Get widescreen from 720x480 by cropping 720x360 or 720x405?

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monaya Author

Level 1

5 points

Get widescreen from 720x480 by cropping 720x360 or 720x405?

To get true widescreen from standard DV 720x480 footage do you crop to 720 x 360 or 720x405?

imac, Mac OS X (10.5.4)

Posted on Sep 18, 2008 12:35 AM

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Answer 1

mooblie

Level 4

1,954 points

Sep 18, 2008 1:04 PM in response to monaya

No, for true widescreen, you leave it as 720x480 (assuming you're talking NTSC) and +make it anamorphic+. However, this assumes you shot it that way.

If you didn't (i.e. you shot it as 720x480 non-anamorphic 4:3) this won't work. You'll need to letterbox it (giving black bars) or enlarge it (losing resolution), neither of which is "true" widescreen.

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Answer 2

Sep 18, 2008 1:06 PM in response to monaya

and like mooblie says, if it was shot standard 4:3 NTSC, then you can't get true widescreen 16:9. However, you can take that 4:3 footage, put it in a 16:9 anamorphic timeline and add Andy's Elastic Aspect filter!

http://web.mac.com/andymees/Freeand_Easy/main/Entries/2008/3/3_Andy%E2%80%99s_ElasticAspect.html

Matt

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Answer 3

monaya Author

Level 1

5 points

Sep 18, 2008 3:41 PM in response to mooblie

Yes the original footage is 4:3 that's the question.

What are the correct dimensions you need to crop to in the timeline? 720x405 or 720x360?

Also, do you really need to enlarge or just chop of from the top and bottom?

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Answer 4

monaya Author

Level 1

5 points

Sep 19, 2008 6:18 PM in response to monaya

Thanks but why cant you just crop the top and bottom off by changing the dimensions in the timeline to a 16x9 like 720x405? Ive done it before and it plays right. I just want to make sure I have the correct dimensions as Ive heard of 720x360 also?

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Answer 5

Sep 20, 2008 12:33 AM in response to monaya

720x360 would give an aspect ratio of 2:1, or 16:8 as compared to 16:9. Looking at some files I have, I show 848x480. The dimensions for starting with 720 would be 405 (720/16=45*9=405). 405 is what you're looking for.

G'luck,
-Brian

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Answer 6

monaya Author

Level 1

5 points

Sep 20, 2008 1:06 AM in response to Brian Kaempen

Thanks. What I find odd is that when I shoot in Squeeze Mode, which is 720x480 anamorphic, the final result when imported is that I get a picture that cuts off more from the top and bottom of the image than when I shoot Normal 4:3 and crop to 720x405 and how are they both considered 16:9? Even though 720x405 seems to leave a little more image at the top and bottom horizontally.

And when I change the timeline for the 4:3 footage to 720x360 and scale the image to match, it then looks exactly like the image in the Squeeze anamorphic mode.

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