Widescreen movie on a 4:3 standard telly? Will it look ok?

[Condemor]

Hello everyone

My camera shoots on widescreen 16:9 format and I have done some editing with VideoStudio 9. The DVD looks great on my 16:9 TV, but I am worried that when I pass it to people with a standard 4:3 telly, the titles or part of the movie might be missing on their screen.

I created the titles within the TV safe area, but will this be smaller on a standard telly? Or all they do is add black bars on top and bottom and keep the same image width? Just want to know if there is a way of checking how videos will look on both sets, without having to watch them twice (specially since I do not have other telly apart from the widescreen).

Many thanks, guys.

[jparnold]

Your 16:9 video should look the same on a standard TV (4:3) as any DVD in 16:9 aspect ratio - picture with black bands top and bottom. There should be nothing missing from the image. If you have a standard (4:3 ratio) computer monitor you can check the effect by playing your DVD there.

[Condemor]

Great! Thanks for the quick reply.

So a 16:9 movie played on a 4:3 telly keeps the same width? It is just that some of my movie titles take the whole "TV safe" area and was worried a standard TV would cut a couple of letters.

Cheers

[jparnold]

You may loose a little on the width - you should see at least what you see in the "TV safe" area which is dispalyed when you create titles. As long as your titles are within this area you will have no problems.