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Question about turning a 4×3 image to 16×9
Hi FCP guys-
I am retelecineing a 16mm film to make it HD. it was originally shot and composed in 4:3 years ago.
HD is 16:9. The 16mm film, as I said, is 4:3. I am trying to find a way of changing the aspect ratio. I know I can simply strectch the horizontal, but then all the people are short and fat. I could zoom so the sides hit the edge of frame, but then I loose a lot of head room.
When I have played the 4:3 DVD on my 16:9 Panasonic TV there’s a mode called “just” (I have seem simillar modes on other brands). It zooms in the image slightly and streches it logarithmically. The center of the image is virtually untouched. The sides are gradually further and further stretched as it movs further from the center.
Sure, some shots look odd (if a person walks from left to right of frame they will go from long and flat on one end to normal shaped as they go through the middle of the picture space to long and flat on the other end. But for 99% of the DVDs I have watched (and the over the air SD) the method looks fantastic.
I would think combining the three various methods on a shot by shot basis would be the best solution.
The problem is I haven’t been able to find a way to do that “logarithmic stretching” on FCP. Has anyone here seen a way? Or is there a plug in that I can buy? Its seems like it should be a simple math based solution.
Thanks much,
David
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5 Replies
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I could zoom so the sides hit the edge of frame, but then I loose a lot of head room.
==============That’s what you want to do first. Then, slide the whole image DOWN so that the top of the 4×3 frame is now at the top of the 16×9 frame.
Now, third, you have to go though the whole movie and check every shot. There will be shots that you have to cut and slide back UP inside the frame. There will certainly be shots that should be vertically centered or perhaps bottom-aligned. Each shot will have to be checked…nearly every one will look best at a different height from the others. Even ones that look good top-aligned may look better if they’re 10-pixels higher. Or 5. Or 20. It’ll be up to you to pick what you like.
Time consuming, yes, but it will give you the best result.
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You should still keep looking into that logarithmic idea you had. I don’t know how to do it, but it could still be useful. Using my method you might get stuck on a couple of shots…extreme close ups of things, of action shots where everything in the frame matters.
In those cases you could do some kind of logarithmic stretching in JUST those shots but not the others that don’t need it. I’d start with my method, but feel free to mix in different mehods for particular shots that may work better one way than another.
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From an artistic point of view, why must you stretch it? Why can’t it be made in HD but as pillarboxed so it gets seen as it was truly made?
If it was produced – artistically – in B&W, wouldn’t stretching it into widescreen be akin to colorizing your B&W master?
just curious …
Neil.
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While that is one of the three options. I am trying to figure out how to do that logarithmic stretch version
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Thats an aesthetic question. I actually like the cinematic look that the widescreen appraoch has… so the question is, how do I achieve that aspect ratio without sacrificing too much of the image.
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