Finishing projects 16×9 vs. 4×3

More and more of the work we do, especially pitches, rips etc. will be shown on LCD or Plasma screens. Since these screens are in a 16×9 format, it makes sense for us to consider this when starting a project.  So before starting an edit I would recommend trying to get the answer to the question, “What kind of screen will this be shown on?”.  This was recently the case for an Army project I worked on.

If you have a Hi-Def TV at home you’ll wince at the times you see all those 4×3 letterboxed commercials running on HD channels.  They look like a postage stamp lost in a mass of black screen.

That’s alot of black space.  So if your source material consists of lots of letterboxed 4×3 sources the result would be what you see above.  In a 16×9 sequence you could scale this video to fill the entire screen and not lose any picture.  

As far as regular fullscreen 4×3 content you may have only one choice and that is to keep it 4×3 and have pillar bars on the left and right.

If you were to scale this video to fill the screen you’d lose picture on the top and bottom.

Two other approaches to dealing with the black space with 4×3 footage is to put it the shot(s) on top of a upscaled and blured version of the same shot.  This is a common technique you see use with sports and news.

Or lastly, you can use any image or graphic to fill the black space.  You could even have something designed specifically for the project.  Here I just used a still of camouflage.

So don’t forget to ask the question where the finished video will play before you start the project.  It will save you headaches and also give you a better looking video in the end.