Originally posted by: skeg64
"The current DVD will be 4x3. When it is complete, I will reformat it for 16x9."
Hey MBJ, what is the point of working in 4:3? Wouldn't it be easier to do it as 16:9 from the beginning? A dvd player would letterbox it on a 4:3 TV anyway.
Also, if you are just going to crop the black bars and resize back to 720x576 for the 16:9 version, you are essentially just stretching the picture, and this could be as easily done using the Zoom function on a 16:9 TV.
So the anamorphic version will not be any better than the 4:3 version, except you won't have to set your TV to zoom!
"The current DVD will be 4x3. When it is complete, I will reformat it for 16x9."
Hey MBJ, what is the point of working in 4:3? Wouldn't it be easier to do it as 16:9 from the beginning? A dvd player would letterbox it on a 4:3 TV anyway.
Also, if you are just going to crop the black bars and resize back to 720x576 for the 16:9 version, you are essentially just stretching the picture, and this could be as easily done using the Zoom function on a 16:9 TV.
So the anamorphic version will not be any better than the 4:3 version, except you won't have to set your TV to zoom!
There was a discussion about this in another thread... I believe it was called something like "LaserDisc vs Bootleg DVD" or something like that.
Here's the lowdown.... the LaserDiscs are in "letterboxed" format and not "Widescreen Anamorphic". Here is the difference..... Anamorphic is just the movie and no black bars.... the black bars are generated if necessary by your DVD player. On the other hand, being an analog format, LaserDisc Widescreen films are "letterboxed". This means that the movie is "framed" with black bars at the top and bottom to fill out a 4:3 screen.... thus the reason MeBeJedi keeps referring to this as 4:3.
While the movies themselves are Widescreen, they were "framed" to fit within the analog 4:3 realm to fit what some people label as a "standard" TV.
While MeBeJedi is correct to say that the video source from the LaserDisc is 4:3 taking into account this letterbox, 4:3 "fraiming", it would probably be less confusing if people just referred to it as "letterboxed" rather than 4:3 since most people think of 4:3 as "Pan and Scan" which is not what MeBeJedi is doing at all.
MeBeJedi discusses a lot of this in the "LaserDisc vs Bootleg DVD" thread.
Basically, you will lose some resolution by making this old "letterboxed" widescreen film "anamorphic". The result will not be as good as a professional "anamorphic" widescreen presentation made from the original source.
Take a look at the aformentioned thread for more info.