Author
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Topic: Letterbox, Pillar, or Anamorphic??
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Nathan Blair
Junior
Posts: 2
From: Brooklyn, New York, USA
Registered: Sep 2008
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posted January 24, 2013 10:42 PM
Hey all,
I need some advice... A friend and I are wanting to do an HD transfer of our Super 8mm film. Of course, it's natively 4:3, and HD video is 16:9... so as I understand our three options for converting the aspect ratio would be to letterbox, pillar, or use a funky anamorphic squeeze which would later be corrected. I am in need of some advice on which is the best method.
When asking a few different transfer facilities, the general consensus was that there would be no difference, whether they transferred it to a 16:9 resolution, or we blew up the 4:3 frame to 16:9 in Final Cut Pro.
However, this severely confuses me. I am no expert at transferring film, but I thought that the transfer process was an optical process... so therefor if the film were optically blown up to 1920 pixels horizontally, it would lose less quality than if a smaller 4:3 video were blown up digitally. The latter meaning that pixels would be stretched... right? How could both processes be equal if one is achieved optically and one is achieved digitally? Very confused. Please advise.
Thanks!
-------------------- Nathan Blair Director Of Photography http://www.nathanblair-film.com
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Nathan Blair
Junior
Posts: 2
From: Brooklyn, New York, USA
Registered: Sep 2008
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posted January 27, 2013 06:42 PM
Ok, thanks for the replies. Ricky, I do understand that Super 8mm is natively 4:3 aspect ratio, and HD is natively 16:9 aspect ratio. This is the reason for my question: What is the best method of scaling for the sharpest image?
quote: If you want to fill the entire 16:9 frame they will have to zoom in, which will lose some of the top and bottom of the image.
-- Janice, this is exactly what I want. I want to effectively have a wide screen, super8mm film in the end. When we shot our film, we were sure to compose our frames to allow for cropping the top and bottom of the image. However, my question in regards to this is-- if they "zoom in" to fill the 16:9 frame, will it result in better quality than if I were to "zoom in" in my editing software?
Any more insight would be greatly appreciated. Thanks again!
-------------------- Nathan Blair Director Of Photography http://www.nathanblair-film.com
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