Sony DV Cam 16:9 "Full mode" stretches to 4:3 when I watch on 4:3 television.Remedy?

[midiguy]

Hey there. I did a film project at school. There camera is some sony minidv model (not sure which model). It shot it in 16:9 mode (I think it was called "16:9 full mode" although I'm not sure), and what happens is when I hook it up to a 4:3 TV, the picture stretches to 4:3 and everything looks stretched. It looks 16:9 on the lcd and also in premiere. How can I watch it in 16:9 on a 4:3 TV, (meaning, so it looks widescreen and doesn't stretch the picture out)? I am going from the camera directly to the TV. I have to present this tommorow, so if you know what I have to do, please help ASAP. Thanks and much appreciated.

[Logiqx]

There are two possible options for you:

1) Many TVs have a 16:9 mode which will display your footage in the correct aspect ratio (i.e. with black borders at the top and bottom). If your TV has a settings menu then search for a 16:9 option.

2) There may be an option on you camcorder to specify that the TV you are hooking up to is 4:3 (much like a DVD player has such an option).

If you can hook the camcorder up to a 16:9 TV then it will look fine of course.

Logiqx

[jkwarras]

If isn't a Sony DVCam recent model you're not able to watch a 16:9 movie in a 4:3 TV playing ti trought your sony Cm. recent models have an option to allow a correct playback. i have the same problem as you, and there's no solution, sorry. I have a Sony PC-120, and unfortunely if your TV doesn't have a 16:9 option you'll see it streched. The only "solution" I have for you is to change aspect ratio reeencoding the video in any software (Virtualdub or wahtever you're using), but this is a lossy procedure since you compress again the video.

[writersblock29]

@midiguy

The reason for this problem is that most Sony camcorders use native 4:3 CCDs. It'll always record the image in 4:3. But -- as you've noticed -- the image will appear squashed on a 4:3 television set. The best way to remedy this is to set your aspect ratio to 16:9 on your DVD authoring software, if you have that option. This way, it'll treat the image as what it basically is: An Anamorphic 16:9 image. DVD Maestro has this ability, if you switch the aspect ratio to either 16:9 pan/scan or 16:9 letterbox. Some authoring software doesn't provide for this, however... so you'll have to use the Pulldown GUI to insert 16:9 stream flags into any MPEG2 encoding you create. TMPGE also allows you to insert these flags -- and is quite reliable (not to mention, the demo's free to try, if you want to see if it works for you). Otherwise, you're watching a video stream that's flagged as 4:3 -- even though the cam recorded it as 16:9. You can edit it just fine the way it is, and convert it when you do your encoding (provided you wish to author a DVD with the footage), but you'll have to set 16:9 flags into the stream for a 4:3 television to automatically letterbox the image.

Hope this helps!