Opinions on mixing aspect ratios

Hagaren Viper · Post by **Hagaren Viper** » Tue May 06, 2008 10:56 pm

Something that I have come across in different anime series is the series itself being in full screen, and an OVA or movie being in widescreen. And well, the OVA/movie is generally too nifty to *not* use along with the series.

But, there is the whole aspect ratio thing.

I don't like mixing the two different ratios, because it pretty much looks like crap when it changes like that. I usually strech the widescreen footage to match the fullscreen fotoahe, and to be honest it looks fine to me, but not to toher people. I could make the fullscreen footage into widescreen as well, that that would just look odd.

So any opinions on this? What is the preferred way to mix ratios?

Kalium · Post by **Kalium** » Tue May 06, 2008 11:04 pm

You take the 4:3, and crop it to 16:9. It can be done quite effectively.

EvaFan · Post by **EvaFan** » Wed May 07, 2008 12:41 am

In all honesty, I've learned just to avoid using sources with different AR's... Determine what AR you want your AMV to be in and just use sources that are the same AR. Kind of impossible to do with an MEP though unless you set a guideline as to what AR you are allowing.

I dont like cropping cause I can usually tell its been cropped and I hate enlarging cause it just makes macroblocks overly noticeable.

However, nothing stopping you from using cut-outs or masked images from mixed AR sources. Just using the full screen is a problem.

CrackTheSky · Post by **CrackTheSky** » Wed May 07, 2008 1:05 am

Kalium wrote:You take the 4:3, and crop it to 16:9. It can be done quite effectively.

You can also do it the other way around, which is the way I prefer to do it when I mix different ARs. Just my preference though, and to be honest I've never tried making a 4:3 source 16:9.

JaddziaDax · Post by **JaddziaDax** » Wed May 07, 2008 1:34 am

to be honest for me it depends on what the "dominant" AR is.

If most of my sources are wide screen I'd crop all the full screen to wide screen, if most of my sources are full screen then i crop all of the wide screen to full screen.

If its even then I'd choose the footage that I feel looks prettier and stick with it's aspect ratio, if both are about the same quality, I'd probably go with wide screen cause I personally like it more.

Stretching them all to fit one ar makes one or the other look ugly.

you can easily fix AR issues in pre-processing so it shouldn't be that big of a deal.

JudgeHolden · Post by **JudgeHolden** » Wed May 07, 2008 1:47 am

I switch back and forth via "effects" in PR2 ... nobody really said anything bad about it.

requiett · Post by **requiett** » Wed May 07, 2008 1:49 am

I HAVE NOTHING AGAINST MIXING AR. IN FACT, I WAS OFFENDED WHEN I WENT TO A WATER FOUNTAIN THE OTHER DAY AND IT SAID "WIDES ONLY."

OropherZero · Post by **OropherZero** » Wed May 07, 2008 1:53 am

Most new anime (2004+) is 16:9, I rarely see 4:3 anymore, especially since a lot of stuff is getting HD now. But to answer your question I'd rather crop 4:3 to 16:9 than stretch the 16:9

JaddziaDax · Post by **JaddziaDax** » Wed May 07, 2008 1:59 am

but you don't have to stretch the 16:9 you can crop off the right and left to make it fit.

Prodigi · Post by **Prodigi** » Wed May 07, 2008 2:48 am

JaddziaDax wrote:but you don't have to stretch the 16:9 you can crop off the right and left to make it fit.

Yes, but depending on the overall quality of the 16:9 when the right and left are cropped most time you then have to effectively stretch the remaining 4:3 to fit into the same resolution as your primary 4:3 source.

It really depends on the quality of the source and the quality of the format.

For instance, it would be very unwise to pan & scan most 16:9 sources to 4:3 with Australian anime R4s as they're prone to having crap encoding and interlacing that becomes much more apparent when you pan & scan to fit with a 4:3 source. I learned this while working on my Cowboy Bebop video which I ended up cropping the 4:3 main series to widescreen, and even then a lot of the crap visual quality comes through.

You could do it fine with most current 16:9 footage (/me rubs his super Tekkonkinkreet footage - and yes I know it's 2.35:1 but still), but like I said it's a matter of the footage itself.

My personal preference: crop to 16:9. Even if I'm using a high quality source that can pan & scan fine, I'd much rather lose a little extra visuals from the top and bottom of a 4:3 source than to lose the sides from a 16:9 source. I personally just find that with a lot of action series' in 16:9 if you were to pan & scan it gives it a much busier and ugly look, as everything seems more focused rather than with a bit of space. BUT that's my opinion.