Anamorphic Widescreen

[dvdmiester]

Can anyone tell me how I can make an anamorphic DVD from my original productions. They're all shot in regular 4:3 and I usually letterbox it in Premiere and then make a 4:3 DVD but how can I make an anamorphic disc.
I understand how an anamorphic DVD works, I'm just not sure how to get there with an original 4:3 source.

[VMiyoshi]

What are you talking about....Widescreen maybe?? If your talking about Widescreen, then there options in Premiere in which you can Export your Video in to a Widescreen format, but to me it looks a bit off. I normally record in widescreen 16:9 if I want widescreen DVD's

[FulciLives]

Can anyone tell me how I can make an anamorphic DVD from my original productions. They're all shot in regular 4:3 and I usually letterbox it in Premiere and then make a 4:3 DVD but how can I make an anamorphic disc.
I understand how an anamorphic DVD works, I'm just not sure how to get there with an original 4:3 source.

If the camcorder you are using does NOT offer a 16x9 mode then you can mimic it anyway by cutting off the top and the bottom of the image but then you have to process it JUST a certain way to make a true 16x9 DVD in the end.

Basically, without getting into extreme detail, you would chop of the top and bottom and then resize to full D1 resolution. This will then give you a full screen image that is stretched (makes everyone look too tall and thin). When you make the DVD you set it to 16x9 so that the image appears correctly on a widescreen TV (will fill up the entire screen from top to bottom and right to left and be in the correct aspect ratio) as well as a 4:3 TV (it will appear widescreen with black above and below the picture with the proper aspect ratio).

There are basically two different ways of doing this but first I should mention that you will get better quality OVERALL if you either shoot with a camcorder that offers a 16x9 mode OR if your camcorder only shoots in 4:3 you can mimic 16x9 if you use a special lenz attachment (which I am told are not too expensive).

Here is the process if your footage is shot in standard 4:3

First I should point out that I have never done DV captures and I'm not familar with what resolution DV uses. I know full screen D1 is 720x480 (NTSC) and 720x576 (for PAL) so I am assuming this is the same resolution used by DV cams if not then I assume it is the norm to then resize to the correct D1 resolution for DVD creation. So all the figures I am about to use are based on the D1 resolutions.

First you need to cut off the top and the bottom. For NTSC you cut off 64 pixels each for the top and bottom. For PAL the figure is 77 pixels. So your resolution afterwards for NTSC will be 720x352 and for PAL it will be 720x422. You then need to resize that back up to your proper D1 resolution. This will give you a stretched image with everyone and everything looking too tall and thin. You then process this full screen stretched image with your MPEG2 encoder of choice. When you get to the DVD authoring stage just make sure you select 16x9 as this will make the DVD appear "correct" on both a 16x9 TV (It will fill the screen and NOT look stretched) and a 4:3 TV (the image will be widescreen with black borders above and below so that the image does not appear stretched).

Just remember that you will be cutting information off of the top and bottom of your original footage so when filming in 4:3 you should keep this in mind. One trick is to use a camcorder with a flip out LCD screen and then mask the top and bottom of the screen with black tape so you only see the "widescreen" image that will be left afterwards, thus ensuring that your framing will be accurate.

However, for any new footage that you will be shooting I would highly suggest you either shoot in 16x9 or use the special 16x9 lenz on a 4:3 only camcorder. Then you just process as a normal 4:3 clip except of course you still need to selecti 16x9 in the authoring stage.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[dvdmiester]

Thanks, that was a great reply.

Do you know how much quality I'll lose if I stretch the video? How much worse will it look?

Thanks.