I’ve seen quite a few cell phone videos shown on TV news where there is a normal clear image in the center and blurred images on the left and right sides. Look at this for example:
Is there a name for this, and why is it done?
They do it because people shoot vertical video on their phones and so they use this method to fill out the rest of the screen.
I would think they’d have plenty of other things to fill the screen with, especially since most of the time the video is being shown as an inset anyway.
I work in television news and this drives us crazy. Can’t understand how people still haven’t figured out how to properly shoot with their phones. You’ll notice that the blurred image behind the video is the same video that has simply been enlarged to fill the screen. It’s done that way for two reasons: First, viewers won’t see black panels on each side of the image and think their tv is cutting off part of the video (yes, many, many viewers will make this mistake.) Second, we enlarge and blur the original video to use as the background because any other video would lead to a confusing mess on-screen. It really is the cleanest way to do it. Plus, it’s much easier and faster for editors to do it this way than tracking down another piece of footage, especially when working under tight deadlines. You’ll occasionally see it placed over a graphic element designed to frame it, but that can often look worse depending on the complexity and motion of the original video.
I’ don’t work in television news, and it drives me crazy. I don’t understand why phone cameras aren’t just programmed to warn the user that video will not display properly unless the phone is held correctly. With a box that requires typing “I understand”* rather than just tapping “OK”
*Or maybe “I don’t care if I look like a complete n00b in front of the whole internet.”
This should be mandatory viewing for anyone to be permitted to own a cameraphone.
I blame Apple.
Why can’t phones shoot in panoramic view when holding it upright? THAT should be a thing by now.
The photo sensor is rectangular. You would have to somehow rotate it 90 degrees when holding the phone vertically. Or you would have to install a much larger, more expensive, square sensor of which only a rectangular slice would be used in either orientation. Either solution is unlikely, given that people who want to shoot video properly know how to do it and it works just fine.
ETA: Actually I suppose it wouldn’t have to be square. You could make it + shaped. Still not gonna happen, tho.
I was into stills photograpy for a long time before I got a smartphone, and it takes an effort of will to remember to hold the phone in the landscape position on the rare occasions when I feel the need to shoot video; shooting in portrait is perfectly acceptable with a still camera, and I tend to mentally compose with my photographer’s eye.
Also, I suspect a lot people only ever watch the footage they’ve shot on the phone they used to shoot it. Under these circumstances, playback will look fine, so it may be they don’t think about broadcast on other formats when shooting.
Finally, if something newsworthy is happening, I’d far rather it was captured in portrait orientation than missed because an inexperienced user was trying to remember the “correct” way to orient the phone.
I knew this was the reason, but why not leave the panels black and just put the the “ActionNewsSe7en” logo on them? I think the motion in the blurred part is distracting and dumb viewers are likely to think they’re “missing some of the good stuff.”
I agree
Vertical video bus me too, but I just bought a VR headset that uses my phone and Google Cardboard Camera to shoot compatible VR video, in vertical format. The phone is horizontal on playback with side by side images. So let’s assume that all the folks we see may be shooting for their VR headsets. They’re probably not, but we’ll feel better.
Believe it or not, that can often be even more distracting. The result is a 16x9 screen divided into three panels with the “curtains” drawing your eye away from the video. Like I said, some stations/networks have experimented with that but most have gone back to the original way. When we’ve tested it, we actually got some complaints from viewers who thought we were covering part of the video with station branding. (I’m guessing these are the same people who haven’t figured out how the properly orient their phones when shooting.)
Surely, if they’re filming to release it to the public, they’d realize that doesn’t work. At least, when I play a video on YouTube, portrait mode always cuts off a bunch of stuff and has comments at the bottom. It’s not like it actually fills the screen.
Oh, and letterboxing looks like shit. Having something on the sides that includes motion makes the video feel bigger, and the blur makes it easy to focus in the center.
A better to deal with it would be the way broadcast news has always done with poor quality amateur footage in the past: “We apologize for the quality of this video, but it’s amateur footage and will not fit on a standard television screen.” Then just show it masked.
Pillarboxing. Letterboxing is when the image is too wide to fill the frame and black is added at the top and bottom. Pillarboxing is when black is added to the sides. (Windowboxing is when an image is entirely surrounded by black.)
America’s Funniest Home Videos used to say something like :“hold your phone side to side so the video is wide.”
That takes at least five seconds to say and no news director wants to slow down a newscast to do that. Seriously.
Plus, people have gotten so used to seeing cellphone video on newscasts many barely recognize it as inferior.
But you just said you had complaints from people who thought YOU were covering up part of the video. Anyway, I seriously doubt that any competent news director would really think 5 seconds - or even 10 - is too long to clarify the source of a video. Especially considering that’s what’s always been done with viewer submitted film pre-internet.