documentary precautionsH

[Ed Dooley]

And since we’re fessing up here, I guess I should say that my point was, if you still have to do a film transfer, why not bring it in 16:9? I guess you could argue that since it’s close to 4:3 already (1.37:1), why not transfer to 4:3 then if you wanted a 16:9 from that you could crop, but………. it depends on how it was shot. Because a filmmaker might know that the film will be projected at 1.85:1 or wider, they might not worry too much about lights and booms in the frame. They also often assume a lot of the top will be cut off so there’s an awful lot of headroom above, er… heads in the shot. Of course, a transfer for 4:3 TV *does* take that into account by cropping a bit on top, bottom, and sides of a frame.
And you did say that the reason it wouldn’t be widescreen was because it was 4:3 material. I think I would check to see if your client wants it to be widescreen (16:9) because you definitely can give it to them.
Ed

[Patrick Alsobrook]

How is it possible to transfer 8mm, 16mm, VHS, Digital 8, etc. formats into 16:9 without cropping information? Most of these formats’ native resolutions are close to 640X480 (4:3,1.33) not 16:9 (1.78). It makes sense to me that if you wanted to show the original footage, you would present it with the original ratio. If your final presentation is 16:9, then why not pillarbox the 4:3 footage? This, with anything, is a matter of aesthetics though. I am curious as to how that transfer process would work with out losing information and stretching.