HF series aspect ratio

[Jergling]

Hello HV20 forum. I have a quick question that I probably already have the answer to. Is it possible to use a 4:3 aspect ratio on the HF200? I only have 2 TVs, and would like to play video on the SD TV without the letterbox. If all else fails, I can just trim it in FCE.

[Bif]

I wouldn't trim it. Commercial movies today are made almost entirely in some widescreen format or another, the 4:3 (fullscreen) versions you see are "Pan 'n Scan" where something has been "cut out", just like you're considering "trimming".

Widescreen is taking over, just about the only 4:3 TV's left for sale on store shelves will be "leftover" stock (if any are left at all). Widescreen has become a way of "seeing" in motion picture and in almost any case where it is converted to 4:3 you are not seeing the full scope of what the Director Of Photography (even if that is you with your home footage) "saw" when the project was "filmed".

"The Last Of The Mohicans" with Daniel Day Lewis is a good example. If you watched the HBO 4:3 (full screen) version you probably missed 1/3 of the action and definitely missed the SCOPE of the setup to much of the action.

My suggestion: Let it letterbox on that one TV. If that TV goes out on you next week it will almost certainly be replaced with a widescreen set and then you will be watching your "trimmed" material in "pillarbox" format (thick black bar on left and one on right) which I find to be far more annoying than letterbox.

Before I got widescreen TV I used to buy my movies (or rent them) in widescreen only and simply set closer to the TV, enjoying the full scope of widescreen and basically learned to ignore the letterbox bars. I did this with our main 26" CRT and occasionally with the 13" in a spare room.

[JCM_GDL]

.... and then you will be watching your "trimmed" material in "pillarbox" format (thick black bar on left and one on right) which I find to be far more annoying than letterbox.....

Or worst, as many people does, watching the 4:3 format media in a full wide screen, deforming the image, and making the circles look like ellipses (I prefer the side pillars for a 4:3 media in a 16:9 or 16:10 wide screen TV set).

[Khaver]

A lot of the "HD" channels on cable are showing their 4:3 shows using a warped stretch to 16:9. The middle 1/8th of the screen looks OK but the left and right sides stretch more and more toward the edges. I look at it as the "poor mans" wide screen.

Some TV's even have this option.

[Rumpelgeist]

If you really-really-really care for 4:3 then shoot 16:9 and protect for 4:3, then do "pan&scan". This practice was common 10 years ago, it is going away, 4:3 is history. For example, Scrubs was shot in 16:9 but delivered in 4:3. Current season of Scrubs is shown in HD, but funnily nothing has changed in the way they shoot it, and what they shoot it with - a Super16 film camera.

P.S. I only have one TV, but it is a 50-inch flat-screen. I sold my 27-inch Panasonic CRT the same week I got my Panasonic plasma.

[Rumpelgeist]

Before I got widescreen TV I used to buy my movies (or rent them) in widescreen only and simply set closer to the TV, enjoying the full scope of widescreen and basically learned to ignore the letterbox bars. I did this with our main 26" CRT and occasionally with the 13" in a spare room.
The problem is, many of such movies actually have 16:9 boxed inside 4:3 frame, not true widescreen. To watch them on a widescreen TV you need to use "zoom" feature, losing resolution. They look pretty bad, but I don't care replacing them, I stopped buying DVDs. I buy only blu-ray discs now, and I buy only ones that I can watch 5, 10, 20 times without getting tired of them.