Disadvantages of shooting in 16:9?

[froggy_doddy21]

I have a Sony DCR-TRV19 Mini DV camcorder. It's about 3 years old. I am thinking of starting to shoot all my home videos in 19:6, instead of the traditional 4:3 that I've always used. I'm not worried about the editing part. However, are there ANY disadvantage to switching to 16:9 (for recording)? I'm wondering more along the lines of quality. I would not be concerned if I was using an HD camcorder. However, it is not the case.

So again, my main question is: Are there any disavantages in shooting in 16:9 with an "older" camcorder. Is the resolution/video quality affected at all?

I'm hoping someone can give me a definate answer.

Thank you.

[skier-hughes]

To shoot proper 16.9 you need 16.9 ccd's. You won't have, so what will happen is you will lose about 1/3 of your quality as it is taken away and then interpolated out.

Best way of getting 16.9 from a 4.3 camcorder is to do it in the editing app.

[sonnyboo]

To shoot proper 16.9 you need 16.9 ccd's. You won't have, so what will happen is you will lose about 1/3 of your quality as it is taken away and then interpolated out.

That's not techinically true. You don't lose "quality" per se, you lose the pixels where the eventual letterbox would be. So if you edit in 16:9 and play it out letterbox, it's the exact same number of pixels if you shot in 4:3 and cropped it.

The only disadvantage is that if you shot in 4:3 you could shift the image in post.

[froggy_doddy21]

Thanks for the replies. I've read up on it since then and from what I can gather, the best thing to do is continue to film in 4:3 while using a "safe zone" and then crop the image to 16:9 after using VS.

Thanks.