When to Capture in 16:9 Widescreen with ADVC 300?

[dvd3500]

I have a lot of widescreen VHS tapes and my old HI8 camcorder has a 16:9 mode.
When I transfer these to the computer with the ADVC300 should I switch to wdiescreen? (It has a dipswitch option allowing for 4:3 letterbox or 16:9 widescreen)
In both cases?
From the HI8 only?
Neither?
Output will be a DVD, which ideally will be widescreen.
Thanks!

[pstedman]

I'm pretty new at this myself, but I think you should leave both devices in 4:3 mode. Even though the image is letterboxed it is a matted letterbox meaning that those black bars are actually part of the picture. If you force 16:9 those black bars will only serve to distort the image being captured.

If you want to convert them to 16:9 you'll need to do that when you transcode to MPEG2 by cropping out the bars and changing the output to anamorphic. (That's a really simple explanation. The real how-to can be found in these forums)

Of course I could be wrong. Anyone more knowledgeable feel free to correct me.

[dvd3500]

My camcorder records in 16:9 and "squishes" the picture so I guess a little experiment can't hurt.
Regarding the widescreen VHS I tend to agree...
:-)

[thecoalman]

Here we go..... It's pretty simple. The 16:9 sets a flag in the header for the video, anamorphic 16:9 is the same resolution as 4:3. Software on your computer uses that flag to set the proper aspect when it displays it. There's also a flag on the DVD ifo file to tell the DVD player what aspect to display it at. When you author a DVD or create a video with your editor, depending on how your software works.... You could in fact change the flag and take a 4:3 and author at 16:9 or create a 16:9 if you wish. The only thing that differs is the flag.

Which one to choose depends on the source. If your cam uses the full resolution (digital cams do this) to create the 16:9 then use 16:9 so it displays properly on a computer. If the black bars are part of the video it is not 16:9 but a 16:9 video on a 4:3 video. If you capture a video such as this and author at 16:9 it will only squish it vertically further.

[dvd3500]

Thanks