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Television 4:3 vs 16:9
This isn’t quite a final cut question, but I cannot find the right forum here … surely some FCP folks have dealt with this: I am creating short interstitials for our local public television station, when designing them how much do I consider viewers with 4:3 TVs rather than 16:9? (What I mean here is should I be sure all essential information is in the 4:3 section of the image – titles, action, etc. We will be shooting in HDV and so will have 16:9.) Does anyone have statistics on the number of 4:3 vs 16:9 nowadays? Any thoughts?
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4 Replies
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If you’re doing a “center punch” with the 16X9 footage – that is to say you’re filling the 4X3 screen w/ 16X9 footage then yes, you have to be mindful of action/title safe for 4 by 3.
The best route I believe is to shoot and edit 16X9 and if u need to provide a 4by3 then make it letterbox. This is on TV everywhere these days. Letterbox.
Chris Tompkins
Video Atlanta -
Chris: Thx for prompt reply. I guess my real question – which I can state better thanks to your message – is do we need to center punch these days? Eventually we will assume that most people have larger TVs – much like no one designs a web site with a 15″ monitor in mind anymore. Are we there yet?
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I’d have to say that it really depends on who your sending this to.
My choice is widescreen/letterbox for SD deliverables.
Chris Tompkins
Video Atlanta -
I would say that all SD is broadcasted as 4:3, so If you provide stations with an anamorphic Master, they will either do a center punch or letterbox it. PBS is a prime example of this, one station will do it one way and another does it the opposite. On I have a friend that produced a show, delivered it as HD and the stations (at one that is in Nashville) did the center punch which cut off a lot of info founded in the lower thirds. It is ways best to produce titles and graphic as 4:3 safe, Look at everything on the major networks, all their HD programming is done this way.
Kind of a better safe than sorry.
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