The art of good framing.

[Owain Taggart]

These days with the advent of HDTVs, a lot of TV shows are still only available in 4:3 format, and it seems that the art of good framing has been lost. What I've noticed is how often content gets cut off the edges of the screen, most often words or names, and in certain cases, even logos. One thing I've learned while editing videos using iMovie is that there are two kinds of framing. You have your standard 4:3 framing And your widescreen framing. You generally want to think about will be your in 4:3 framing first, making sure anything you add like words will be within your frame. I've noticed that this thought has been abandonded lately. The end result looks pretty sloppy for anything that isn't in widescreen. Anyone notice and find it frustrating? Older shows don't seem to have that problem.

 

[Geck]

I find it immensely frustrating, but am saving up for a widescreen TV hopefully by the end of the year. I agree the problem's gotten a lot worse over the last year or two as more shows seem programmed for the widescreen format. I hate when I'm trying to read the credits for a show and can only see the last 3 letters of someone's name...

 

[Owain Taggart]

Well, having a Widescreen won't fix the problem, because even if you watch your shows that don't have the widescreen format, stuff will still be cut off from the edges. So, it's in the process they use while making these shows that's the problem. It's actually even more jarring when you're watching a non widescreen/HD show on an HDTV and text will be cut off. You notice it more due to the cropping for the format. Like sometimes on a live show, when they put info on the bottom, it tends to be to the far right or far left of the screen, instead of being centered within a 4:3 framing like it should be. I see it everywhere, and commercials are often the worst offenders.


Reminds me of a TV show that was broadcasted in Canada. It was shot in HD format in order to make it easier to sell to the US, but ironically, it never found a distributor and the network in Canada wasn't broadcasting it in HD. This was when HD was still a relatively new option to produce in, so there were a lot of glitches , like extremely bright lighting which made it impossible to see the detail needed for closeups, and it compromised the broadcast. It was a tech show with a lot of computer screen closeups, and the bright lighting made it impossible to read the screen they were trying to show. It compromised their show due to all the problems they were having.