16 x 9 Anamorphic Lens and our Systems

[JohnKleban]

Hey Guys,

Hope all are doing well. Say, has anyone had experience (or are you using) a 16 x 9 anamorphic lens?

I see we have a setting on our units for anamorphic 16 x 9; does that work? Also, with that setting, will that still leave an image with black borders on the top and bottom of a screen as well as thinner side borders - when viewed on a typical widescreen TV?

Finally, would a burned DVD of something shot and edited 16 x 9 anamorphic, would that look "normal" even if played back on a 4:3 TV? With borders in this case, fine, but would the image be squeezed or stretched, etc.?

I'm getting a few mixed opinions, some saying the image will still have to be stretched in order to truly fit one's widescreen TV. I have Sony VX2000s and am tossing around the idea of getting one of these (or a couple) to shoot widescreen with; the trade-off of course is I will lose a bit on my zoom abilities.

Any feedback, pros, cons, etc. would be much appreciated.

Thanks,

John

[SYLRENAUD]

Hi John,
When i produce a 16:9 anamorphic project it fills the whole wide screen TV.
When you play it on a 4:3 TV the image is streched/squeezed up and down.
I use a Wide Angle Lens on my FX-1 and it looks great !!! both in 16:9 & HD.
I got the Sony lens specifically for that camera and i'm happy with the lens
and its ability to zoom in tight.

Syl

[LouBruno]

Hi John,

.If you recall my lecture in MOLINE and last year in IOWA, I am an advocate of 16:9, even in standard definition. The entire country is widescreen in regards to TV sales...actually HDTV.

.Our units handle widescreen very well in 16:9 anamorphic. Soon there may be a release of cinemascope which I will write about later in this posting.

.ARABESK has a 16:9 setting. When a DVD is authored, everything will look fine on a widescreen (WS) TV or monitor as this project setting of 16:9 anamorphic keeps transitions etc in a proper aspect ratio.

.There are NO flags in ARABESK that communicate with DVD players and cause them to automatically change to a letterbox format on a 4:3 TV

.GOOD NEWS: ALL DVD players have the ability, within their respective menus to be manually set to letterbox when an anamorphic picture is detected.

.GOOD NEWS: You can also use your cineconverter software to change the 16:9 aspect to 4:3 and then proceed to burn a DVD as a 4:3 project AND if the project is small enough, you can place TWO projects on one DVD designating 16:9 and 4:3

.CINEMASCOPE or 21:9 capability has been released in Germany. This involves placing the newer camera(s0 via the menu on anamorphic or 16:9 or wide (depending on the camera ) model and using an ANAMORPHIC lens in tandem with this setting for an even more dramatic WS presentation. NOTE: All HD cameras are widescreen and have the ability to utilize the WIDE/ANAMORPHIC function in SD mode as well.

.Be careful using the widescreen or anamorphic setting on any 4:3 type camera like the VX or PD SONY series. There is a loss of resolution that really "breaks-up" the picture on LCD screens and large widescreen televisions. This is an artificial setting using only a small portion of the 4:3 SD chip in the camera.

.Lastly, certain ANAMORPHIC lenses do not allow the videographer to ZOOM throughout the entire range and use the focus ring thus a blurry, unfocused picture about 40%.

[JohnKleban]

Thank you both for the insight and Lou for the great explanation. More for me to think about.

John