Beta is not 720 pixels wide

[Walter Biscardi]

[Keith Heard] “Has anyone ever had problems with Beta SP footage not filling the entire width?”

Yep, all the time. I can’t remember the last time we saw BetaSP footage that actually did fill the entire frame horizontally.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media
HD and SD Production for Broadcast and Independent Productions.

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[David Roth weiss]

Keith,

Several things coem to mind from reading your post…

1) You’re monitoring full frame in FCP on your computer display and you’re seeing things that would be outside of action safe on a TV or broadcast video monitor. Well, sure… video was invented for broadcast transmission, while Web delivery is a very recent development. NLEs are based upon broadcast standards, so you have to adjust for Web delivery, rather than the other way around.

2) The workflow you’ve decided to adopt is not necessarily the best workflow. You’re probably far better off capturing the video as it was intended, i.e. 16×9, then either editing as is or in a 4×3 timeline. This will allow you to re-size the video instead of being stuck with what you get by capturing letterboxed, and you will be able to address your concerns about the what you see and don’t see when you re-size. You can re-size one clip and copy that, or edit 16×9 and re-size when you’re done.

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles

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[Keith Heard]

“I can’t remember the last time we saw BetaSP footage that actually did fill the entire frame horizontally.”

That’s what I thought. Thanks.

[Tom Matthies]

The lines are called Blanking and will be seen on almost any analog camera recording. They aren’t a defect-they are just part of the signal from that older analog format.
Tom

[David Roth weiss]

[Tom Matthies] “They aren’t a defect-they are just part of the signal from that older analog format.”

And, it would have been outside of action safe and thus hidden from view…

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles

POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™

A forum host of Creative COW’s Apple Final Cut Pro, Business & Marketing, and Indie Film & Documentary forums.

[Tom Matthies]

Except when played on a computer screen. The blanking is then clearly visible at the edges of the window.
Tom

[Keith Heard]

“NLEs are based upon broadcast standards, so you have to adjust for Web delivery, rather than the other way around.”

Thanks David, but I wouldn’t have to resize anything if Beta SP was indeed 720. 720 should be 720, just as it is with DVCam. Pixels matter! After all, we delineate between 486 and 480.

I haven’t given up on this yet. There has got to be a better explanation.

The difference between footage is:

Beta SP 16×9 (Betacam) DVCam 16×9 (Sony DSR 450)
Analog Digital
720×486 720×480

Capture Presets Tried: Capture Presets Tried:
Apple Pro Res 720×486 16×9 DV 720×480 16×9
10bit Uncompressed 720×486 16×9
DV 720×480 16×9 (worked best w/ my DV footage, made letterboxes the same except for above mentioned problem)

I also tried the above presets without 16×9 (anamorphic) selected
I’m using an AJA Kona LH.

STUDPID QUESTION: Is there a difference in pixel size between analog beta and DV?

Thanks!!!!!!!
Keith

[Peter Wiggins]

Beta SP has a narrower picture than a 4:3 digital format hence the black lines.
It has always been like that. Not to mention the dropouts 🙂

Peter

[Mark Suszko]

Maybe, you don’t need to sweat the beta’s framing; you have a separate cropping option or two in your web compression settings and within the extra settings in compressor and quicktime pro. So I’d worry about treating it at the end stage, I think. Which is perhaps good news? Why not mess with those and render out ten seconds worth to test it?

[Scott Thomas]

I have to agree; Beta is not 720 pixels across. Nor is it 512 or 704 or any other combination of pixels. It is an analog format and predates ITU-R 601 standard sampling. You could sample it at 1280 pixels across, and the blanking would be right there in the same place.

The whole issue of number of scan-lines is also interesting. ITU-R 601 defines 720 samples of luminance on each scan line. There are 486 active lines. DV or DV-Cam or DVC-Pro are formats based on Discrete Cosign Transform (DCT) codecs. DCT codecs need images that are evenly divided by 16 and 486 does not evenly divide by 16. To accommodate this need, six scanlines were lopped off the top and bottom… Kind of like how analog blanking encroaches upon the dear 720 horizontal samples.

You lost a few samples on the left and right. I lost six scanlines. Lets call it even.