WIDESCREEN BASICS
16:9 Basics...
All SD formats are designed for a 4:3 picture. To present or record 16:9 in an SD format, it is necessary to manipulate the image to fit the existing 4:3 frame.
There are two ways to do that:
1) 16:9 Full Height Anamorphic - The picture is 'stretched' people look tall and skinny - Called FH, FHA, Anamorphic, Full Height.
2) 16:9 Letterbox - The picture is framed by black bars top and bottom to mask the frame to a 16:9 aspect.
A Full Height picture is the way most 16:9 cameras will record. It allows the most flexability, it can be Letterboxed (to any of a number of wider-screen frames) or can be projected or displayed natively on a widescreen display device.
1. To make a 4:3 picture into a 16:9FHA image, you stretch it vertically by 133% (in HQ mode ideally), or you can contract the image horizontally by 75% to create a "pillarbox" or "curtains" 4:3 frame in a 16:9 frame.
2. To make a 16:9FH image into a 16:9 Letterbox image in a 4:3 frame requires that you squeeze the image vertically by 75%. This is best done with hardware Aspect Ratio converter, but can be done in Avid or After Effects.
3. DVD can support native 16:9FH images, so long as the MPEG file on the DVD is correctly tagged as 16:9 a DVD player will letterbox it on output if necessary. This will be a configuration issue within your DVD authoring option.
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