We certainly remain in transitional times in our media field.

And few things illustrate that more than the continuing confusion created by the various aspect ratios that video can be displayed in these days.

SD, HD, 4:3, 16:9, letterbox, anamorphic, wide-screen . . . all terms that you hear mixed together.

My good buddy and tech guru Chris Vazquez wrote an excellent article on this site two years ago about SD anamorphic , and it continues to be one of the most-read articles on my website, but questions still abound, especially when it comes to DVD authoring.

So let’s try to further clarify.

Some review:

4:3 means standard old-standard television viewing.

16:9 is wide screen.

SD is standard definition and is natively 4:3

HD is high definition and is natively 16:9

Now, let’s proceed, and feel free to read this slowly.  (Hey, I have to do that still with this topic, and I work with it every day!)

What options do you have if you are editing in HD 16:9 and want to lay out the finished sequence on to a SD tape, that is limited by its nature to automatically being 4:3? (e.g. BetacamSP or Digital Betacam)

You cannot maintain the HD quality of the signal, but you can keep the option open to be able to playback the video from the SD tape, in full 16:9 on a wide screen monitor.

That’s what anamorphic downconversion does.  Go back and check out the figures in Chris’ blog post.  It effect, anamorphic “squeezes in from both sides,” the 16:9 picture, like an accordion, to fit in to a 4:3 frame.

So when talking with you salesperson, you want to be sure you clearly discuss anamorphic options.

This is especially true when you are making an authored DVD project that involves using both SD and HD sources.

Let’s say you want to make a demo reel highlighting various categories, and you want to include a number of videos, some HD and some SD, in each category.  The authoring specialist needs to establish each category to playback one way, either 4:3 or 16:9 anamorphic.  (Remember, standard DVDs are automatically SD, not HD.)

Let’s say you had three HDCAM sources, two 4:3 digibeta sources, and one letterboxed Betacam source.

Well, if the category sequence is set up to playback anamorphic for wide-screen dislay, then the HDCAM clips will indeed play back in full 16:9, the two 4:3 clips will play back 4:3 in the center of the wide screen with black pillars on each side, and the 4:3 letterboxed source will play letterboxed inside a 16:9 screen, with black not only on the left and right, but also above and below.

Ugh.  that latter playback is probably not ideal.  The solution might be to see if an original HD version or a SD ananmorphic version of that clips exists.  If not, well, an aesthetic judgement needs to be made.

So taking a step back, there’s a corollary point to be made.  When transferring HD programs to SD tapes and DVDs at the end of a project, rather than doing so as a fiexed letterboxed version, you might want to strongly consider transferring those as anamorphic.  That way, as you can see above, you preserve your choices for later usage.

OK, let’s face it.  This matter will eventually become moot in the future as we gravitate toward using 16:9 HD exclusively.   But we remain in the midst of great transition.   And as long as we utilize SD footage and its inherent 4:3 aspect ratio, we will have to deal with this.

But never fear, count on me and my Video Labs sales and production colleagues to help you navigate through this.  That’s what we’re here for.

Contact me at dcryan7@videolabs.net or 240-268-3504.

And follow me on Twitter for more media news & info and special discounts.

If you found this article of interest, you may be interested in my quick-read blog post about our Blu-ray duplication capabilities.