How do I shoot widescreen on a mini-DV camcorder without huge loss in quality? That’s the question that Barry Bassett, the MD of equipment hire company VMI has been asked so many times that he wants to explain it once and for all (and the answer is not to use the "16:9 mode")

Many people have discovered that shooting 16:9 on a mini-DV camera looks like the genuine article but the quality is disappointing. That may be because, when using consumer DV camcorders, there is such a thing as real 16:9 and pseudo 16:9.

A widescreen picture viewed on a 4:3 screen looks tall and the people look thin. When the picture is aspect-ratio converted, black bars appear top and bottom but the picture is correctly proportioned. This is true whether you are shooting in true widescreen or consumer DV widescreen in "16:9 mode." The difference is that, viewed widescreen, the quality with consumer DV is bad.

That difference is because true widescreen cameras (their model numbers normally end in "w" or "wsp," like the SonyDVW79O wsp, the Panasonic AJD 900w, or the JVC DV 700w) have wider than normal CCD pickup devices. At two-thirds of an inch, these widescreen CCDs are simply too large to fit the small consumer camcorders - and in any case they would make the units far too expensive for the consumer market.

Most consumer DV camcorders are only capable of shooting in standard 4:3 ratio. When shooting in what’s called "16:9 mode”, the units perform a process of cropping the image top-and-bottom (so discarding approximately a fifth of the information) and expanding it to fit the screen by duplicating lines using a cheap DVE.

In effect, instead of recording more horizontal information, they duplicate vertical lines - which is why, when playing back a recording on a normal television set, people look tall and thin: the image has been artificially stretched.

So this "16:9 mode" may look like widescreen, but it only achieves this by using a cheap trick.

The worst is to come, though, since any image that is to be broadcast on 4:3 terrestrial television needs to be compressed once more in post to create the familiar black bars. After one-fifth of the information has been discarded during production, this second-stage dve loses yet more quality... Little wonder that the end result is so disappointing.

There is a solution, however. Another way to shoot widescreen on a consumer DV camcorder is to use an optical widescreen converter lens: an anamorphic lens adapter. This fits on to the front of a standard DV lens and optically squashes the image into widescreen 16:9 format.

Recording in standard 4:3 mode on the camcorder using the converter lens actually records a true widescreen picture. When this is played back on a 4:3 monitor, the picture looks squashed in the normal way. The advantage is that when viewing the recording on a widescreen monitor, the picture has full vertical resolution just as if it had been shot on a true 16:9 camcorder. There are disadvantages, of course. One is that a squashed image appears in the viewfinder - since the camcorder is expecting to record a 4:3 image. Another is that any dust on the lens may be visible as flare in bright sunlight, so you have to be extra careful to keep your lenses clean.

Another consideration is that the quality of the converter is vital, so you have to make sure that you get a good one. And, finally, the nature of the process means that objects closer than two metres cannot easily be focused, so you need to be extra careful when selecting shots. Nevertheless, if you want to shoot 16:9 using a consumer DV camcorder (like a VX2000 or the PD170) you can. Just ensure that you order a suitable anamorphic lens attachment to go with it.

And remember, whatever you do, don't use the camcorder's "16:9 mode", however tempting this may seem.

Our editor adds in 2006:
Surprisingly little has changed since this article first appeared. A few camcorders at the top end of the consumer range purport to offer “true” widescreen on high-res chips and most prosumer HDV camcorders do manage proper 16:9, but it’s still something that should not be taken for granted - particularly with all but the most expensive DV/DVCAM cameras. If you’re not sure, don’t risk it.

This article first appeared in Televisual magazine
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