problem with widescreen SD video from HDV source

[Bill Hark]

I have been shooting exclusively HDV since the beginning of 2008. Both of my cameras (Sony Z1 and Canon HV20) can output SD video that is still widescreen. When I input it into a set top DVD recorder to make a SD DVD, I get a cropped widescreen video of somewhat poor resolution when viewed on my HD television via a blueray player. The entire widescreen video is visible but the image is smaller and has black bars around it. I get the same effect when I input into Premiere Pro (widescreen setting) and output to a DVD or to Youtube. Here is an example:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZeXqhZONFM

I have bought SD DVD's of commercial movies that are listed as widescreen along with some chasers videos such as from Scott McPartland and Tornadovideos.net that say widescreen. When played on my blueray, the entire screen is filled and the resolution is not HD but is quite good. How to obtain a nice widescreen video from HDV that is still SD but fills the screen?

Bill Hark

 

[Bart_Comstock]

In Premier Pro click the video in the program window and you will see a reticule appear in the middle and the video get a gray line that has little squares on its boarder. Drag one of the squares to increase the size of the video till the black boarder is no longer visible. You will notice the video will be very fuzzy while you are adjusting its size, don't worry as once you have set the size it will return to normal.

The reason the border appears on your video is that frame size of the down converted video is much smaller. I assume that you are most likely working with one of the HDV presets. To edit SD video in 16:9 with out having to worry about that boarder or scaling up the video on Adobe just make sure that when you are choosing your preset for your new project you go with a DV preset instead of a HDV preset. You could also edit the HD video in the HDV format and then donwn convert your sequence to a DVD compatible format with Adobe Media Encoder.

 

[Bill Hark]

Bart, thank for the quick reply and the advice. I am still using an old system with Premiere Pro not set up for HDV. I output downconverted video directly from the camera as SD video and then edit since I don't have the processing capability to take HDV. I'll see if my version will allow me to expand it as you show.

Bill Hark

 

[Bart_Comstock]

Which version of Adobe are you using? What are your system resources? You may find that you are able to handle HDV on your laptop as it isnt that much more of a drain than DV video is.

 

[Bill Hark]

I decided to do another test with some 2009 storm footage. I played the HDV video in both a Canon HV20 and Sony Z1. I outputted via firewire SD video (widescreen) into my computer using Premiere Pro set on widescreen.

I put together several clips and got these results when played on a blue-ray player and HD television.

HV20 (no adjustments)
Small widescreen view surrounded by black on my TV and of poor resolution

Z1 (no adjustments)
Slightly smaller than HV20 widescreen view surrounded by black.

The HV20 video on Premiere Pro went beyond the marked safe margins yet was much smaller on my television. If decreased in size to the outer safe margin, the resultant output on my television decreased in size. The Z1 output in Premier Pro was smaller than the inner safe margin. I enlarged the Z1 video in Premiere Pro to the outer safe margin line and it did enlarge a bit on my televsion screen but still surrounded by a large black margin. Most recent chaser videos (HD source) and commercial DVD's that are in widescreen fill my televsion screen.

BTW, I use Premiere Pro 1.5 on a Pentium 4. I tried HDV video input on a different program and I was dropping lots of frames. I hope to upgrade sometime this year and I shouldn't have any problems editing in HDV and outputting in SD.

Bill Hark