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Damn Aspect Ratios
Hi everybody,
I’m working with 10-bit uncompressed material and somewhere between importing into AE 6.5 and exporting the aspect ratio is changing. If I make a composition by dragging the footage onto the new composition button it chooses an NTSC aspect ratio of 1.09, which is incorrect because I’m using PAL, which is 1.07. If I change the aspect ratio before or after putting the footage onto the timeline the footage goes outside the composition’s frame and has tobe resized by 98% in width to fit the frame which is surely loosing resolution. This is a real pain in the arse as I’ve already completed 30 shots before the problem became apparent.
Would appreciate any help anyone might have.
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5 Replies
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Is the footage interpret setting correct?
Certain file formats don’t maintain the proper aspect ratio info, so you need to tell AE what it is.
Right click on footage and choose interpret footage and then change to proper aspect ratio, Ae should make a comp that is the same settings as your footage. You can do this quickly by selecting remember interpretation once you’ve set it for one and then select all of them and choose apply interpretation.
Good luck.
Andrew
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I’ll admit with great shame that I have a hard time understanding aspect ratios (square pixels vs .9) I’ve always created graphics at 720×486 and interpret footage as .9 NTSC with no problems, but in a recent project I was told to create graphics at 864×480 ‘due to square pixels’… I need to read up and would appreciate any suggested resources to help me wrap my brain around this issue…
Proactive thanks,
-sbump@websterdg.com -
Here’s one of the best resources for this video nuts and bolts stuff that you could find – DV Magazine. Here’s a link to an article on just what you’re asking about:
https://dv.com/news/news_item.jhtml?LookupId=/xml/feature/2003/waggoner0203
You WILL have to sign up and get a log-in, but it’s one of the best free information sources around.
Joe Bourke
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Thanks for the info. I have found that it was AE misinterpreting the footage as NTSC even though it is PAL. It is fine with every other format but uncompressed for some reason and it selects lower field instead of upper automatically as well.
Is there a way to make a default interpretation of the footage so that it picks a specific field dominance and aspect ratio each time instead of having to change it with each shot (I do each shot in separtate projects)?
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Look for the file called “interpretation rules.txt” and rewrite it using the instructions contained in the comments within.
Steve
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