Mixing 16:9 and 4:3 video clips

[paul56]

Many thanks for the helpful suggestions and advice. I think for my current project my preference is to use the overlay track to resize each 4:3 clip to 16:9 and crop. It means going through my 90 minute project again but it should be worth it.

It occurs to me thought that, given that we are in effect zooming in on the image using this method, will this not impact on video quality or should the clip's resolution be sufficient?

[Black Lab]

Depends how much you zoom. The more you zoom the more the quality is reduced.

[sjj1805]

This is what video editing is all about.
You are like an artist and have a canvas. Your canvas might be 4.3 or your canvas might be 16.9. Now you have various bits of material of various shapes and sizes and you - the editor - have to find the best way of placing those odd shapes onto that canvas.

Sometimes it might mean letter boxing. Sometimes it might mean post boxing. sometimes it might mean stretching. It could be that you need to use split screen and picture in picture effects.

Every project will be different and you will handle each one differently.
That is the fun of video editing.

[Ron P.]

That's a good point Trevor. Didn't think of using an overlay track so I could copy/paste the attributes. I don't know why that function is not available for the main track.

They need to save something for VS20..

[paul56]

Depends how much you zoom. The more you zoom the more the quality is reduced.

Agreed, but using Trevor's method of cropping each clip, are we not using minimum zoom to achieve 16:9 from a 4:3 clip? I'll be trying it today.

you might want to ask yourself how a 16:9 project (with 4:3 only footage) would look for people that only have a 4:3 TV?

I did a test run and yes, the result of 4:3 clips on a 4:3 TV is an unsatisfactory box image - definitely not the answer.

[paul56]

Now that my project is completed I thought I would post with an update on my results which could be of interest.

My first action was to use what I thought was Trevor's brilliant method of re-sizing the 4:3 images to 16:9 in the overlay track. This meant painstakingly positioning each clip to avoid chopping heads, feet, etc but I thought it would be worth the effort.

I was really happy with the final result...when viewing on my ageing but perfectly OK 4:3 TV - albeit in letterbox format as you would expect. However, when I viewed it on other peoples' 16:9 TVs I was much less impressed. The still images and the original 16:9 footage were OK but my 4:3 clips did not look that great and seemed to suffer from a fair amount of distortion. Why might this be:

1. Resizing those clip is effectively zooming in a certain amount. Is it too much to expect that process to be penalty free?
2. Other than for close-ups I tend to shoot with the wide-angle lens attached as I think it gives a more realistic field of view. Could that be the culprit? I know some vignetting at the edges is a side-effect of these lenses but this is much worse than that.
3. In my limited experience with modern TVs (LCD/Plasma) I get the impression that although picture quality is usually excellent they are far less 'forgiving' of less than perfect images, whatever the source, than the older technology.
4. Of course the source DVD player could be the weak link here. My own is a new (brilliant) Panasonic - those attached to the 16:9s were not exactly top of range so maybe that's the weak link.

Conclusion: I reverted to my (saved) 4:3 project which when viewed on a 16:9 TV is a much better result - despite the sidebars - and with a health warning on the box of copies sent to all family/friends to set their TVs to 4:3!

Incidentally, I was rendering at 6000 kbps to fit 90 mins but I did do a test section at 8000 kbps which didn't show any improvement.

For the future this is now academic as my camera is now configured to shoot in 16:9. (better late than never).

[Black Lab]

Now that my project is completed I thought I would post with an update on my results which could be of interest.

My first action was to use what I thought was Trevor's brilliant method of re-sizing the 4:3 images to 16:9 in the overlay track. This meant painstakingly positioning each clip to avoid chopping heads, feet, etc but I thought it would be worth the effort.

I was really happy with the final result...when viewing on my ageing but perfectly OK 4:3 TV - albeit in letterbox format as you would expect. However, when I viewed it on other peoples' 16:9 TVs I was much less impressed. The still images and the original 16:9 footage were OK but my 4:3 clips did not look that great and seemed to suffer from a fair amount of distortion. Why might this be: see #1 below

1. Resizing those clip is effectively zooming in a certain amount. Is it too much to expect that process to be penalty free? To a degree, yes.
2. Other than for close-ups I tend to shoot with the wide-angle lens attached as I think it gives a more realistic field of view. Could that be the culprit? I know some vignetting at the edges is a side-effect of these lenses but this is much worse than that. I wouldn't think the wide angle would affect the quality.
3. In my limited experience with modern TVs (LCD/Plasma) I get the impression that although picture quality is usually excellent they are far less 'forgiving' of less than perfect images, whatever the source, than the older technology. You are correct. They are clearer and more detailed, therefore any blemishes will be magnified.
4. Of course the source DVD player could be the weak link here. My own is a new (brilliant) Panasonic - those attached to the 16:9s were not exactly top of range so maybe that's the weak link. Could be. But not all HD TVs are created equal either. The larger the TV the more the poor quality will be noticed.

Conclusion: I reverted to my (saved) 4:3 project which when viewed on a 16:9 TV is a much better result - despite the sidebars - and with a health warning on the box of copies sent to all family/friends to set their TVs to 4:3!

