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Help! with AE 6.5 Composing and Rendering Slideshow for 4:3 and Widescreen
What settings do I have to use for a slideshow composition in After Effects 6.5 with photos that have a native 720 x 480 aspect ratio, (square pixels), so I can render it as a Quicktime movie that when burned will appear letter-boxed on a 4:3 set, and yet still fill a widescreen set as much as possible?
I tried using composition settings of 720 x 480 Custom, with Square pixels, and exported it as DV/DVCPRO NTSC, (progressive not interlaced), at 4:3. (Should it have been 16:9?)
The resulting QT movie looked perfect on my Mac’s QT player, but when I burned it with DVD Studio Pro, the image was squeezed on a 4:3 TV, –and cropped on the sides, (though not squeezed), on a widescreen TV.
What am I doing wrong? -
11 Replies
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[Richisgame] “What am I doing wrong?”
Your aspect ratios are wrong. 720×480 is anamorphic pixels, not square ones. When working with square pixels, it should be 720×504. DV is always anamorphic 720×480 (720×486, respectively).
Mylenium
[Pour Myl
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Thanks for the reply.
Do you mean 720 x 540?
There is a composition preset in AE for 720 x 540 with square pixels. -
Would I also then be rendering the composition at 16:9, so that I can eventually get a file that will burn so that it will be as full as possible on a widescreen TV, and letter-boxed on a 4:3?
And would I then burn it at 16:9 as well? -
Start at the end and work backwards:
– in the DVD authoring app, you’ll eventually flag the video as 16:9.
– DVD requires 720×480 source. But since you want both letterboxed and widescreen, you need to give the DVD authoring app 720×480 widescreen.
(720×480 widescreen squeezes a 16:9 picture into 720×480 pixels, and the DVD player will know what to do with it if you flag it as 16:9 in the DVD Authoring app)
– in AE, therefore, you want to render to 720×480. (we’re working backwards, remember)
– But you need to render from a 720×480 widescreen comp. To make it look normal as you work, turn on pixel aspect ratio correction – check the help.
– Unless you worked in non-square pixels in photoshop, to fill the screen, your photo sources should have been 720×405 (square pixels), which if you do the math, is 16×9.So:
– photos should be 720×405
– comp should be DV widescreen preset
– render should be 720×480, high-quality (lossless/Animation/uncompressed)
– compress to MPEG-2 using your choice of app
– author the DVD and flag 16:9
– burn DVD
– test on widescreen and 4:3 TV sets. -
Steve,
Thanks for your thoughtful response.
The photo’s aspect ratio I’m starting with are effectively 720 x 480 (4368×2912), with square pixels.
The photographer I’m working with doesn’t want to lose any of her image.
To get to 405 horizontal lines I’d Have 608 x 405.
Do I need to resize, or change the pixel aspect ratio in Photoshop first?
Otherwise, I’ll will try it anyway with the 720 x 480 photos in the DV-NTSC composition preset, which automatically gives me D1 DV-NTSC Widescreen (1.2) pixel aspect ratio, and export it as animation.
I am a Mac user and DVD Studio Pro is my burning App. which will encode on its own. The choices are 4:3 or 16:9. Is it better that I use Cleaner to encode the animation file first? Does it make a difference?
Then off course I will flag it as 16:9 for the burn.
Thanks again -
4368×2912 is 3:2, like a traditional film camera. That is, 1.5:1.
Do not even think in terms of 720×480, square pixels, as that would just confuse things.16:9 is 1.78:1, which is wider than your photos. Either you crop something off the top/bottom, or you show extra blank space on either side of the photos, or you distort the photos by stretching them wider to fit. You have no other choice. Tell the photographer that.
To fill the screen for 16:9, the images have to be 720×405 or 864×480. Those are both 16×9. I’ll contradict my earlier recommendation and recommend using 864×480, square pixels, in Photoshop.
Sorry, I don’t use DVDsp for encoding. I use Compressor (mostly) when compressing to MPEG-2. I take the 720×480 Animation movie from AE and just compress it for MPEG-2, 2-pass VBR. I don’t mention 16:9 until I flag it in DVDsp.
Cleaner may be better — do a test for quality.
Does that help? 🙂
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Thanks again.
I had to run out for a couple of hours but am back.
I understand that the photos will not fill a widescreen TV at 3:2.
I will be happy at this point to have it appear letterboxed on a 4:3 set, and have black bars on the sides of a widescreen TV. Without the squeezing, or cropping off of the sides.
Does this change your recommendations??
If I change the photos resolution to 864×480 that will distort the photos, (stretched).
Anyway, I set the composition to the preset DV 720 x 480 widescreen, it looked squeezed but unsqueezed when I checked the toggle pixel aspect ratio button in the composition window.
I then rendered it as an animation. (Note: There is no 16:9 setting in animation setting.)
I used cleaner to encode the animation to mpeg2, (DV-NTSC to DVD)
I imported that mpeg2 into DVDSP and set the preferences for both simulator and encoder to 16:9.
The simulator showed 16:9, but the image was squeezed.
And, when I opened the burned TS folder in DVD player, the window was 4:3 only, and the image was further squeezed with black bars on the sides.
I did not burn it as a hard copy. Does it make a difference?
Could something be wrong with my DVDSP, that the window in DVD player was not widescreen, when I encoded it to be?
I had to do an archive and install a couple of weeks ago, maybe there is a component missing.
Quicktime player also wouldn’t open my mpeg2 encoded movie, though DVDSP did.
(sigh…) Thanks again for all your help -
I wanted to add that I also created a custom composition that was 720×405 with square pixels and rendered that as an animation and encoded it as 16:9
It also played squeezed in DVD player in a 4:3 window. I don’t know why DVD player doesn’t open it up widescreen.
However, I opened it in VLC player, and it opened it up widescreen!
But, VLC also opened up the 720 x 480 widescreen version you suggested in a squeezed 4:3 window.
getting closer…. -
It’s hard for me to predict how some software players will react to 16:9.
All I know is:
– render a 720×480 WS comp to the Animation codec. Nope, it doesn’t have a 16:9 switch, nor should it. It’s irrelevant at this stage, actually.
– use a compression app (such as Compressor) to encode the Anim movie to MPEG-2 for DVD. No size changes here. Again, no 16:9 switch yet.
– in DVDsp, use the 16:9 flag. In the track window, under display, set to 16:9 letterbox. -
Ok, were getting somewhere! Thanks so much for hanging in here with me.
I made a test composition set to DV Widescreen Preset. Brought in some of my 3:2 photos. Fitted them to the composition height, with black bars on the sides, rendered it as animation, brought the file into DVDSP, marked the track as letterbox, encoded to 16:9, and Voila, produced a DVD that opens wide in DVD Player, and letterboxed on a 4:3 set.
The only problem left is there were also bars on the sides of the image on the 4:3 set. I would have liked it to have been flush on the sides of the 4:3 set.
Is this fixable, or is it a byproduct of being able to show it in both formats? If not, I will certainly live with it.
Thank you again.
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