Questions about 16:9 aspect ratio

[shira]

I'm trying to help a friend digitize a video that was shot on her camcorder using 16:9 aspect ratio.

I used Windows Movie Maker to capture the video over a firewire connection, and I configured it to 16:9 aspect ratio. The resulting AVI file was still 720x480 dimensions, but with letterbox black bars above and below the 16:9 image. Is that the appropriate file dimensions for 16:9 aspect ratio, or did Windows Movie Maker screw up by adding the extra height with the letterbox at top and bottom?

I decided to edit the AVI file in Adobe Premier, and I told Premier to set 16:9 aspect ratio for the project. Screen images within Premier's user interface looked great, but when I used Adobe Media Encoder to output it to MPEG files, once again I got 720x480 dimensions in the resulting media file, once again with letterbox black bars at top and bottom.

Is the the way 16:9 aspect ratio is supposed to be handled by editing tools, or are Windows Movie Maker and Adobe Premier giving me flawed results? Are the stored AVI and MPEG files really supposed to contain black letterbox bands? Is everything truly working properly, or are these tools making a mess out of this video?

[Mister Flonk-Flonk]

Set it to 4:3 if you don't want the black bars.

[shira]

Mister Flonk-Flonk, at the risk of sounding dumb here, the actual image itself was recorded using 16:9 dimensions. Wouldn't setting it to 4:3 squeeze the image and distort everything to make all the people on screen look very tall and very skinny?

I want an end result that is in the same 16:9 aspect ratio as the original image recorded by the camera.

[Mister Flonk-Flonk]

Then set it to 16:9 and live with the black bars.

[SLK001]

I would have thought that the original AVI would have the dimensions of 856x480 (16:9). However, if the black bars were added, crop them out, then resize to 720x480. This will give you an anamorphic 16:9 video (squashed to 720x480 so a DVD can hold it). When you author, set the aspect ratio to 16:9, so the player will know to expand the image.

If you can get the image to the computer at 856x480 resolution, then you have to "squeeze" the video to 720x480 for true anamorphic display.

[shira]

So I think what I'm hearing is that it's CORRECT for an AVI file of a video that was filmed with 16:9 aspect ratio to have dimensions of 720x480 with letterbox bars embedded in the file?

I'm just trying to figure out whether my software is behaving correctly or not.

[turk690]

Whether 4:3 or anamorphic 16:9, DV AVI is always 720x480. To display properly a correctly shot 16:9 video therefore a true 16:9 monitor is to be used so that it is "unsqeezed". I don't know about Movie Maker, but when choosing any of Premiere's 16:9 presets the display areas on the PC monitor are correctly scaled for 16:9 display such that black bars are not necessary and are not seen. Black bars are seen on a 4:3 monitor (whether it's a dedicated TV or Premiere interface monitor). Maybe this is the case? If so resolution remains 720x480 WITHOUT the black bars (they are NOT imbedded in the file); the latter are just there to maintain correct 16:9 picture proportions on a 4:3 monitor.

[daamon]

@ shira: I use a Canon XM2 PAL miniDV cam and, when in 16:9 mode, I get DV AVI at 720 x 576 (or 480 if it were NTSC and not PAL).

When I bring this into Premiere Pro v1.5.1, the monitor is sized in widescreen proportions to accomodate the 16:9 ratio of the footage.

As said above, all DV AVI is 720 x 480 / 576 (NTSC / PAL) and 16:9, shown on the proper screen, is "unsqueezed" on the wider screen so it looks right.

In short, your software sounds like it's working OK. turk690 hit the nail on the head...

All I'd say is transfer with WinDV instead of Windows Movie Maker. Having used both, and AVICodec on resultant AVIs from the same clip, the quality %ge in the WinDV clip was 80%, whereas the WMM clip was only 50%.

Quite what this means, I have to confess I'm not sure, but it don't seem good...