Changing 4:3 into 16:9?

[Spjongen]

Got a lot of video material collected over the years and was thinking i should make an effort of going through it and make videos to watch at family gatherings instead of having it just collect dust on discs and harddrives.

So, I started viewing through some of the material and also did some experiments in a software called 'MAGIX Photostory' and came to the conclusion that all this 4:3 format video really clashes with 16:9 displays, showing uggly black sidebars.

Now I m curious if theres a way to make this 4:3 format video into 16:9 format to display properly on a 16:9 display without image distortion, ie width/height ratio.

My source material specifications are:

General
Complete name : D:\...\100_4177.MOV
Format : QuickTime
Format/Info : Original Apple specifications
File size : 23.0 MiB
Duration : 19s 18ms
Overall bit rate : 10.2 Mbps
Movie name/More : EASTMAN KODAK COMPANY KODAK EASYSHARE ZD710 ZOOM DIGITAL

CAMERA
Encoded date : UTC 2010-10-08 10:27:27
Tagged date : UTC 2010-10-08 10:27:27
Origin : Digital Camera

Video
ID : 1
Format : M-JPEG
Codec ID : jpeg
Duration : 19s 18ms
Bit rate : 9 619 Kbps
Width : 640 pixels
Height : 480 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 4:3
Stream size : 21.8 MiB (95%)
Language : English
Encoded date : UTC 2010-10-08 10:27:27
Tagged date : UTC 2010-10-08 10:27:27

Audio
ID : 2
Format : ADPCM
Format profile : U-Law
Codec ID : ulaw
Duration : 19s 18ms
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 128 Kbps
Channel(s) : 1 channel
Sampling rate : 16.0 KHz
Bit depth : 16 bits
Stream size : 297 KiB (1%)
Language : English
Encoded date : UTC 2010-10-08 10:27:27
Tagged date : UTC 2010-10-08 10:27:27

[nurbs]

Crop the picture until it's 16:9 and reencode.

[manono]

Yep, crop 60 from both top and bottom to make it 640x360. Of course, in the process you'll be cutting into a lot of heads and legs and not everyone will be happy with that. Me, I find nothing at all odd about black bars on a 16:9 TV set. What I find odd is people wanting to change the original aspect ratio.

[Ghitulescu]

It's called "Horror vacui" :)

When seeing black areas where an image should have been people are [subconsciously] thinking that something is missing or they are cheated, like the quality of a movie is measured in square inches.

I feel cheated only when I see in 2.35:1 heads and images that are cut top and bottom but they would otherwise fit a 16:9 or 4:3 image. Like this one ->
http://www.hotflick.net/flicks/2006_Lucky_Number_Slevin/006LNS_Stanley_Tucci_001.jpg

[eddman]

There is one solution; get used to the black sidebars. Believe me, you don't want to turn 4:3 to 16:9 by cutting the top and bottom of the video, unless you are okay with seeing people with no head and legs, as it was mentioned already.

[mike20021969]

What I find odd is people wanting to change the original aspect ratio.It's done quite a bit on TV these days - so if it's good enough for professional broadcasters...

Of course broadcasters not only zoom into the video to achieve 16:9, they position the video so that important stuff is kept in view.

So taking 60 off the top and 60 off the bottom may not be the way to go.

Depending on the footage, taking less off the top and more off the bottom (eg 20 off top, 100 off bottom) could be one answer. You'd have to do this on a scene by scene basis.

I can manually move the the video (up or down) in Corel Video Studio, after fitting 4:3 to a 16:9 display window when I do my own 4:3 to 16:9 videos.

[manono]

It's done quite a bit on TV these days - so if it's good enough for professional broadcasters...

That's a joke, right? They're idiots also. Here in the US we get cable channels converting 2.35:1 movies to 1.78:1 so they fill the screen. They pander to the I-want-the-whole-TV-filled-with-picture know-nothing crowd. The vast majority of videos/movies ever created weren't created at 1.78:1. To think they should be chopped up to fit an arbitrary 1.78:1 ratio is sheer lunacy. And then they have the unmitigated gall to claim they're doing us a favor. Here in the US before broadcasting a movie on network TV they'll show us a message something to the effect that the movie has been reformatted to fit my screen. Which it doesn't, of course, as my TV is widescreen and they've panned-and-scanned it to 1.33:1.
Of course broadcasters not only zoom into the video to achieve 16:9, they position the video so that important stuff is kept in view.
Pan-and-scan is only a short step up from cropping. There's still no excuse for it. If the director had wanted to create a 1.78:1 ratio movie he would have done it in the first place.

[mike20021969]

Here in the US...Here in the USI heard you the first time :D
The land that introduced Never Twice the Same Colour :thanks:...we get cable channels converting 2.35:1 movies to 1.78:1 so they fill the screen.Like I said, if it's good enough for professional broadcasters (although you did say cable, so I use the term loosely).They pander to the I-want-the-whole-TV-filled-with-picture know-nothing crowd
Is that really the case? I think that's nonsense you just made up.

I would guess 99% of broadcast programmes in the UK are widescreen - the other 1% being repeated programmes from the 4:3 days.

When I've seen news or history programmes and they use archive footage shot, for example, during the first world war, it's formatted to fit a 16:9 broadcast.

Surely the last thing you want to see - and would easily notice - is 16:9 to 4:3 to 16:9 to 4:3....
On occasion, the broadcaster doesn't quite convert to 16:9 and it really is irritating seeing narrow black lines on the left and right during a 16:9 programme.

