4:3 to 16:9 (Letterboxing) Without Image degradation

[Tim Kolb]

Well…I’m not sure I understand the question. If you do a vertical letterbox of your 4:3 material in a 16:9 project, you will lose resolution…just keep the composition…and have black bars on both sides.

Is that what you’re asking?

TimK,

Kolb Syverson Communications,
Creative Cow Host,
2004-2005 NAB Post Production Conference
Premiere Pro Technical Chair,
Author, “The Easy Guide to Premiere Pro” http://www.focalpress.com
“Premiere Pro Fast Track DVD Series” http://www.classondemand.net

[Bill Buchanan]

Tim: Essentially what I was asking was: Can a square be made into a rectangle without distorting its contents? As everyone knows, all one must do to convert a 4:3 frame into a 16:9 is crop the top and bottom, then blow up what’s left to fill a 16:9 screen, which of course degrades the overall image. Laying black bars over the top and bottom and NOT blowing it up, leaves the black bars visible on the screen, but doesn’t degrade the image. If the 4:3 frame has been shot anamorphic, no problem stretching it out, of course.

The impossible solution I hope might exist,is a process that would stretch a 4:3 frame out to 16:9 (that was NOT shot anamorphic) without distorting the image. Would that be a nifty piece of software or what?

Bill Buchanan
Buchanan Film Co.

[Steven L. gotz]

I have often thought that if I could tell the right people exactly what I wanted, they could design it. But I can not figure out what to tell them to get what you want. You want to change the shape of a picture without cutting anything off or distorting it. What would it look like?

You already know it is not possible, and even Harry Potter could not make a frame of video, or a still picture, do that.

[Bill Buchanan]

Steven:

You seem a bit annoyed for my posting a question, the premise of which I know (or should know) is not possible? By osmosis alone, you should by now be aware that in any field, especially film/video production, questions addressing issues believed or even proven to be impossible are the very ones that spur certain folks into action and/or invigorate those already trying to make the impossible possible.

Imagine where motion picture technology would be today had there not been hundreds of people who ignored what was considered impossible at a given time back to and perhaps before Muybridge. If not for them, I suspect we would today be sitting around staring at flip cards while speaking in tongues, instead of going to movie theaters where everything we see and hear is wonderously impossible.

Somewhat related to the issue at hand, Professor Abbe no doubt heard “That’s not possible, and you know it!” more than once as he developed his optical “impossibility.”

Of course it is today “impossible” to stretch a square into a rectangle without distorting the image other than by cropping it. But I bet that in time, some pimply-faced hacker who gets off hearing, “That’s impossible.” will come up with a way. If and when that happens, he or she will soon be working and hanging out with Lucas, Jobs or Gates.

In answer to your question: “…What would it look like?” Well, if there were people in the shot, they would look like 52% of the men, women and children living in Garland and Houston, Texas; Critically obese.

Bill Buchanan
Buchanan Film Co.

“Let not the wind at your back be your own.”

–Shakespeare–

[Craig Howard]

Something worth trying and as a starting point.

Use the Interpret Footage Feature to change the Pixel Shape of your source media.

Select Source in Project Window to achieve this function.

You may need to do this in a widescreen 16:9 project because after Interpreting footage you will need to export it as per project.

BTW : I have not done the above myself but recently I had to use the Interpret Footage Feature to convert PA from 1.422 to 1.07 ( PAL DV PAR). Worked a treat so I suggest it maybe part of a solution for your issue.

Craig
Shooter Film Company
Auckland
New Zealand

(Premiere Pro 1.5 / Matrox TRX100 XTreme Pro)

[Bill Buchanan]

Thanks, Craig. I’ll give it shot.

Bill

[Tim Kolb]

[Bill Buchanan] “Of course it is today “impossible” to stretch a square into a rectangle without distorting the image other than by cropping it. But I bet that in time, some pimply-faced hacker who gets off hearing, “That’s impossible.” will come up with a way.”

Uh, Bill…I think your point in that post is above…

I think the whole “stretch without distortion” thing is the problem.

To stretch a square into a rectangle without distorting it would mean the inherent aspect ratio of the content wouldn’t change…that would leave you with two choices…either scale it up and cut off the top and bottom or fit the entire image in the space and leave the extra room blank on the sides.

The only way to keep the pixels from remapping and hang on to the whole image AND not distort it would be if the 4:3 space in the center of the 16:9 frame had enough resolution to accomodate your 4:3 image pixel-for-pixel. That would leave you the black space. As it is, since it won’t map pixel-to-pixel, you are scarificing the pixels you are trying to keep because even though the composition is preserved, it’s mapped across far less individual pixels…resulting in essentially a horizontal “scale.”

This isn’t about discovering a cold-fusion powered aspect ratio-changer from some thinking-out-of-the-box type ten years in the future…it’s about how a square peg won’t fit correctly in a round hole…20 years from now when they test this theory with precision machined titanium parts, the results will be strikingly similar to 300 years ago when it was tested with wood.

When it comes to changing aspect ratios, the introduction of Photoshop didn’t really change the process from the days of razor blades and darkrooms…you can crop, scale, or distort. Pick any one.

TimK,

Kolb Syverson Communications,
Creative Cow Host,
2004-2005 NAB Post Production Conference
Premiere Pro Technical Chair,
Author, “The Easy Guide to Premiere Pro” http://www.focalpress.com
“Premiere Pro Fast Track DVD Series” http://www.classondemand.net

[Craig Howard]

Bill made referene to the Panasonic DVX100 camera in his original post. I own one of these so am aware of what he refers to in the context of this thread.

The camera can shoot normal DV, Squeezed DV or Letterbox.

Normal produces 4:3 picture with 1.067 PAR px (PAL in my case)
Letterbox produces 1.422 pixels with a mask top and bottom. (PAL again)
Squeezed – I do not know as I have not used that so disregard it for now.

Normal shown on a 16:9 screen is pillarboxed ( black bars left & right)
Letterbox on a 16:9 screen fills the screen totally without bars anywhere.

Both examples above are non distorting (screen setup dependent).

My suggestion to Bill was made assuming that he was wanting to play out to a 16:9 screen.

Craig
Shooter Film Company
Auckland
New Zealand

(Premiere Pro 1.5 / Matrox TRX100 XTreme Pro)

[Bill Buchanan]

Craig:

You are precisely right. I also think Tim’s explanation is clearly accurate on all accounts, unfortunately. In my original post I wondered if by chance someone had figured out a better way to fill up a 16:9 screen with unsqueezed 4:3 material than by current methods.

Admittedly, I knew all along what’s possible and what is not regarding this issue and why. It’s just that stuck with that damned square frame in a rectangular world, I feel like a monkey with a coconut.

Bill Buchanan
Buchanan Film Co.

[Karl Holt]

Bill

the only way to get 4:3 to 16:9 is to crop the 4:3 footage or strech it to 16:9 – so the image is distorted and everyone has fat faces.

What you are asking is otherwise impossible. Something that no software can get round.

think about what you are asking for a second….if you don’t want to stretch it, and you do not want to crop it then what you are saying is…. “I want extra picture information to appear on either side of my 4:3 picture that I have not shot or have no record of.”

you’re asking for a circle to be transformed to a triangle, but you want it to still look like a circle.

Still….. not as adventurours as a woman who wanted me to remove a bin from a still photograph of her house – I said I could probably take the bin out and she said “thats good because when you remove the bin you’ll see the dog – who was behind it….”