Mixing ARs

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Mixing ARs

Postby Hagaren Viper » Thu Dec 16, 2010 10:51 pm

If you're making an AMV that uses multiple anime of different aspect ratios, how do you usually handle that?

My train of thought is to go with the majority - If you're using mostly fullscreen footage, then crop to fullscreen, and the same goes for the opposite. But I'm curious to know what other people might think - maybe just crop to widescreen regardless, as most sources are widescreen now?

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Re: Mixing ARs

Postby godix » Thu Dec 16, 2010 11:02 pm

I'd suggest just making a 1600x480 video. You could claim any black space is 'artistic choice'.
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Re: Mixing ARs

Postby Enigma » Thu Dec 16, 2010 11:03 pm

Make the 16:4 4:3, since even making 4:3 16:9 the right way just looks ugly...
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Re: Mixing ARs

Postby Knowname » Fri Dec 17, 2010 12:09 am

I reanimate it all :nose:
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Re: Mixing ARs

Postby Pwolf » Fri Dec 17, 2010 3:40 am

I always do widescreen, the format looks better IMO. Converting 16:9 to 4:3 doesn't require any resizing but I don't like the look of the 4:3 aspect and the resize after the crop from 4:3 (4:3 to 16:9) isn't really all that noticeable if you have good sources anyway, IMO.

All that aside, my main reason for sticking to 16:9 vs 4:3 is because the composition of the 16:9 sources are done in a way to that they utilize the horizontal aspect to it's fullest, thats why they use a wide aspect to begin with. when you chop off the sides, you're not getting the full horizontal view the director wants you to see. Which is why 4:3 pan and scan blows. By chopping the 4:3, you still get the full horizontal view of both sources and i that's more important then the 4:3's vertical aspect IMO.
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Re: Mixing ARs

Postby BasharOfTheAges » Fri Dec 17, 2010 8:22 am

If you're using a lot of small clips of sources, it's also a good idea to do your AR trimming in ways that keep the focus of the frame not looking deliberately cut off. i.e. if you're going 4:3 -> 16:9 and you have a character bust in frame, it's usually better to cut more from the bottom than the top (losing the top of a head can be more awkward than cutting at an arbitrary point on the shoulders).
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Re: Mixing ARs

Postby aganim » Fri Dec 17, 2010 4:19 pm

I cut the top and bottom of 4:3 videos to make them "16:9".
And I adjust the y-axis scene by scene to get the best result. (cutting off heads f.e. would be stupid like Bashar menioned)
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Re: Mixing ARs

Postby Magnus » Fri Dec 17, 2010 5:50 pm

Pwolf wrote:I always do widescreen, the format looks better IMO. Converting 16:9 to 4:3 doesn't require any resizing but I don't like the look of the 4:3 aspect and the resize after the crop from 4:3 (4:3 to 16:9) isn't really all that noticeable if you have good sources anyway, IMO.

All that aside, my main reason for sticking to 16:9 vs 4:3 is because the composition of the 16:9 sources are done in a way to that they utilize the horizontal aspect to it's fullest, thats why they use a wide aspect to begin with. when you chop off the sides, you're not getting the full horizontal view the director wants you to see. Which is why 4:3 pan and scan blows. By chopping the 4:3, you still get the full horizontal view of both sources and i that's more important then the 4:3's vertical aspect IMO.

x2 on all this really.
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Re: Mixing ARs

Postby AaronAMV » Fri Dec 17, 2010 6:00 pm

make it 666x666
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Re: Mixing ARs

Postby MycathatesyouAMV » Fri Dec 17, 2010 6:20 pm

I stick the 4:3 into a wormhole and edit with what comes back on the other end.
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Re: Mixing ARs

Postby JaddziaDax » Fri Dec 17, 2010 10:27 pm

I'll usually go widescreen, I like it more..

Unless it's the case of my pokemon video which some of the sources had already been cropped "formatted to fit your old tv" style... I would have felt bad cropping it off even more just to make it all widescreen, so i cropped the widescreen to fullscreen.
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Re: Mixing ARs

Postby Pwolf » Fri Dec 17, 2010 11:33 pm

JaddziaDax wrote:I'll usually go widescreen, I like it more..