Anyway, I hope Spjongen got the answer he was looking for.

[Blue_MiSfit]

Professional broadcasters know almost nothing about quality, and don't care at all about preserving things - only delivering a product as cheaply as possible that meets the standard of the average consumer.

For most, this means an native 4x3 SD channel that's probably been transcoded between SDI and MPEG-2 more times than anyone can keep track of.

There's not much "professional" in the sense of "understanding the best way to do it" going on here. It's only "professional" in the sense that they know how to get the various pieces of broadcast hardware working well enough to get you a picture. That's about it. Oh, then they hand off the actual day-to-day operations to poorly trained, overworked, unmotivated, and underpaid operators, many of whom can't tell you the difference between progressive and interlace scanning. Believe me, I've interviewed more than I'd care to have ;)

Back to the topic of the thread, there are only really 4 ways to display 4x3 content on a 16x9 TV:

1) As-is, with a pillarbox to preserve the aspect ratio - this is my preferred method, as it preserves everything
2) Cropped down and scaled up, which destroys a lot of picture area. Yuck.
3) Stretched out. This is intolerable to me, but it's how most HDTVs are configured to display 4x3 content ><
3) Projection / aspect ratio conversion - some TVs can do this, as can some "professional" (there's that word again!!!) hardware upconverting devices, for example the Snell Quasar. These attempt to do a "smart" stretching. As far as I understand, this means stretching the edges of the frame more than the center portion. These methods vary widely in how people subjectively perceive them.

My company does some 4x3 480i to 16x9 1080i conversions with a Quasar. It looks okay, but I'd still strongly prefer the native aspect ratio with a pillarbox. The client that uses this device has a good-intentioned rule that requires all content on their HD channel to be full-frame 16x9. That's all well and good when you shoot 1080i natively, but of course they want to run tons of library content on this network as well ><... They have graphics overlays that would be chopped off by a simple crop and resize, so using a Quasar was the preferred method since it delivered a more convincing image than a simple stretch. It helps that we can configure the algorithm somewhat, and set presets for each TV show we upconvert using this method.

As a sidenote, it's 480i to 1080i upscaling isn't too shabby. It's free of aliasing / shimmering for the most part, if a little softer than I'd personally like... /shrug

Derek

[eddman]

Here in the US we get cable channels converting 2.35:1 movies to 1.78:1 so they fill the screen.

I don't live in US, so I have a question. I know that there are 2:35:1 DVDs, but what about blu-rays?

I-want-the-whole-TV-filled-with-picture know-nothing crowd.

Man, I hate that. For example, I go to a relative's house and I see that he's watching a 4:3 program, stretched out, on a 16:9 tv. I adjust it to 4:3 w/ black sidebars and he tells me that the stretched out one looked better!!! WTF? How is it better, damn it.

How come people can't stand pillarboxes? I remember watching 1:78:1 and 2:35:1 DVDs on 4:3 tvs with letterboxes, and no one complained.
What's different now? It's the same black bars, only this time they are on the sides and not the top and bottom.

[Malaksbane]

It's done quite a bit on TV these days - so if it's good enough for professional broadcasters...

Professional broadcasters seem to be happy with blurry subjects against sharp backrounds.

Just live with the side bars, crop scene by scene or take a gamble about composition. It is common to place the heads more into the upper part of the frame, with the eyes at roughly 2/3. So cutting 40 from the top and 80 from the bottom would be a nice starting point.

[manono]

I don't live in US, so I have a question. I know that there are 2:35:1 DVDs, but what about blu-rays
Of course. If the original movie was at that ratio (although most are closer to 2.40:1), then both the DVD and the Blu-Ray should have the same aspect ratio.
Man, I hate that. For example, I go to a relative's house and I see that he's watching a 4:3 program, stretched out, on a 16:9 tv. I adjust it to 4:3 w/ black sidebars and he tells me that the stretched out one looked better!!! WTF? How is it better, damn it.
Yeah, I have a relative like that also. I can't watch anything on his TV set. He thinks his looks better also. He's been watching it like that for so long that he's used to the fat people. And he doesn't even notice the aliasing and other crap created by the stretching.

I don't really know what the problem is. I do know that many many people thought that by buying a widescreen TV set they'd never see black bars again and now they see them more than ever, sometimes on the sides and sometimes on the top and bottom. So they stretch the 4:3 shows to make people fat (or zoom it and cut off heads and feet), and zoom the 2.35:1 movies to get rid of the bars above and below, thus cutting off a good portion of the sides. Makes no sense at all.

[mike20021969]

Yeah, I have a relative like that also. I can't watch anything on his TV set. He thinks his looks better also. He's been watching it like that for so long that he's used to the fat people. And he doesn't even notice the aliasing and other crap created by the stretching.
It sounds like the majority of broadcasts in USA are still 4:3??
You're relative is in for a real treat when 16:9 lands.

[Ghitulescu]

Of course. If the original movie was at that ratio (although most are closer to 2.40:1), then both the DVD and the Blu-Ray should have the same aspect ratio.

Actually there are not many movies shot in 2.40:1 or similar, they were many in the past. They simply matt the bars top and bottom. The physics says that the light propagates the same in all directions and all photographs know the vignetting. The only way of avoiding vignetting while preserving 2.xx:1 is to use anamorph lenses (both for turning and for running in cinemas).

From time to time one can see snapshots in "Make of" extras that come with some disks and one can clearly see that some movies are actually shot in 4:3 (not even 16:9 or similar) then matted.