Full Screen v Wide Screen

Neko Rinoa · Post by **Neko Rinoa** » Sun Dec 16, 2007 3:55 pm

So a few years ago I was really into making AMVs and I had a few I wanted to enter in the contest but I have an issue.

They're really good videos - at least I'm really proud of them. It's Final Fantasy VIII with downloaded footage because I have no way of getting the clips onto my computer (no DVD recorder.. nothing) so the Ending clip is widescreen while everything else is full screen (not to mention that's how it is in the game.)There's also text from where I got the video.

Will this really effect the quality of my videos? I think it's noticable when suddenly there are black lines on the top and bottom of the screen in a few clips and not in others, but is that just me?

Example:
First clips v Second clips in my Black Parade video. (This is one I'd like to enter.)
http://youtube.com/watch?v=9VsTP3PQDh0

YouTube · Post by **basharoftheages** » Sun Dec 16, 2007 4:10 pm

Watermarks and poor quality are already DQ factors, as is entering a video created more than a year before the contest is held.

In general, unless you skillfully do it, transitions between aspect ratios don't look good. The most common ways of getting around multiple aspect ratios in a video is by cropping and/or letter boxing to get 1 standard aspect ration (either 4:3 or 16:9 with padded black bars to make it 4:3) or structuring your video in a way that only uses portions of the screen (masking, overlays, etc.) so that the AR is never really an issue.

As for the video - lets just say there are degrees of magnitude more cues for you to sync to than were attempted and the pace is completely different than would be expected for the music used.

kiarrens · Post by **kiarrens** » Sun Dec 16, 2007 6:51 pm

What Justin said.

Seriously though, yeah. Cropping your widescreen footage so it is consistent with the rest of the footage is generally the best way to go - or adding letterbox bars to your full-screen footage.

Post by **Aidan2** » Sun Dec 16, 2007 8:17 pm

Also something to note for ALL AMV submission is that the AMV's will only be played on 4x3 screens ( its really hard to find (2) 15'tall 16x9 screens, let alone a projector that is bright enough to project 16x9 natively.)

So just keep that in mind, along with the fact that any ridiculous panning movements for your soundtrack will also be lost on the audience on the large scale sound systems of main events.

just a friendly note!