16:9 TV shows is a 4:3 version prepared for SD broadcast?

[mustang7071]

Just curious about how 16:9 TV shows are prepared for SD broadcast.

Does the producer prepare a separate 4:3 version for the broadcaster; or is it up to the broadcaster to crop/letterbox/whatever?

Tks

[WriteSimply]

The production company that produces the show always try to frame the important bits inside the 4:3 frame which resides in a 16:9 frame. After the show has been edited, they simply crop.

I know because I only get SD here. There were times when the cameraman get a bit too wide with the shot causing the 4:3 frame to have a lot of empty spaces in the middle while the sides get a lot of half people or faces.

Of course I'm talking about Hollywood shows, not docs. Docs are either cropped or LBXed.


fuad

[bkbluray]

From my experience, the widescreen is shown on the standard channel as well (black bars on the top and bottom).

[Chevypower]

In the older days, they used to do a PAN & SCAN and choose which part of the frame lined up better for 4:3 - it may have been center cut, it may have been the left or right part. (more time and effort went in to it). When 16:9 broadcasts started, they just took an SD center cut of the same signal, so you would miss both edges equally on the 4:3 analog broadcast. This didn't matter too much, because when they started, they would film knowing where the 4:3 "safe zone" markers were. They are on the camera's viewfinder or monitor. Nowadays, I don't think they worry too much about 4:3, it's all done for 16:9. The cinematographers (and photographer's) "rule of thirds" stops most things from getting too close to the edge of the screen anyway. If I haven't made this clear, the source tape is the HD master (16:9) which gets fed to transmission in HD 16:9 and also simultaneously downconverted to SD for analog broadcast, where only the 4:3 center cut is used. No effort put in for that.