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16:9 vs 4:3 on DVX100a


Mvadik

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Shooting a feature on the DVX100-a. A question has come up : The producer wants to shoot 4:3 and crop to16:9 "if we get a limited theatrical release" - the DP feel the we should shoot 16:9 with the anamorphic adapter and crop off the edges for TV or DVD.

 

They have left the option to me as director. I'm inclined to think the anamorphic would give us a better picture even if we crop to full screen - and this will maintain quality if we get a theatrical? Is this correct? Any advice is greatly appreciated.

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Why do you need to crop to 4x3 for the DVD??? Insist on keeping it 16x9 widescreen on DVD. Then the only 4x3 full-frame versions would be on VHS and broadcast TV & cable.

 

One advantage of shooting in 16x9 and cropping the sides for the 4x3 version is that you have common headroom. The disadvantage is that you are losing resolution by cropping the sides, plus you have the problems of shooting with anamorphic adaptors.

 

But I'm a big believer in trying to show the movie as much as possible in one aspect ratio, so considering you can keep it widescreen for DVD and for theatrical, that just leaves VHS & TV for 4x3 full-frame -- so the question is "who is your most important market?" Plus note that a lot of PAL broadcasting is widescreen these days.

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When you use the anamorphic lense you are cramming the same framing (that you would have if you cropped) into all the pixels you have available - if you crop from the outset you are using less pixels for the same framed image. This means you are oversampling in the first case and when you squash that down to a letterboxed format this will pay dividends and the end image will appear to have more resolution because it came from a higher resolution source.

 

Scot

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