Capturing HDTV at proper aspect ratio

[Dimwhit]

My company runs a short spot on the weekly news that I grab from TV and post to our website. Currently, I use a DV bridge and capture it in iMovie. Works great--quick and easy.

Recently, however, our news station had been filming all the spots in HD (or digital widescreen as they call it, if that's different). I'd like to start capturing that video instead, but I'm having trouble.

I use iMovie HD (because I don't like iMovie 08), so I created a new project and selected the DV Widescreen format. Didn't work. It took the HD video and stretched it to fill the full apsect ratio that the DV Widescreen format uses. I also tried the HDV 720p and HDV 1080i formats, but they didn't work.

Is there a way to capture HDTV signals in iMovie and preserve the aspect ratio as it is broadcast? Hopefully that makes some sense.

 

[MisterMe]

...

Recently, however, our news station had been filming all the spots in HD (or digital widescreen as they call it, if that's different). I'd like to start capturing that video instead, but I'm having trouble.

...

If the station is claiming that its picture is "Digital Widescreen," then it is not HDTV. The ATSC digital broadcast standard includes 18 formats. Only three of these formats are HDTV.

 

[Dimwhit]

If the station is claiming that its picture is "Digital Widescreen," then it is not HDTV. The ATSC digital broadcast standard includes 18 formats. Only three of these formats are HDTV.

That makes sense. So is there no way to capture it properly?

 

[MisterMe]

That makes sense. So is there no way to capture it properly?

My guess is that the video that you are trying to capture has non-square pixels. You need to compensate accordingly.