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SD or HD??
ello All! I just stumbled across this forum and hope someone can help me. I am getting ready to start shooting for a documentary on the N.S Savannah. It was the very first Nuclear Powered Merchant ship in the world. My father sailed on the Savannah and we will be attending a reunion on Memorial day weekend to start filming interviews and interiors of the ship. My biggest delima right now is… What do I shoot in and what camera should I choose? I have a few options.
I own 2 Sony HDR-FX1’s and also have access to 2 Panasonic DVX 100’s. Both can shoot 16×9 in DV and the Sony gives me the option to shoot HD. What do you think would be best? I will be using archival footage along with photographs. Will I run into a lot of problems bouncing back and forth from 4:3 and 16:9?
I have ran some tests where I shot a few things in 16:9 SD and cut it between some photographs and 4:3 footage. It just seems to leave two black bars on each side of the 4:3 footage. Now my question is, do people find this distracting? If i am shooting in 16:9 should everything be 16:9 including the archival footage? If so, how would I go about converting it with out blowing it up and losing quality?
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6 Replies
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[Andrew Conner] “What do you think would be best? I will be using archival footage along with photographs. Will I run into a lot of problems bouncing back and forth from 4:3 and 16:9?”
4:3 is the norm for archived footage. Either leave the edges black (pillarboxed) or fill with some sort of a graphic, either static or moving, that is appropriate.
If you plan to try to take this somewhere to broadcast, you’ll have to ask that network/station for their specs on 4:3 footage. Most networks require you leave the 4:3 as pillarboxed. Stretching it out to fill the 16:9 frame usually looks terrible.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media
HD and SD Production for Broadcast and Independent Productions.STOP STARING AND START GRADING WITH APPLE COLOR Apple Color Training DVD available now!
Read my Blog!
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definitely shoot in HD!
you can always change your mind and deliver in SD, but that will give you flexibility, not to mention a much higher quality look. Of course you will need the resources like hard drive space and proper monitoring.
advice regarding the “black bars on left and right”…..don’t just leave them black. Fill that space with something (gfx or footage) that adds to the design. Motion is great for creating moving backgrounds.
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[todd reid] “definitely shoot in HD!”
ABSOLUTELY!!!
Plus, even though blowing-up SD footage may not look good, as Walter stated, that can often work in your favor when doing historical docos. As I like to say, it helps turn on “the wayback machine” for your audience, helping to transport them back in time, which is one big reason so many people love to watch docos.
David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los AngelesPOST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™
A forum host of Creative COW’s Apple Final Cut Pro, Business & Marketing, and Indie Film & Documentary forums.
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Without meaning any offense, I just can’t understand how anyone who owns 2 HD cameras could consider shooting in SD.
If you shoot SD, you’re locked into SD. Sure, you can upconvert to HD later, but you’ll never gain any of the detail that you would have if you’d shot HD in the first place.
If you shoot HD, you can always downconvert to SD, but you also have all of the options to finish in HD. And your SD downconverts will probably look better than if you’d shot in SD to begin with.
IOW, shooting HD gives you many more options than SD, but it still preserves the option of finishing in SD.
Arnie
Now in post: Peristroika, a film by Slava Tsukerman
https://www.arniepix.com/blog -
Thank you Arnie. The only reason I would consider shooting in SD is to keep the 4:3 aspect ratio consistent with my archival footage. Just so I would not have those black bars on either side of the 4:3 footage if I were shooting in HD or 16:9. Also just because of the “film” look that is delivered by the Panasonic DVX 100. That quality or tone if you would can’t be reproduced by the Sony HDR FX1.
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[Andrew COnner] “Also just because of the “film” look that is delivered by the Panasonic DVX 100. That quality or tone if you would can’t be reproduced by the Sony HDR FX1.”
This can easily be achieved with better results in FCP or Color. I’ve seen the “film look” on the DVX-100 and it’s a degraded image over full resolution video.
Drop your footage into Color and apply the Film Look filter and it’s already halfway there. Play with levels, brightness, etc…. add some of the Nattress filters and you have far better control in the Post process. I’m doing a large music project right now with everything shot DV on the DVX-100 and the HVX-200 and we’re giving everything a film look. I have all kinds of control because we didn’t try to create it in the field.
Shoot HD and fill the 16:9 with a graphic if you want, although I find still images work brilliantly over black alone and quite honestly, the black on either side doesn’t bother me now. We’re delivering a series to PBS and they require the 4:3 to simply be pillarboxed with nothing around it, looks very clean and really doesn’t jump out at you. The one thing you want to avoid is bouncing back and forth between the two. You want to have at least 2 shots in a row of each format before cutting back.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media
HD and SD Production for Broadcast and Independent Productions.STOP STARING AND START GRADING WITH APPLE COLOR Apple Color Training DVD available now!
Read my Blog!
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