Letterbox 1.85:1 to 2.35:1

[Guest Stewart715]

I'm using the 3CCD Sony DCR-TRV950, recording in 16:9 mode (claims to be "true" widescreen using about a 15% wider angle and 30% more pixels), however I'd like to, I guess, crop the video from academy flat to anamorphic scope, however, when I try to digitally do this in FinalCut Pro, I get a stretched image.

 

How could I go about "widening" the screen without manually adding black bars on the top and bottom over the video.

 

Thanks

[Guest Nathan Donnelly]

Do you follow this path?

 

Effects > Video Filters > Mattte > Widescreen? I've just finished with a project that was shot in anamorphic 16:9 and 'boxed it into 2.35:1 using that path.

 

Here's some screenshots. One and Two.

 

EDIT: Oops, you want to "widen" the screen without lettterboxing it? Prepare for noise and pixelation. I'd sugggest just working with the Offset in the widescreen filter options to get everything in frame the way you want it.

Edited July 26, 2005 by Nathan Donnelly

[David Mullen ASC]

How could I go about "widening" the screen without manually adding black bars on the top and bottom over the video.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

I'm not sure what you're saying since 2.35 can ONLY be created with letterboxing since video is either 1.33 (4x3) or 1.78 (16x9). All other aspect ratios involve black borders on either of these two recording formats.

 

If you're shooting in 16x9 mode on the camera, your image is 1.78 : 1 so you would add letterboxing to create 2.35 : 1.

 

16x9 is an "anamorphic" video format that uses skinny pixels to squeeze 1.78 onto 720 x 480 pixels (NTSC), the same pixel ratio used for 4x3. So a 16x9 recording will look squeezed on a 4x3 display unless converted to appear as a letterboxed display (such as a DVD player can do.)

[Guest Stewart715]

I worded it incorrectly. I just wanted to box the 1.78 (edit, it wasn't academy flat) video to 2.35, without manually adding black construction boxes above the video. I knew there was a correct way to do it so the video would display correctly. I wanted an authentic 2.35 video.

 

Thanks guys, it worked! Never saw that

Edited July 26, 2005 by Stewart715

[David Mullen ASC]

I worded it incorrectly. I just wanted to box the 1.78 (edit, it wasn't academy flat) video to 2.35, without manually adding black construction boxes above the video. I knew there was a correct way to do it so the video would display correctly. I wanted an authentic 2.35 video.

 

Thanks guys, it worked! Never saw that

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

I don't know what you're saying -- there is no such thing as "authentic 2.35 video". Video can only be 4x3 or 16x9 -- all other aspect ratios are achieve with black borders (i.e. letterboxing or side matting) using those two recording options.

 

I mean, you could stretch 2.35 to fill a 16x9 recording, but you can't get it displayed correctly since all monitors are either 4x3 or 16x9.

 

It sounds like what you need is a 16x9 master with a 2.35 letterbox.

[Guest FilmmakerJack]

I've always shot 16x9 with video or full screen with 16mm. If I did want to crop it with Final Cut, would I be allowed to choose the area of the screen I wanted or would it just take the center of the shot?

[David Mullen ASC]

I don't use FCP so I don't know how image repositioning works, but if it does it, I'm suspect it's render-intensive compared to a simply adding a top & bottom matte, so you're better off framing consistently in-camera for cropping top & bottom equally to get 2.35, rather than spending a lot of time in post reframing each shot.

[drew_town]

I don't use FCP so I don't know how image repositioning works, but if it does it, I'm suspect it's render-intensive compared to a simply adding a top & bottom matte, so you're better off framing consistently in-camera for cropping top & bottom equally to get 2.35, rather than spending a lot of time in post reframing each shot.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

There's an "offset" slider in the widescreen filter. It's easy to adjust the framing and it doesn't take any longer to render than the standard widescreen filter.

 

 

[Jonathan Benny]

How did you do that? Unless you use a very specialized anamorphic lens when shooting, you are ultimately going to get a stretched (horizontally) image because you are taking a 16:9 (1.78:1) image and stretching horizontally to achieve 2.35 - everyone will look short and fat.

 

From my experience the only way you can achieve a proper 2.35 image from a true 16:9 original is to letterbox (unless you are using a special anamorphic lens). What do you mean by "it worked?" - what exactly did you do to achieve a 2.35 image from a 16:9 original without letterboxing and without ultimately ending up with an image that appeared stretched horizontally?

 

Thanks and regards,

 

JB

 

I worded it incorrectly. I just wanted to box the 1.78 (edit, it wasn't academy flat) video to 2.35, without manually adding black construction boxes above the video. I knew there was a correct way to do it so the video would display correctly. I wanted an authentic 2.35 video.

 

Thanks guys, it worked! Never saw that

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

[MattC]

I think he's thinking about having a "true" widescreen file to display on the web. In this case, I just make it with black bars and then crop the quicktime file so that it displays on the computer without the black bars.

 

Matt