Incidentally, I was rendering at 6000 kbps to fit 90 mins but I did do a test section at 8000 kbps which didn't show any improvement.

For the future this is now academic as my camera is now configured to shoot in 16:9. (better late than never). That's the best fix.

[sjj1805]

If you are concerned about the letter boxing effect you can do something like I did with these Super 8 Cine Film Clips!
Super 8 Conversion Demo. What you could try is having a set of opening curtains which remain on the two sides of the screen - masking the otherwise black bars - and your 4.3 ratio video in the middle.

[Black Lab]

And that is bascially what my remedy is - you are putting something, in 16:9 ratio, under the 4:3 video so that the [image, color clip, video clip, etc.] is "replacing" the black bars.

[paul56]

If you are concerned about the letter boxing effect you can do something like I did with these Super 8 Cine Film Clips!
Super 8 Conversion Demo. What you could try is having a set of opening curtains which remain on the two sides of the screen - masking the otherwise black bars - and your 4.3 ratio video in the middle.

Yes I saw this earlier and it could be a good answer in some projects but for this one I decided to leave as is.
Thanks for all the comments.

[Trevor Andrew]

Hi Paul

Thanks for the feed back, nice to know you have made progress with your video.
You said (The still images and the original 16:9 footage were OK but my 4:3 clips did not look that great and seemed to suffer from a fair amount of distortion)
What do you mean regarding distortion, are you saying that the video was out of proportion/distorted?
When changing from 4:3 to 16 :9 you should select Keep Aspect Ratio. If you do this then the video will be in proportion as original.

Using a wide-angle lens will distort the video frame as a greater horizontal has to be squashed into the frame.
You mention the vignetting is also a problem.
Using VS to re-size the frame from 4:3 to 16:9 has not caused problems for me.
Did you resize the frame further in order to remove the vignetting???. Zooming in further will show a marked reduction in quality.

You also mentioned (Of course the source DVD player could be the weak link here) do you mean DVD recorder?

There seems to be several video sources used here, a 4:3 / 16:9 and??
If so you have to be aware of the video properties, are they the same , are the frame order¡¦s the same?

By the way I use 6000 kbps constant for most of my work.

Glad you completed your video.
Setting your camera to 16:9 is probably the best option

Good luckPaul

[Nunk]

Hi Paul

There is a way of keeping both formats of 16:9 and 4:3 on the same DVD, without modifying any of your original video clips.

The way to do this is to make 1 combined clip of all your 4:3 movie clips and make a single clip. Make this clip first play on the dvd settings. Then add all the separate 16:9 clips after. This may give you the answer you are looking for. This will also work the other way around too.

You could make 1 large clip of all your 16:9 movie clips and make the single combined clip first play on the dvd settings. Then add all the separate 4:3 clips after in the same way as above.

This will give you both formats on the same DVD

I hope this help you

[sjj1805]

You almost got that right... you don't use the first play option.
You create two versions of the video, one in 4.3 and the other in 16.9

Add them both to the Authoring Stage as two separate titles.
You can create chapters if you wish.

User can then select from the root Menu which version to watch.
Only thing you have to take into account is the size of the combined project - you have to ensure it all fits onto the one disc.

[Nunk]

Hi Steve

What i was trying to show is that you can have both formats 4:3 & 16:9 on the same dvd. Without having to change any of video clips aspect ratio or add back bars to the 4:3 video footage.

If you don't use first play on the first clip your video your video will jump to the different aspect ratio when playing the next video clip. The reason for using first play is so you don't have to make any changes to aspect ratio of any of your video clips.

Using first play stops the jumping of aspect ratios which does not look nice when watching a dvd.

[paul56]

Trevor, thanks for this, see comments in red.

What do you mean regarding distortion, are you saying that the video was out of proportion/distorted? No, proportions are fine - I should have said blurred

You mention the vignetting is also a problem. I meant that even before editing it is sometimes visible at the edges especially on closer shots but it's not a problem normally.

Did you resize the frame further in order to remove the vignetting???. Zooming in further will show a marked reduction in quality. No I kept the resizing to a minimum, i.e. fit to screen & keep aspect ratio.

You also mentioned ...source DVD player could be the weak link here - do you mean DVD recorder? I am referring to the player/recorder attached to the various TVs that the resulting 16:9 project DVD is playing on.

There seems to be several video sources used here, a 4:3 / 16:9 and??
If so you have to be aware of the video properties, are they the same , are the frame order¡¦s the same?

Regarding the last point above, could this be where I am going wrong? The 4:3 clips are imported from camcorder via WIN DV as AVI.
The 16:9 clips are from a digital still camera and therefore are .mov files inserted into the timeline from the edit page (open video file). Although these clips are inevitably of lower quality to start with they look as good as they do outside the project.
Similarly high quality jpeg images are inserted into the timeline (open image file). The project properties at all stages are as recommended in the tutorials, i.e. Lower Field First, 720x576, 25 fps, etc. Are you saying that this might not be correct given the mix of sources? Surely you can only have one set of properties per project?

All these various clips are intermixed along the timeline and not in any strict order of format.

For information: rendering tis 90 mins project to a video file takes up to 4 hours. Burning the DVD takes 20 mins.