trying to decide which anamorphic adaptor to get

[Jan Crittenden livingston]

Hi Rob,

I imagine that the Century Optics is probably a very nice unit, and probably costs a good deal more, but I would imagine that it is better quality. Check the weight of it and make sure that it is light enough to hang on the front end of the DVX without support, in other words it has to weigh no more than the Panaosnic one, or it will need support.

Hope that helps,

Jan

Jan Crittenden Livingston
Product Manager, DVCPRO, DVCPRO50, AG-DVX100
Panasonic Broadcast & TV Systems

[Barry Green]

Century never released an anamorphic adapter for the DVX. They had planned on doing so, but never got a good prototype, and as of this date they still haven’t released one.

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[Blub06]

Is this an adapter that actually squeezes the image? if this is so how and under what circumstances do you unsquezz it. I am thinking cinema anamorphic…

Anamorphic on a video camera seems like a bad idea, when you unsquezz your just going to stretch not just the image but the native format of the frame, In other words your going to supercharge the inherent image problems of video like noise which otherwise would be too little to notice on a well exposed non squezzed shot.

Chris

[Barry Green]

Anamorphics have been used on video cameras for years. You don’t unsqueeze the image; the television does that for you. The net result of using a video anamorphic (1.33x squeeze factor) is to produce a 720×480 image that looks horizontally squashed, the same as a native 16×9 DV signal does. It works quite well, and the footage is viewable on the 16×9 television at native full resolution.

—————–
Get the most from your DVX camera. The DVX Book and DVX DVD are now available at https://www.dvxuser.com/articles/dvxbook/ and at Amazon (https://tinyurl.com/54u4a)

[Robert]

So i’m still not clear whether this is a worthwhile investment or not. Since i am shooting a documentary that one day may go to the big screen would it make sense that i get one of these adaptors for my DVX100 and use the squeeze mode on the DVX100A. This question was not addressed, so i thought i would restate it.

Thanks for any info. and or advice.
Rob

[Barry Green]

The anamorphic adapter requires a significant amount of care and effort to extract the best performance from it. Once upon a time I would have said “if you’re going to film, definitely spring for the anamorphic”. Nowadays, having just seen a film print of “November” (which was shot without the anamorphic adapter) I have to reconsider that advice. “November” looked great on the big screen, easily twice as sharp as “28 Days Later”. It looked great. Sure the adapter could have made it be sharper, but is it worth it? Is it worth the effort and the focusing and the hassle?

I’d say for most purposes, Squeeze would probably be adequate (and would deliver resolution quite comparable to what “November” got). The anamorphic, when used properly, definitely provides a sharper picture on a 16:9 TV. But if you find Squeeze adequate for your purposes, it’s sure a lot easier to work in Squeeze mode than it is with the adapter.

—————–
Get the most from your DVX camera. The DVX Book and DVX DVD are now available at https://www.dvxuser.com/articles/dvxbook/ and at Amazon (https://tinyurl.com/54u4a)