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S16 Anamorphic Transfer


Will Montgomery

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Much of my DV camera footage is captured in the anamorphic mode (16:9 squeezed onto the 4:3 frame for later expansion). I edit in Final Cut Pro with the DV codec.

 

Should I work with the Telecine house to frame my S16 footage to 16:9 then stretch it to fill the 4:3 thus using all the pixels and then tell Final Cut it's anamorphic just like my video footage?

 

I generally keep the footage as anamorphic throughout the process and even write DVD's using an anamorphic Quicktime file and iDVD (the brand new iDVD handles widescreen/anamorphic great).

 

I'm thinking that this will give me the most pixel info I can get in SD and will look better in the end... or is just a letterboxed SD DV signal wind up being the same thing?

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If you're shooting widescreen film for an eventual DVD release, I think an anamorphic transfer is the best way to go -- it'll work fine on a standard-def television and will give you more resolution on a computer or widescreen hi-def TV.

 

If you're shooting for a standard-def, non-DVD release (DigiBeta for festivals, for example), your stuff will probably look better letterboxed 4x3.

Edited by chance
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Much of my DV camera footage is captured in the anamorphic mode (16:9 squeezed onto the 4:3 frame for later expansion). I edit in Final Cut Pro with the DV codec.

 

Should I work with the Telecine house to frame my S16 footage to 16:9 then stretch it to fill the 4:3 thus using all the pixels and then tell Final Cut it's anamorphic just like my video footage?

 

I generally keep the footage as anamorphic throughout the process and even write DVD's using an anamorphic Quicktime file and iDVD (the brand new iDVD handles widescreen/anamorphic great).

 

I'm thinking that this will give me the most pixel info I can get in SD and will look better in the end... or is just a letterboxed SD DV signal wind up being the same thing?

 

I know I am going to explain this wrong and have the pixel counts wrong, but here goes. When you work in anamorphic in FCP, you are working with a picture that is 480 pixels high by 720 pixels wide but the side to side pixels aren't square, they are squished. When you convert the anamorphic image on output it stretches those 720 pixels out and you have an image that is 480 pixels high by something like 853 pixels wide.

 

If you letterbox, you have an image that is 480 pixels high but the top thirty five or forty pixels are black and have no useful information in them and the bottom thirty five or forty pixels are black and have no useful information in them, by 720 pixels wide. So you have much less useful information in a letterboxed SD image than you do in a squeezed anamorphic SD image.

 

When you have your Super 16 footage telecined, have them create an anamorphic (Squeezed) SD image from the material.

 

-Tim

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Hi, recommend transfering your Telecine footage Anamorphic. Once you are finished with your edit in Final Cut, you will render out an Anamorphic Master Quicktime. Then reimportant the anamorphic master in a non anamorphic sequence and you can produce a letterbox version as well. This way you will have both versions for DVD, broadcast, or for whatever your delivery requirements may be.

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