Unless it's the case of my pokemon video which some of the sources had already been cropped "formatted to fit your old tv" style... I would have felt bad cropping it off even more just to make it all widescreen, so i cropped the widescreen to fullscreen.


I think that would be case where I might go 4:3.
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Re: Mixing ARs

Postby Phantasmagoriat » Sat Dec 18, 2010 1:22 am

Before I say anything, it might be worth mentioning BestFit() since it has pictures and stuff about mixing different AR's

CROPPING:
    Use 16:9/Widescreen because:
    -[most] people have two eyes, so our field of vision is naturally more horizontal/wide
    -generally, people look left/right more than they look up/down because of our landscape POV, so wider is more comfortable.
    -wider is more cinematographic; it gives a completely different feeling with black bars on the top/bottom*
    *depending on monitor size; but more movies are coming out in their original 1.85:1 and 2.35:1 Aspect Ratio's anyway...
    -additionally, the geometry [related to width vs surface area] makes it better for compression at higher resolutions.

    Use 4:3/Fullscreen because:
    -cropping to 16:9 may cut off important stuff if you're not careful
    -cropping to 16:9 blows up the central pixels of the video which sometimes looks bad depending on the source
    -cropping to 16:9 may require you to upscale to 848x636 first in order to look decent
    -if pillarboxed to 16:9, you still get the full picture
    -It has an oldschool feeling

    In terms of quality (data lost):
    I felt like doing the math using 720x480 as a reference resolution, and it turns out that cropping 4:3-->16:9 and 16:9-->4:3 both result in a total of 86400px being cropped off, meaning regardless of which way you crop, the quality will be 25% less (or at least there will be 25% less data). This kind of borderlines on being a big deal, and not being a big deal... so IMO cropping has to be done on a case-by-case basis.

    In terms of viewing:
    Most monitors these days are widescreen, so a 4:3 video will be constrained by the height of the monitor. Thus, if the top/bottom are cut off, the remaining image will be blown up and you might see compression artifacts; yet a 16:9 video with the sides cut off will look the same. So if you are concerned with quality, cropping 16:9-->4:3 isn't such a bad idea. Ironically, this is the opposite I would have argued when I first joined the site and most monitors were fullscreen (where a 4:3 video with the top/bottom cut off would look the same; but a 16:9 video with the sides cut off would look blown-up).

BORDERS:
    You can also mix different AR's by adding borders (letterboxes/pillarboxes). But I would only do that if you don't have many transitions between ARs, otherwise it is too noticeable and becomes a distraction. So it might be alright for a MEP, or if your video has clear break points. (Actually, on a widescreen monitor, 4:3 footage pillarboxed to 16:9 looks no different than the original). Keep in mind borders also add unnecessary bitrate to your encode, so files are bigger than they have to be. You'll also have people complaining your video didn't fill their entire monitor.

EFFECTS:
    Another way to mix them is to use some sort of effect, like stylized borders, camera movements, multiple windows, video overlays/backgrounds etc... you can be pretty creative... but honestly I rarely encounter videos where it doesn't distract from the main content of the video. As with any effect, use with caution.


MY THOUGHTS:
    If you are really worried about quality, crop 16:9-->4:3, and it won't be as noticeable; but if your sources look good enough, cropping 4:3-->16:9 is generally more appealing. That's what I usually do anyways... but I don't carelessly chop off the top/bottom. In my editor, I work at a resolution of 848x636 and overlay 78px letterboxes on the top and bottom. The 16:9 footage remains untouched, but the 4:3 footage has the top/bottom covered (nothing is cropped yet). If anything important is covered, or if it looks strange, I'll pan the 4:3 footage up/down. Then I'll export at 848x636, and crop to 848x480 afterward.
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Re: Mixing ARs

Postby Pie Row Maniac » Sat Dec 18, 2010 7:56 am

I'll compare the two, sticking with the least ridiculous looking one. :beer:
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Re: Mixing ARs

Postby outlawed » Sun Dec 19, 2010 10:33 am

You can mix AR however you like as long as you can effectively argue why to the average bitch-ass internet forum warrior.
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