I am pretty new to this, but I am not uninformed (not completely anyway). There are a couple of things I want to accomplish. 1) Make VCD's from home videos (using the Hi8 tapes and later using DV equipment) 2) Making a 3D movie after years of dreaming about this idea I have.

So the questions are these... If I create a 16:9 widescreen (427x240 or 853x480) 3D animation, will that burn to a VCD after converting it to MPEG using Ligos LSX-MPEG? or should I create it at 352x240 (standard), or at 720x480 (recomended capture size), and when I convert it the size should be 352 x 240?

The reason I am asking is both the Hi8 and DV camera will film in 16:9 and if I do 3D segue's between various clips, I want the whole "movie" to be the same ratio.

In otherwords, can I create 16:9 VCD's and if so, what ratio do I capture/create them at before converting to MPEG-1?

Thank you in advance, Bryan

-- Bryan Bennett (bbennett@acer.com), January 12, 2000

Answers

First 16x9 widescreen does not work on Video CDs. You will get a horrible stretched image in 4x3 widescreen. Video CDs are like VHS cassette tapes in that all players are set to 4x3 widescreen. There are very few, probably none, players that can do 16x9. So sorry.

Also you use 352x240 NTSC if you plan to stay in the U.S. Otherwise any resolution other than 16x9 widescreen is fine.

-- The Lone Ranger (rutger_s@hotmail.com), January 12, 2000.

Hey i was curious about your cameras filming in 16:9. Does yours actually make the picutre that way, or does it do it like how my Hitachi hi8 does it (it will say 16:9 but all it will do is actually mask off the bottom and top to give a letterbox effect. Which is still pretty cool and a new wide angle lens fixed the matted problem)- -thanks

-- doug (mazinz@aol.com), January 12, 2000.

Just to say one thing about 16:9 widescreen and VCD, I have 2 VCD Players a Sony walkman bought 1996 and a Daewoo Multi disk. BOTH do display 16:9 and have that setting on the VCD....

-- IY (iy@sakina.com), January 13, 2000.

Well Doug, There are 2 types of "widescreen" that it video tapes. 16:9 and Cinema. The Camera is a Sony TRV-66 (and thanks for reminding me that I need to get a wide angle lense).

Cinema: this does as you thought, it just crops the top and bottom.

16:9: Actualy records it pre-stretched (verticaly) so that everything looks tall. But, when you get an "animorphic" DVD, for example, it is pre-streched like that so that all the DVD Player has to do is strech it left and right, therefore better quality as the Player doesn't have to do both.

IY, Do you have a 16:9 TV? See, at this point I only have a 4:3 (for now), but I can do a "squeeze trick" on it where I would actualy benifit from having the widescreen. Also (since I don't have a VCD Player) my DVD Player can be set to 16:9. That coupled with the squeeze, would make for some nice video now that would look better when I get the 16:9 TV. My TV in 4:3 mode typicaly will handle animorphic titles on DVD but I have to do the squeeze to make the Hi8 recording to show correctly. Otherwise, I get what Ranger described.

Thank you for your inputs (you too Ranger). My biggest hurdle will be getting the 3D to be animorphic, but I have some ideas on that, like doing the "strech" in premiere and then converting it to VCD format. Therefore all video will be the same. Ahhhh, another expensive, yet fun, hobby.

-- Bryan Bennett (bbennett@acer.com), January 13, 2000.

Bryan, what do you use to film 3D by the way?

-- Matias (petrellm@telefonica.com.ar), January 13, 2000.

I use Lghtwave for space scenes and Bryce 4.0 to create landscapes (sometimes a combination of both). Then render them to an AVI on my hard drive. I will use Premiere to edit them and "splice" the 3D in between the video, or to just create the full 3D movie I want to make.

Right now, I am creating a few simple 3D animations in various sizes and compressions to see what gives me the best quality when I convert it to mpeg1.

-- Bryan Bennett (bbennett@acer.com), January 13, 2000.

i'd love to see some of your stuff when its done.

-- Doug (mazinz@aol.com), January 13, 2000.

I will post a URL on this forum where you (and anyone else that feels the need) can download/view them. I'll be in Hawaii next week on my honeymoon, so it'll be a couple of weeks to shoot footage there and then create some animations to go with it.

-- Bryan Bennett (bbennett@acer.com), January 14, 2000.

Hi Guys

Been reading this for a while now.

My Sony D8 TRV 110 has the 16:9 option which is in the squeezed format in the 4:3 view finder whilst recording. Playing back on the camera provides a letterbox on the camera LCD and that also occurs if I analogue output to vhs tape and play it in my Svhs decks which sense the 16:9 format and provide a letterbox 16:9 on the TV screen.

I have also edited the squeezed image in Premiere and changed the analogue Pal capture of 768 x 576 to a 768 x 432 frame output to achieve an unsqueezed letterbox of 16:9.

I had intended to see if that size could be outputed with a black top and bottom to achieve the letter box on a 4:3 TV but have not returned to the project as yet to work it through. If that is the case, then a letterbox vcd should be possible. Guess most of us have 4:3 tele's so the letterbox is applicable. I did find that there where losses in image quality in the process. I have not tried this yet with dv editing, not enough hours in the day and editing my Hawaiian adventure of last December has some priority.

Just another comment!

-- Ross McL (rmclennan@esc.net.au), January 16, 2000.