -
Michael,
As Tony Soprano would say, “forget about it.” You’re over-thinking. FCP uses “somewhat” advanced scaling algorithms at the pixel level. Not nearly as advanced as Combustion, Motion, or hardware scalers, but nonetheless, you needn’t worry about calculating scan lines.
David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los AngelesPOST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™
A forum host of Creative COW’s Apple Final Cut Pro, Business & Marketing, and Indie Film & Documentary forums.
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David,
You’ve got my number – I am anal about this film. It’s going to festivals and I want to be sure that my shoddy camera work and shoddy equipment looks its best!
I found this interesting rant (https://www.dvinfo.net/conf/archive/index.php/t-137763.html) as well as https://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=7267937 , both of which appear to suggest that FCP is less than adequate for it. I’m being very, very stingy with my pixels since I have so few of them, especially now that I’ve chopped off so much of the frame, so I think I will go with Motion.
Cheers,
Michael
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