Sony DFS-700 switcher in 16x9?

[Rockworship]

Does anyone know how to run the Sony DFS-700 switcher in 16x9 mode? We are starting multi-site and are using SD Sony cameras but the screen we are going to show it on is 16x9 and will crop off the top and bottom of the video.

We have found the section that seems would be where you make the change, but it makes no difference. Any thoughts on this would help us tremendously!

Thanks,
Pastor Danny

[tdangelo]

Originally Posted by Rockworship

Does anyone know how to run the Sony DFS-700 switcher in 16x9 mode?

Press the set-up button (top left hand side of the switcher, 2nd row from the bottom, left most button), look at the menu display on the switcher, Under "SYS" menu, Adjust button F1 (Screen) which will toggle betweem 4:3 (default) and 16:9.

Note that this setting cannot be saved to memory.

[Rockworship]

Originally Posted by tdangelo

Press the set-up button (top left hand side of the switcher, 2nd row from the bottom, left most button), look at the menu display on the switcher, Under "SYS" menu, Adjust button F1 (Screen) which will toggle betweem 4:3 (default) and 16:9.

Note that this setting cannot be saved to memory.

Tom,
Thank you for your response. When I hit that button, nothing seems to happen on the preview monitors. Is there another step to crop the image, or to mask the image or do you think there is something wrong with our switcher?

Thanks again for the quick response!!!!!!

[tdangelo]

Don't look at the preview monitor, look at the LCD data display on the switcher panel.

[Rockworship]

Tom,
Thanks again. Do you know if, when switched to 16x9, will the output of the switch go into 16x9 mode? In other words, will it send a signal that tells the projectors that they are receiving a 16x9 signal or am I thinking this will do something that it won't do?

The switcher lcd display says 16x9, but the output to the screens is still 4x3. I am sure you have realized by now that I am a bit over my head! This is why the worship pastor should not be heading up the video for recording!!!!!

Anyhow, thanks again for all the help!

Pastor Danny

[tdangelo]

Pastor Danny,

Setting the switcher to 16:9 will not tell anything downstream of the switcher what the signal is unless the device is smart enough to auto recognize the incoming signal.

To make matters worse, just because the switcher is set to 16:9 does not mean that the image will look 16:9.

For example, if the video signal going into the switcher is pillarboxed (in other words what was a 4:3 image with back vertical bars left and right added filling out the 16:9 frame) and the switcher is set to 16:9 the output of the switcher will look 4:3 (pillarboxed).

If the video signal going into the switcher is letterboxed & pillarboxed (in other words a signal that began its life as 16:9 anamorphic, but was converted to letterboxed to fit on 4:3 TVs, and then was converted to pillarboxed to fit on 16:9 TVs, and the switcher is set to 16:9 the output of the switcher will still look "windowboxed" (meaning that there are black bars left, right, top and bottom!).

The only source that will look correct is one that goes into the switcher as 16:9 anamorphic ... meaning no bars left or right, top or bottom, that fills the entire 16:9 frame without making people look chubby (unless of course they are chubby people).