What is my screening format?

[perik]

Hi!

Im going to send a film into a filmfestival and Im a bit confused of which is my screeningformat? I can choose between the following screening formats:

4:3
16:9 Letterbox
16:9 Anamorphic

Ive been shooting it with a Canon HV30 with this format:

Frame size:
1440x1080

Vid Rate
25 fps

Compressor
HDV1080i50

Pixel Aspect:
HD (1440x1080)

Audio format
16-bit integer

Audio Rate
48 Khz

Then Ive been exporting it and burning it to DVD. Heres what it looks like in myDVDedit:


So my question is simply:

which is my format?

and what is the difference between 16:9 Letterbox and 16:9 Anamorphic

maybe a stupid question but Im a bit confused here and dont want to write the wrong thing

thanks

Perik

[Cornucopia]

16:9 Anamorphic.

Here's why:
Your camera shoots HD. HD is 16:9 in ALL of it's format variations.
So it's either 16:9 letterbox or 16:9 Anamorphic.

Now, the pixel resolution (or SAR) is 1440x1080. This works out to 4:3. But how can this be, if it's HD?
Well, if it were true 1080, it would have been 1920x1080. It isn't (mainly because that is really only available on the HIGHEST END cameras). So they fudge the horizontal resolution by using ANAMORPHIC encoding. This is COMMON.
So there you have it: 16:9 Anamorphic.

Scott

(edit): If you had 4:3 it would not be as widescreen as you showed. If it was 16:9 Letterbox, there would be the black letterbox bars above and below to fill in and make the overall screen = 4:3, even though the usable image is only 16:9.

[subc]

Cornucopia speaks the truth.

Your footage is 16:9, and if you are properly encoding the footage for DVD authoring, then you are filling the 720x576 pixels with your video, resulting on a 'squeezed' video that you will never see if you properly flag it as anamorphic.. therefore the DVD player (standalone or computer software) will resize and display the video to the proper aspect ratio.. 16:9

[perik]

shall say also that the DVD Im submitting is just for preview porpose. if the film is qualified they want it in betacam. I havnt remade it for betacam yet. can I choose letterbox or anamorphic later in that process through final cut?

so you think its best to submit in anamorphic Betacam? how do I flag it as anamorphic then? in myDVDedit I only got these alternatives:

4:3
16:9
16:9 auto Pan&scan
16:9 auto letterbox
16:9 auto Pan&scan and letterbox

[Cornucopia]

I don't use myDVDedit, but my educated guess and preference would be either "16:9" or "16:9 auto Letterbox" (I'm thinking "16:9" is meant for 16:9 direct displays vs. "16:9 auto Letterbox" meant for 4:3 displays).

Note that there are different kinds of Betacam...

1. Betacam (original) c. 1983-4 (don't use this) ($$)
2. Betacam SP (improved bandwidth, color, audio, etc) c. 1987-9 -> The BEST tape-based pro component analog SD format, IMO ($$)
3. Digital Betacam c. 1995? -> The BEST tape-based component DIGITAL SD format, IMO ($$$)

Notice that both of these are SD, which is a drop in resolution from your 1440x1080 HD source. I'm quite surprised that Betacam (my guess is they mean BetaSP) is their common submission format, as it has been surpassed in quality for quite a while now, and with tapeless formats in the ascendency, it's getting harder and harder to find a decent BetaSP deck to master to. And it's ANALOG! And tape mechanics can get screwed up. WTF?!!

Good luck,

Scott

[edDV]

First I read this thread. So they won't accept high definition in any form?

If this isn't a flashback to 1994 they are probably talking digi-Betacam which is 704x576i.

Still they should be accepting HD. Can you link their requirements page?


PS: If they must have Betacam tape, you will need to use a production house to convert the file to tape.