if you capture in 16:9 mode, why does it look like 4:3 in editing software?

[ou8thisSN]

after converting all our old DV tapes from 4:3 to 16:9 using the Letterbox (64, 64) command in avisynth, I decided to change my camcorder to 16:9 mode so i dont have to perform this function...

when it transfers the video i can preview it in winDV and it shows it as 4:3 stretched, so does adobe primiere, but in the little Sony camcorder window, i can see the letterboxed black bars... what gives?

also, if i want to preserve this aspect ratio, can i simply remove the letterbox (64, 64) command from avisynth and encode as 4:3 in CCE....

i wouldnt need to crop and add black bars if they are already present... right?

[Backwoods]

16:9 footage is recorded in 4:3 on video cameras. The CCDs are not true 16:9 so they mask pixels within the camera and record the 16:9 to a 4:3 frame. Your camera has the footage flagged for 16:9 and plays it that way. When editing within Premiere you will have to pick the DV widescreen template to edit correctly.

In CCE you can set a 16:9 flag and your player of choice will resize the footage accordingly. Personally I would go with this method instead of adding black bars.

[ou8thisSN]

I dont use adobe primiere for video editing because it destroys the datecode.

if i use CCE, i need to set the aspect ratio as 16:9? not 4:3?

[Backwoods]

If your 16:9 footage is not letterboxed.

[ou8thisSN]

ok... well i dont get it. the video has black bars on top and bottom when you play it back on the camcorder and windows media player... does that mean its letterboxed? if its letterboxed, i encode it as 4:3, if it is not letterboxed, or without the black bars, then i encode it as 16:9?

didnt you just say that the black bars will be present since the CCD doesnt have enough pixels to make a true 16:9 frame? so why are you now saying that "if your 16:9 imge is not letterboxed" of course it will be letterboxed... i'm not doing any extra processing....

[Backwoods]

No no, your camera and Media Player are seeing the aspect ratio flags in the file. Those players are resizing for viewing. The actual file itself does not have blackbars. Players can tell if the footage is 16:9 by a certain flag within the file. Then the player will resize. Such as your DVD player. Anamorphic DVDs have video scretched within a 4:3 image. The player then resizes the footage and places the black bars there. Non-anamorphic DVDs just have the footage resized properly and black bars added to the video. Setting CCE to encode the footage as 16:9 will tell the players (be it software or hardware) to resize the footage.

Also a way to tell if your footage has the blackbars or not is to open it within Virtual Dub. That will show you what the footage actually looks like.

You can do either method, it's all preference.

a) leave the footage alone and encode with the 16:9 flag
b) resize the image and add black bars

a = widescreen TVs will scretch the footage to fill up the whole screen.
b = when played back on a widescreen TV there will be black bars on the left and right of the image to fill in the empty space.

Does this help?

[ou8thisSN]

its a little confusing, but i think i got it figured out... i just encoded the file in both 4:3 and 16:9 mode in CCE and the 16:9 mode looked correct, ie no strectching or thin figures... so if i shoot in 16:9, i will encode in 16:9.

thanks for the help though.