Scaling 16:9 content to "Full" 2K?

[smorgasbord]

My movie has been shot and edited using the video standard 1920x1080p resolution. For "Flat" DCP, I appear to have a couple choices:

1) Do not scale and live with the black bars at the left and right sides.

2a) Use DCP-o-matic's "fit" function to scale the image uniformly to fit horizontally, thus cropping 21 pixels at the top and 21 pixels at the bottom.

2b) After scaling, adjust the top and bottom crop so that while they still total 42 (preserving uniform scaling), there is more clipping at the top or bottom (as I see fit)

2c) Use some other values that total less than 42, but more than 0, such that there are still some bars at the left and right, but those bars are narrower and so less is cropped off the top and bottom.

Suggestions? Any concerns for what is or isn't acceptable? I'm worried that my bottom title credits (documentary with talking heads) will get forced too low by the 21 pixel crop, but also worried that taking 21 or more pixels off the top will cut off people's heads. I totally framed for a proper 16:9 ratio without knowing that it's not DCP standard.

Help, please!

[Carsten]

Neither is the best choice, but I'd go with 1920*1080 in a flat container (black bars left and right). I'd always try to avoid scaling.

- Carsten

[mdudzik]

I totally agree with Carsten, adding black pillarboxes is the best option. But I would like to suggest you to keep at least 6-7% of title safe area from edges of the picture. Unfortunatelly, there is a lot of cinemas where the projectors are installed improperly and anything located lower than ca 5% from the edges could be cut off/masked..

[smorgasbord]

Thanks for the replies - I will keep the black bars on the side.

Note that the titles are well within the default "Action Safe Margin" in Premiere, so that allows for 10% crop, which probably isn't enough for me to crop plus theater cropping.

[mrmyth]

Hello. Just checking back to see if you all still think having the bars on the side is the best option when your movie is 16:9. Is it noticeable by the viewers in any way?

[Carsten]

It depends on the cinema. These side bars are small anyway. Different cinemas use different types of screen setups. Some cinemas will only have a flat setting on an unmasked screen. Some may have a dedicated 1080p setting. A lot of documentaries (even some major release Disney movies) are released as 1080p in a flat container. I do not advise to create 1920*1080 DCPs in general, but if this is what you start with, then do it.

Some footage will not show a big difference with the scaling from 1920 to 1998 applied, some will suffer a bit.Some people notice this, some not.
Also, bear in mind that when scaling from 1920*1080 to 1998*1080, you will need to crop top and/or bottom proportionally. Depending on your footage, you may like this or not. Some cinemas with a dedicated 1920*1080 screen setting may perform this vertical cropping on the projector anyway (because that may be the only option to create a full screen 1920*1080 image).

There is no single 'best' solution that fit's every bodies demand. The 'best' solution still is to start with 1998*1080 or 2048*858 source footage.

- Carsten