WS without Letterbox

[Scott Lamoreaux]

I am fairly new to film so please bare with me on my questions --

If I shot a film in for instance 5KWS or 4.5KWS or any WS format for that matter and I wanted to produce the final result in 4K- WS without letter box, what are the dimensions I should use so no blackbars appear on top and bottom of the final export just the wide shot.

Can you please provide for

4KWS
1080WS

I need to know what the heights are essentially -

Thank you,

Scott

 

[chase kempf]

4k ws is 4096x1728 in your timeline, 5k ws 5120x2160 in your timeline

 

[Brandon Kelly]

https://www.digitalrebellion.com/webapps/aspectcalc

and this

http://www.red.com/tools/crop-factor

 

[Phil Holland]

My framesToDataRate calculator will actually do this for you:

http://phfx.com/tools/framesToDataRate/

You can select whatever RED Resolution/Format you'd like then under "Intermediate Codec Resolution" select whatever standard container you'd like your resolution scaled, resized, and constrained to. Very useful for those who work and finish DCI and UHD aspect ratios with higher capture resolutions.

It's fancy that way.

 

[David Mullen ASC]

Keep in mind that if your monitor is not the same shape as your widescreen image, black borders appear anyway, and if you have to create a video master for HD broadcast, blu-ray, DVD, etc. then it has to be letterboxed within a 16x9 recording, unless it is a 16x9 image.

 

[Ketch Rossi]

Funny thing how many flavors and different tastes affect our decisions...

I on the opposite am looking to "Lock" down a "Letterboxed" wide release on all platforms avoiding a Re-Framing of project for 16:9 or otherwise, so that no matter where it is been viewed it remains in the intended original release format...

WS "LETTERBOXED"...

 

[Scott Lamoreaux]

Thank you everyone!

 

[Stacey Spears]

Keep in mind that if your monitor is not the same shape as your widescreen image, black borders appear anyway

That depends on media player and how it is encoded. e.g. For the Xbox service, black bars were never encoded and you had to set the proper picture and pixel aspect ratio for the bars to be re-inserted by the player. For Blu-ray, you have to pre-create the bars and hard code it in the content. There have been cases were content slipped through without flagging correctly and playback was not correct. No black bars, just tall and skinny. The image is scaled to fit the screen. They get fixed pretty quickly though.

For R3Ds in RCXP, that is handled by RCXP.

 

[Josh Becker]

Funny thing how many flavors and different tastes affect our decisions...

I on the opposite am looking to "Lock" down a "Letterboxed" wide release on all platforms avoiding a Re-Framing of project for 16:9 or otherwise, so that no matter where it is been viewed it remains in the intended original release format...

WS "LETTERBOXED"...

And videos like these annoy me to no end, specifically on websites like YouTube and Vimeo. I own an LG 34" ultra wide monitor, which is about 2.38:1, so videos that are uploaded widescreen WITHOUT letterboxes burnt in are displayed perfectly across the whole monitor. Looks great! However, when people bake their letterboxes into the video that is uploaded, then playing the video back full screen actually adds giant pillar boxes on the sides because the video player thinks it needs to show the full video top-to-bottom. Then I end up having to watch the video at about 50% size, surrounded completely by black. All of these players will automatically letterbox when going into full screen with a natively WS video, so burning in letterboxes doesn't really give any real benefit and just makes it harder to watch on natively wide displays.

 

[Marc Wielage]

And videos like these annoy me to no end, specifically on websites like YouTube and Vimeo. I own an LG 34" ultra wide monitor, which is about 2.38:1, so videos that are uploaded widescreen WITHOUT letterboxes burnt in are displayed perfectly across the whole monitor. Looks great!

I would bet that native aspect ratio is not being played back from the website, and that your monitor is doing a digital resize and blow-up. Also, what you're seeing is a pretty hideous H.264/H.265 compressed image, and to me the gross amounts of compression artifacts overcome any positive issues from the aspect ratio. Aspect ratios are just one aspect of the image, and there are many, many other factors that are far more important when it comes to the ultimate image quality.

