Mini DV tapes shot with 16:9 setting

[Walter Biscardi]

If you want this to be letterboxed, then simply capture with Anamorphic and edit and you’ll be good to go.

If you want a 4:3 center punch, then you still capture anamorphic, but you’ll need to scale up the I think 125% or 150% to get rid of the letterbox. That’s the only way I’ve found for doing a center punch out of anamorphic DV. Not exactly pretty, but not overly horrible either.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.com
HD Editorial & Animation for Food Network’s “Good Eats”
HD Editorial for “Assignment Earth”

“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters

[Chris Babbitt]

I recently worked on a project like this. I captured it normally, in 4:3 as I usually do, and, of course, it appeared squished on my NTSC monitor, but when I output the result to DVD, it came out letterboxed.

[John Pale]

All DVD’s are supposed to be able to letterbox, according to spec.

[John Pale]

I meant DVD players.

[Neil Ryan]

“Since the final product will be standard (4:3)”

Why not produce a 16:9 master, seeing its originated in that format, then do a 4:3 centre cut version if required.
The 16:9 master shows far more foreward thinking; i.e. If you create a 4×3 only master, now, but later, want to show it on a widescreen, or even air it, the 4:3 master creates horrible limitations …

Far easier to go 16:9 > 4:3 than the other way around.

Neil.

[Walter Biscardi]

[Post Man] “Far easier to go 16:9 > 4:3 than the other way around.”

In this case, no it’s not far easier to go 16:9 to 4:3. It’s much easer to stay in 4:3 for SD DV work if that’s your final output.

Again, in order to produce the 4:3 center cut from a 16:9 DV master will require a 125 – 150% blow up of the image (Scale) in FCP to achieve the 4:3 square. Not very desirable to do this.

If you want a 4:3 square DV master, shoot in standard 4:3.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.com
HD Editorial & Animation for Food Network’s “Good Eats”
HD Editorial for “Assignment Earth”

“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters

[Neil Ryan]

[Rupert St Leger] “Since the final product will be standard (4:3)”

Rupert, can you explain why this is so? (I wouldn’t say 4×3 is ‘standard’ these days.)

My feeling, given that it is ALREADY shot in 16×9, is that you have the option to look to the future and create a 16×9 master, or live in the past by creating a 4×3 master from existing 16×9 footage.
Surely, your client’s need for a 4×3 master is a one-off. Will they NEVER require a widescreen version?
If you create a 16×9 master, there are other, more successful ways to create a 4×3 master from it, than FCP.

Would love to hear the whole story…

[Rupert St leger]

Walter,
Thanks very much for your advice. In fact, the situation was a bit less complex than waht i had expected (I should have first called the cinematographer!). The project was shot standard for a 16:9 final product. ( I understand the cinematographer put some black tape on the camera). So I captured the whole thing 4:3 and will just add black bars on top and bottom of the screen at the end.
Sorry if I was a bit confusing, it is my first project like that and english is not my native language!
Thanks again.

[Rupert St leger]

Hi, thanks for helping me. As I already explained to Walter, the director who is not very much aware of technical stuff confused me by telling me that the project was shot with 16:9 “setting”…which was not the case! So actually the situation was more simple, (they shot standard for a 16:9 result).
Thanks again for trying to help (I read the entire thread VERY attentively, learning many things, but still am unsure if I understood everything!!)