overscan - thank goodness it's behind us
Posted: Tue Aug 23, 2011 8:12 pm
All my camcorders except my latest one (the Sony NX5) have had overscanned viewfinders. What this means is the viewfinder and side-screen only show you approximately 90% of the image that's being recorded, and this can give you nasty surprises at the editing stage where invariably your timeline (and very nearly all modern flat-screen TVs) will show you the entire frame as recorded. With all NLE systems you can call up a 'safe area' rectangle and this is pretty close to my Z1's v'finder cutoff.
Boom microphones can appear in shot, annoying and distracting details (white doors?) can arrive at the edge of the frame, vignetted corners from inadvertently using too long a lens hood or using too many stacked filters - all these can and do appear.
The list goes on but the most disturbing aspect of how composition is compromised. I've been watching some of my 2004 - 2009 films shot on my Sony Z1 and I've been unpleasantly surprised at how the camera's viewfinder overscan has made my framing look pretty awful.
Without examples to show you let me describe a typical scene. Four people walk into shot and stand, chatting. I would film such a scene as a ¾ length composition, so the tallest person's head was included and I cut everybody off through their thighs.
When you see this on an overscanning TV (a typical CRT) the framing looks correct. The top of the tallest head nearly touches the top of the screen and they all disappear out of frame bottom. But when this footage is viewed on an underscanning TV (ie a TV that shows you the entire movie frame as shot by the Z1) the people appear to be sinking in the frame. There's now far too much air above the tallest head and it just looks wrong. It looks ok if you've shot the group from head to toe by the way.
I was first alerted to this by Godfrey Dyan of Simcha Video. He took one look at my DVD and immediately spotted my 'unusual' framing. Prodded in the ribs like this I went and had a fresh-eyed look at my films and sure enough he was right. People all had far too much fresh air over their heads yet in my Z1's viewfinder all had looked fine, and I generally pride myself on my composition.
So thank goodness modern camcorders show us the entire frame as we film. It's hard enough making a movie as it is without being kept in the dark as to what's being included.
tom.
Boom microphones can appear in shot, annoying and distracting details (white doors?) can arrive at the edge of the frame, vignetted corners from inadvertently using too long a lens hood or using too many stacked filters - all these can and do appear.
The list goes on but the most disturbing aspect of how composition is compromised. I've been watching some of my 2004 - 2009 films shot on my Sony Z1 and I've been unpleasantly surprised at how the camera's viewfinder overscan has made my framing look pretty awful.
Without examples to show you let me describe a typical scene. Four people walk into shot and stand, chatting. I would film such a scene as a ¾ length composition, so the tallest person's head was included and I cut everybody off through their thighs.
When you see this on an overscanning TV (a typical CRT) the framing looks correct. The top of the tallest head nearly touches the top of the screen and they all disappear out of frame bottom. But when this footage is viewed on an underscanning TV (ie a TV that shows you the entire movie frame as shot by the Z1) the people appear to be sinking in the frame. There's now far too much air above the tallest head and it just looks wrong. It looks ok if you've shot the group from head to toe by the way.
I was first alerted to this by Godfrey Dyan of Simcha Video. He took one look at my DVD and immediately spotted my 'unusual' framing. Prodded in the ribs like this I went and had a fresh-eyed look at my films and sure enough he was right. People all had far too much fresh air over their heads yet in my Z1's viewfinder all had looked fine, and I generally pride myself on my composition.
So thank goodness modern camcorders show us the entire frame as we film. It's hard enough making a movie as it is without being kept in the dark as to what's being included.
tom.