I'm not sure many streaming services can handle native 1920x858 or 3840x1607 files (both of which are 2.39). If you have the ability, take a look at the actual dimensions of the files you're streaming and see what they are. To my knowledge, everything on Vimeo and YouTube is still based on a native 16x9 aspect ratio.

BTW, for stuff like this for post, I highly recommend Brad Allen's Aspect Ratio Cheat Sheet:

unravel.com.au/files/Unravel_Resolution_CheatSheet.pdf

This will tell you which aspect ratios are commonly used for final color and delivery. If you need to deliver 16x9 and letterbox it to 2.40, you're not actually losing any resolution -- you're just wasting bandwidth with blanking top and bottom. I have compared them side by side on monitors before to check sizing, and there is no difference except the 2.39 file is smaller (no wasted data on black borders).

 

[Ketch Rossi]

And videos like these annoy me to no end, specifically on websites like YouTube and Vimeo. I own an LG 34" ultra wide monitor, which is about 2.38:1, so videos that are uploaded widescreen WITHOUT letterboxes burnt in are displayed perfectly across the whole monitor. Looks great! However, when people bake their letterboxes into the video that is uploaded, then playing the video back full screen actually adds giant pillar boxes on the sides because the video player thinks it needs to show the full video top-to-bottom. Then I end up having to watch the video at about 50% size, surrounded completely by black. All of these players will automatically letterbox when going into full screen with a natively WS video, so burning in letterboxes doesn't really give any real benefit and just makes it harder to watch on natively wide displays.

Josh,

I partially agree...

What I should have specified is that I am talking about Feature Films... On those I won't care what others think, this is my choice as Filmmaker to give a product that looks as I intend it to look on every one's screen.

On Videos, especially Documentaries and Nature oriented ones including Animal ones I can agree...

But note that even on some Fashion films Letterboxing gives it a right fill, and same goes for some particularly wide landscape and cityscape videos, it is really all a matter of preference and intentional fill and look wished for by the Filmmaker, and I hope you understand and respect that choice.

Liking it is of course matter of the viewer's choice and taste...

 

[Daniel Stilling]

Well, when you deliver your deliverable files, it's really out of your hands. The buyer can alter to fit a 16x9 screen just as easy from either format. All you can hope for is that they keep the intended aspect ratio. The only downside I see, beside the one mentioned before (the native ws screen), it's if you screen your file in a theater and you have the file letterboxed, the black top and bottom might "bleed" off screen as blacks are never fully blacks...

 

[Ketch Rossi]

Well, when you deliver your deliverable files, it's really out of your hands. The buyer can alter to fit a 16x9 screen just as easy from either format. All you can hope for is that they keep the intended aspect ratio. The only downside I see, beside the one mentioned before (the native ws screen), it's if you screen your file in a theater and you have the file letterboxed, the black top and bottom might "bleed" off screen as blacks are never fully blacks...

Definitely aware of the downsides Daniel,

But while not a decision written on stone, I still look to make it stick, I guess it's really an old love affair with me and "Letterbox" form the Childhood Films where Letterbox was Movies and none was just TV films and Docs, some how a lifetime later this still resonates with me.

As far as what it can be done, we know that with Digital anything "CAN" be done, but if you have a Contract, then it's a different story.

But we'll see the project it is actually done what can really be controlled and what not.

 

[Josh Becker]

Josh,

I partially agree...

What I should have specified is that I am talking about Feature Films... On those I won't care what others think, this is my choice as Filmmaker to give a product that looks as I intend it to look on every one's screen.

On Videos, especially Documentaries and Nature oriented ones including Animal ones I can agree...

But note that even on some Fashion films Letterboxing gives it a right fill, and same goes for some particularly wide landscape and cityscape videos, it is really all a matter of preference and intentional fill and look wished for by the Filmmaker, and I hope you understand and respect that choice.

Liking it is of course matter of the viewer's choice and taste...

Of course, and I can understand the need to control your visuals if you don't know whether or not a TV or projector will decide to "fill" the screen (stretching your image vertically!). Luckily our computers and online players do a pretty great job of maintaining the desired aspect ratio.